README.MULTIPLAYER

Copyright (c) 2006, Ben Supnik and Chris Serio.

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.


******************************************************************************
				XSQUAWKBOX MULTIPLAYER ENGINE - README
******************************************************************************

Revision History
	3/14/05 - Initial draft
	
INTRO

This snippet of code is the XSB multiplayer engine, that is, the code 
responsible for visualizing planes.  It is provided totally as-is with
no guarantees of working or being rmotely useful.

Two files, XPLMMultiplayer.cpp and XPLMPlaneRenderer.cpp implement the
lib.  You must include XPLMMultiplayer.h to use it, and provide a text file
with your plugin to config multiplayer.

HISTORY

PATH NAMES AND CROSS-PLATFORM CODE

Paths for XPMP are always "native".  This means:

- Backslash separators on Windows.
- Forward slash separators on Macintosh and Linux.
- For Macintosh (which has both "HFS" and "Posix" style paths) posix paths
  are used.
  
Clients initializing the library are responsible for passing paths in these
formats.  (Macintosh clients can convert from HFS to Posix using the routine
HFS2PosixPath, which internally uses CFURL for the conversion.)

The X-Plane SDK uses native paths, but on Macintosh uses HFS paths unless 
the feature XPLM_USE_NATIVE_PATHS has been enabled. If the feature has been
enabled, all paths are in posix format. Otherwise XPMP on Mac converts 
paths from HFS to Posix at all points of interaction with the SDK.

The paths in some X-Plane formats like OBJ can often have any directory
separator.  These paths are always partial paths; XPMP converts them to
native separators when they are read in. 

Therefore the following rules should be followed when using/modifying XPMP:

- Always pass native paths to the lib and expect native paths out.
- When getting file paths from external sources (like OBJ files) make them
  native immediately.
- Mac only: In the lib wrap any SDK call with HFS->Posix conversion if 
  needed.