Hey there,I have finished the third (private) beta of my pickupbot. This release is identified as revision 55. I have fixed all known bugs, as of this moment, and i had some time left to implement a few features 
One of the features i have implemented is called “Activity monitoring”. When enabled, users have to remain active while being added to the pickup. When they are inactive for a while, the bot will give them a warning, and after a while a second warning. When the user does not respond to this, the bot assumes the user is away from his keyboard, and removes the user from the pickup. This may actually prevent many so called “no-shows”.
A second feature is about the !password (or !ip !pass) command. You can now request the password of the server, even after you have quit and rejoined IRC. The bot will remember you are a player and send you the information. The output now also includes the port of the server.
A third and big feature, includes a major (you may call it “total”) code rewrite of the configuration file loader. The configuration file (formaly called “testconfig.cfg”) is now split up into multiple files, in two folders. Basically, there is a “conf” folder with a subfolder called “modules”. All modules have their own configuration file, making life much easier.
The actual loading of the configuration files, has been speeded up alot. But at the same time, i have included many (optional) safety-checks, so in the end there is no real speed improvement anymore.
The new configuration handling, should implement a last feature, which i prepared earlier already. I have not tested it (beta!!!), but you should be able to have one set of pickupbot files, with an unlimited amount of bots loading that same set of files. So you do not have to copy the pickupbotfiles once for every pickupbot anymore. Just load the files and put the configuration files in the mIRC folder of the bot, that should do the job!
As i already mentioned earlier, i also fixed many bugs. Really, an awfull amount of them. Hence, this release should be very stable. Ofcourse, the new features should be tested very carefully, that is why this release is still a beta, and no release candidate.
Short fixed list:
IRC queue system improved a lot, most likely fixes all “excess flood” situations.
Bug in the server actor for Unreal Tournament, flag captures are now shown correctly
The putserv method now processes ops, voices and bans better than before
You could vote after a pickup was started, this was fixed, since this should not be possible obviously
1000 other bugs (don’t feel like naming them all)
Furthermore i have decided to release another beta-version before proceeding to the release candidates. This allows me to implement a few more (not really important) features and change some code.
Anyway, as usual, the bots will be running on the Project-F.R.A.G pickupchannels. I may even get to the point of updating the bots on #zp.1on1, #zp.2on2, #zp.5on5 and #zp.idom to this version, but i won’t promise anything.
Tags: Pickupbot, Release
