as you can see, I haven’t posted anything a long time ago. The reason for this is that I am currently doing my A-Levels here in Germany and so I have to learn a lot.

And after this my father and I plan to build a new building to extend our farm. So it would be cool if’s somebody in the world wide who is interested in SourceMod and SourcePawn and likes to write articles.

Just add me in ICQ (236283465), email me (daniel_kspert@yahoo.de) or leave an comment.

Cya

SourceMod is delivering a huge variation of functions and things with it you can modify, hook, etc. ConVar.

First we will start with simple things like finding ConVars or creating them, but later we will.

First of all you have to know that ConVars are brought through handles so you need for most of the actions to create or have already created a handle

But lets start with one of the easiest things: creating a ConVar There isn’t much to explain, just look at the code and you should understand how it works:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_ConVar

// Normally ConVars are created in this forward
public OnPluginStart()
{
h_ConVar = CreateConVar("mynew_convar", "1")
}

This is the simplest way of creating a ConVar, but the function “CreateConVar()” provides a huge bunch of other option, like a decription of the ConVar or flags and so on. To quote the API (http://docs.sourcemod.net/api/):

Syntax:

native Handle:CreateConVar(const String:name[], const String:defaultValue[], const String:description[]="", flags=0, bool:hasMin=false, Float:min=0.0, bool:hasMax=false, Float:max=0.0);

Usage:

name:                Name of new convar.
defaultValue:        String containing the default value of new convar.
description:         Optional description of the convar.
flags:               Optional bitstring of flags determining how the convar should be handled. See FCVAR_* constants for more details.
hasMin:              Optional boolean that determines if the convar has a minimum value.
min:                 Minimum floating point value that the convar can have if hasMin is true.
hasMax:              Optional boolean that determines if the convar has a maximum value.
max:                 Maximum floating point value that the convar can have if hasMax is true.

With this all stuff you can create ConVars that control e.g. vote ratios and so on:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_ConVar

// Normally ConVars are created in this forward
public OnPluginStart()
{
h_ConVar = CreateConVar("mynewconvar_ratio", "0.75", "Ratio", _, true, 0.5, true, 1.0)
}

This creates a ConVar with a latitude between 0.5 and 1.0. Now let’s come to what flags are available for ConVar and I have to say: a lot. But you need only a few that are important. If you’re interested in the whole list just look into the API or the file “console.inc” delivered with your SourceMod installation.

But here are these which I think are the most important:

• FCVAR_PLUGIN –> Says that the CVAR is defined by a 3rd party plugin
• FCVAR_SPONLY –> This cvar cannot be changed by clients
• FCVAR_REPLICATED –> Server setting enforced on clients
• FCVAR_NOTIFY –> Notifies players when changed
• FCVAR_DONTRECORD –> Don’t record these command in demo files

That should be the most important flags, but there are also special flags that are usefull for e.g. passwords With this knowlegde a correct ConVar creation can look like this:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_ConVar

// Normally ConVars are created in this forward
public OnPluginStart()
{
h_ConVar = CreateConVar("mynewconvar_ratio", "0.75", "Ratio", FCVAR_PLUGIN | FCVAR_SPONLY | FCVAR_REPLICATED | FCVAR_NOTIFY | FCVAR_DONTRECORD, true, 0.5, true, 1.0)
}

Now let’s come to another simple thing that you can do with existing (!) ConVar, you can find them Sounds strange but you need to do this if you want to change values for example or if you want to check if the ConVar exists so that you can hook it

But first let’s find a variable:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_FindConVar

// Find ConVar
public OnPluginStart()
{
h_FindConVar = FindConVar("hostname")
}

That’s all If the ConVar cannot be found INVALID_HANDLE will be returned. What for can I use this handle then? Well with this handle you can change the ConVar’s value:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_FindConVar

// Find ConVar
public OnPluginStart()
{
h_FindConVar = FindConVar("hostname")
}

// Custom function to set hostname
SetHostname()
{
SetConVarString(h_FindConVar, "Your new Hostname", false, false)
}

That’s it! The value is changed to the new one Another thing that you can to with an ConVar is to hook them that your script will be recogniced if the values was changed and so you can interact with these values. For example you can prevent that another admin changes your hostname. Just look at this example:

// Create a new Handle
new Handle:h_FindConVar

// Find ConVar and hook it
public OnPluginStart()
{

h_FindConVar = FindConVar("hostname")

if (h_FindConVar != INVALID_HANDLE)
{
HookConVarChange(h_FindConVar, OnHostnameChange)
}
}

// Fired when an change of the ConVar was recognized
public OnHostnameChange(Handle:ConVar, const String:OldValue[], const String:NewValue[])
{
SetConVarString(ConVar, OldValue, false, false)
}

That’s it! The ConVar stays always the same and your server’s hostname won’t change.

If you want to see other examples for the ConVars visit the Wiki of the AlliedMods (http://wiki.alliedmods.net) there I also got my information There are hunderts of possibilities what you can do with them. When I search for the word “ConVar” in the API there are 25 results found.

Hopefully you learned s.th. with these examples and I would be glad to here some feedback, what to do better and also tell me if there’re typos

Cya

It’s has the job to execute several given tasks on the server at a specific moment.

The syntax of the configuration file is the following:

// Important notes for YOU!
//
// Not for me 'cause I actually know what I've coded 
//
// You are allowd to use 3 types:
//
//    * 1st:        round        after x rounds (defined in "value" key) the task is executed. The value types has to be unique!
//    * 2nd:        period        after x seconds (defined in the "value" key) the task is executed. Value has to be a float!
//    * 3rd:        time        at this time (defined in the "value" key) the task will be executed (24 hour style. From 00:00 to 23:59).
//
// Multiple commands can be seperated with a ";"

"Source Cronjobs"
{
"1"
{
"type"                "round"
"value"                "2"
"task"                "say ROUND!"
}
"2"
{
"type"                "time"
"value"                "17:25"
"task"                "say TIME!"
}
"3"
{
"type"                "period"
"value"                "60.5"
"task"                "say PERIOD!"
}
}

There is also the syntax and the type of the values explained in the comment at the top of the file! You have to follow this syntax or the plugin won’t work! A Timer needs a float ;D

The plugin can be found here:

http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=86508

There you can read everything necassary what you need to know and how to handle with bugs you found (hope there won’t be lots of them)

So have fun with it and when you have feedback or any feature wishes, contact me or write in the thread on the great forums of the alliedmods!

Cya

WTF is this guy talking about?! There’s no doctype declaration in Sourcepawn!

But in my opinion there’s some stuff that always has to be in a new script. It might be different from coder to coder but it’s like in HTML and CSS. Some things have to be declarated in every new project.

In CSS always the margin and padding is set to zero and the basic structure of every HTML file is nearly the same. The same is working with my Sourepawn, too.

Let’s see how all of my files for Sourcepawn look like!

Here is the basic “Starting File” for all my projects:

// Just for my coding style :O)

#pragma semicolon 1

// Important includes

#include <sourcemod>

// Useful definitions

#define VERSION "Alpha 1"

// Handles

// Strings

// Variables

// Errrrm ... Just informations stuff

public Plugin:myinfo =
{
name = "Your script",
author = "Daniel 'Keyschpert' Kuespert",
description = "A short description of what your script does",
version = VERSION,
url = "http://www.odelturmspringen.de"
};

public OnPluginStart()
{
CreateConVar("version", SCJ_VERSION, "Current version of your script", FCVAR_PLUGIN | FCVAR_SPONLY | FCVAR_REPLICATED | FCVAR_NOTIFY | FCVAR_DONTRECORD);
}

Online version available!

In this example all necassary definitions were made and are clear. First I’ll decide how to end an command. Sometimes I am coding in C so command end with an semicolon. Then I include the standard library “sourcemod” and define my script’s version – mostly an alpha at the beginning

Yeah an the needed plugin informations will be set like the author, etc. The version is stored in the definition

The last thing which I do for every of my plugins ist an public CVAR that shows the version and has an significant name. So that the people can search in a serverlist for that CVAR if they whant to play on a server with this plugin running (for example).

This is what I call the Doctype of an Sourcepawn document.

And sry for the long abstinence but I had to do lots of things here at home and school is also no fun at the moment.

In this post I want to show you some tools that are quite kewl for coding with Sourcemod in Sourcepawn.

So let’s start ! The first important thing is the texteditor in which you write your code and this is an important point ! You need especially an editor with syntax highlighting. Without it you’ll get soon crazy because this is no good workflow !

But as you should know there aren’t not many editor with an syntax highlighter just for Sourcepawn. There is only one IDE which was made for this. It’s called the “Pawn Studio” but it isn’t developed anymore and crashing always. I name it here just for completeness !
I prefer a texteditor called simply “e”. It has highlighting for lots of languages build in and is very tinyand fast There are so many editor on the market that you have to know by yourself what you want to use. If you have a editor with highlighter and you just don’t know what language to use just use “C” or better “C++” Extremly helpfull is this threat in the forums of the Allied Mods: http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=79277

So what do we need else ? Yeah, the Sourcemod compiler. You can upload single file projets to the web (http://www.sourcemod.net/compiler.php) or when you build up huge projects with includes, own forwards and so on you better download the latest official version of Sourcemod and extract the scripting directory.
You need 2 files an one directory. The directory is of course called “include”. You need this files that the compiler knows what functions your scripts are using and what to do with them. The two important files are “spcomp” und “compiler.exe”. On windows I had to rename the “spcomp” file to “spcomp.exe” and now when you put your files into the directory with this 3 parts and dopple click “compile.exe” it will translate your code to binaries for Sourcemod.

Also were helpfull is a local or remote (is not quite important what of thoses 2) testserver. It’s NOT kewl when you test on of your ne scripts in alpha status and the server will crash because of an broken handle or a memory leak. People hate this !
I’m not going to explain here how to set an an server for CS:S or any other mod. There are hundrets of tutorials all over the web.
Also the Steam forums are quite usefull.

So I hope I delivered you a little insight into a Sourcepawn coding enviroment. I think this is the basic for a successfull project if you plan something like that.

P.S. Planning is also very important ! You cant’t start a project just with “husch husch”. You have to make a little plan

This is my new homepage and blog. I’m going to post here about one of my favourites hobbies named Sourcemod and Sourcepawn programming.

It’s a quite kewl way of modding the Srcds (Source Dedicated Server) of Valve without knowing C++ or any other special programming language.

I started with the well known Eventscripts but as the information of Mani stopping developing the Admin Plugin was spreading the internet I searched for an alternative admin plugin.

Finally I came to the team around BAILOPAN and the Sourcemod plugin using the Metamod Interface.

And now I’m playing with it’s functions and I’m always quite impressed how easy it is. So I will explain interessted people some examples and perhabs finish one or two big projects.

But now let’s have some fun looking around the page. Hopefully I will bring some content online, soon

Cya