It all starts with a table called `arena_lib.mods = {}`. This table allows `arena_lib` to be subdivided per mod and it has different parameters, one being `arena_lib.mods[yourmod].arenas`. Here is where every new arena created gets put.
*`arena_lib.create_arena(sender, mod, arena_name, <min_players>, <max_players>)`: it doesn't accept duplicates. Sender is a string, fields between < > are optional
*`arena_lib.remove_arena(mod, arena_name)`: if a game is taking place in it, it won't go through
Arenas and their settings are stored inside the mod storage. What is *not* stored are players, their stats and such.
Better said, these kind of parameters are emptied every time the server starts. And not when it ends, because handling situations like crashes is simply not possible.
`arena_lib.set_spawner(sender, arena_name, spawner_ID)` creates a spawner where the sender is standing, so be sure to stand where you want the spawn point to be.
`spawner_ID` is optional and it does make a difference: with it, it overrides an existing spawner (if exists), without it, it creates a new one. Spawners can't exceed the maximum players of an arena and, more specifically, the must be the same number.
I suggest you using [ChatCmdBuilder](https://rubenwardy.com/minetest_modding_book/en/players/chat_complex.html) by rubenwardy and connect the `set_spawner` function to two separate subcommands such as:
`arena_lib.set_sign(sender, mod, arena_name)` gives the player an item to hit a sign with. There must be one and one only sign for arena, and when hit it becomes the access to the arena.
Overriding these functions is not recommended. Instead, there are 4 respective callbacks made specifically to customize the behaviour of the formers, sharing (almost) the same variables. They are called *after* the function they're associated with and by default they are empty, so feel free to override them. They are `on_load`, `on_start`, `on_celebration` and `on_end`, and they are explained later in 2.2.
**Be careful**: the string you put inside the round brackets will be how arena_lib stores your mod inside its memory and what it needs in order to understand you're referring to that specific mod (that's why almost every function contains "mod" as a parameter). You'll need it when calling for commands.
*`join_while_in_progress`: whether the minigame allows to join an ongoing match. Default is false
*`show_nametags`: whether to show the players nametags while in game. Default is false
*`show_minimap`: whether to allow players to use the builtin minimap function. Default is false
*`queue_waiting_time`: the time to wait before the loading phase starts. It gets triggered when the minimium amount of players has been reached to start the queue. Default is 5
On the contrary, to customise the _global_ spawn point of your hub, meaning where to spawn players when they join the server, you need to edit the line
You need to connect the functions of the library with your mod in order to use them. The best way is with commands and again I suggest you the [ChatCmdBuilder](https://rubenwardy.com/minetest_modding_book/en/players/chat_complex.html) by rubenwardy. [This](https://gitlab.com/zughy-friends-minetest/minetest-quake/-/blob/master/commands.lua) is what I came up with in my Quake minigame, which relies on arena_lib. As you can see, I declared a `local mod = "quake"` at the beginning, because it's how I stored my mod inside the library.
### 2.2 Callbacks
To customise your mod even more, there are a few empty callbacks you can use. They are:
*`arena_lib.on_load(mod, function(arena)` (we saw these 4 earlier)
Beware: there is a default behaviour already for each one of these situations: for instance when a player dies, its deaths increase by 1. These callbacks exist just in case you want to add some extra behaviour to arena_lib's.
So for instance, if we want to add an object in the first slot when a player joins the pre-match, we can simply do:
Let's say you want to add a kill leader parameter. `Arena_lib` doesn't provide specific parameters, as its role is to be generic. Instead, you can create your own kill leader parameter by using the three tables `properties`, `temp_properties` and `player_properties`. The last one is for players, while the others are for the arena.
#### 2.3.1 Arenas properties
The difference between `properties` and `temp_properties` is that the former will be stored by the the mod so that when the server reboots it'll still be there, while the latter won't and it's reset every time a match ends. So in our case, we don't want the kill leader to be stored outside the arena, thus we go to our `arena_lib.settings` and write
and then we can easily access the `kill_leader` field whenever we want from every arena we have, via `theactualarena.kill_leader`, like when creating a function that returns the kill leader of a given arena.
If you decide to add a new property (temporary or not) to your mod but you had created a few arenas already, you need to update them manually by calling
`arena_lib.update_properties("mymod")`
right after `arena_lib.settings`. This has to be done manually because it'd be quite heavy to run a check on hypotetically very long strings whenever the server goes online for each mod relying on `arena_lib`. So just add it, run the server, shut it down when it's done loading, remove the call and then you're good to go.
These are a particular type of temporary properties, as they're attached to every player in the arena. Let's say you now want to keep track of how many kills a player does in a streak without dying. You just need to create a killstreak parameter, declaring it like so
```
arena_lib.settings("mymod", {
--stuff
temp_properties = {
kill_leader = " "
},
player_properties = {
killstreak = 0
}
}
```
Now you can easily access the `killstreak` parameter by retrieving the player inside an arena. Also, don't forget to reset it when a player dies via the `on_death` callback we saw earlier:
*`arena_lib.is_player_in_queue(p_name, <mod>)`: returns a boolean. If a mod is specified, returns true only if it's inside a queue of that specific mod.
*`arena_lib.is_player_in_arena(p_name, <mod>)`: returns a boolean. Same as above.
*`arena_lib.remove_player_from_arena(p_name, is_eliminated)`: if is_eliminated is not specified, other players will see that the player has left the match. If it is (true), the message will say the player has been eliminated. The latter comes in handy for games like Murder or TNT Run
*`arena_lib.send_message_players_in_arena(arena, msg)`: send a message to all the players in that specific arena
*`arena_lib.immunity(player)`: grants immunity to the specified player. It lasts till the `immunity_time` declared in `arena_lib.settings`
* submit a merge request. In this case, PLEASE, do follow milestones. I won't merge features for milestones that are different from the upcoming one (if it's declared)
* contact me on the [Minetest Forum](https://forum.minetest.net/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=26472)
I'm Zughy (Marco), a professional Italian pixel artist who fights for FOSS and digital ethics. If this library spared you a lot of time and you want to support me somehow, please consider donating on [LiberaPay](https://it.liberapay.com/EticaDigitale/) directly to my educational Italian project (because not everyone speaks English and Italian media don't talk about these topics much). Also, this project wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't been for some friends who helped me testing through: `SonoMichele`, `_Zaizen_` and `Xx_Crazyminer_xX`
