Light rework of SERVER BROWSER

[Disinterpreter]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Due to end of this discussion #3468
I started to write this issue.

Describe the solution you'd like

At the moment we have:

Screenshot of SERVER BROWSER

And the sturcture is:

|version|locked|Name|Players|Ping|Gamemode

My suggestion:

1. Hide the version of the server
2. Move log and ping to the end
3. Add a field with Languages (ISO-3 as well) and a Website field

The second, rework server information
At the moment we have:

Screenshot with focusing on a players list

My suggestion: Remove Players from the right side because it is working bad. It shows only a dozen players playing at the servers. It’s better to hide it and rework to Full information of the server like:

1. Version
2. IP
3. Name
4. Players
5. Gamemode
6. Language
7. Website
8. Tags (on comma)

Draft

The third, rework Search box and add Filters

• Search
  Remove search by players because it is a little invalid.
  Make a search by tags

• Filter
  Make a filter button what can help with filtering of the servers
  Filter button can find results and has a button Reset for clearing filter opinions.
  How it would be:
  Players can filter Server Browser by all parameters, f.e show only 1.7 servers or only by Russian language as an example.

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional context

No response

Security Policy

• I have read and understood the Security Policy and this issue is not about a cheat or security vulnerability.

[Fernando-A-Rocha]

There is something called server "rules" which are key-value string pairs that let you set custom attributes to broadcast to the ASE query response.
The ASE protocol is limited but it doesn't need to change, which is why I started working on this server browser enhancement, and now we have server rules in mtaserver.conf that you can define, like server description and tags.
Read #3933
That PR is related to the things you described (add language, tags and website field).

[Disinterpreter]

There is something called server "rules" which are key-value string pairs that let you set custom attributes to broadcast to the ASE query response. The ASE protocol is limited but it doesn't need to change, which is why I started working on this server browser enhancement, and now we have server rules in mtaserver.conf that you can define, like server description and tags. Read #3933 That PR is related to the things you described (add language, tags and website field).

yup, I read it and remember, but I wanted to add need flags and suggest to modernize UI.

And yes, I didn't notice about ASE because this problem is solved, it need to only add list of rules and draw on UI.

[Fernando-A-Rocha]

yea the UI needs a rework to implement the new data that servers provide.

There is a big discussion about this UI change on the development discord in #main-menu-revamp

[PlatinMTA]

Is it worth it to make small changes and then a whole rewrite? idk
I always hated how the server names work, its just a big incomprehensible mess. Most server names have tags on them because that's one of the only ways to appear on searches.

If we focus on adding a language option, we could use the version column for that instead. With the new tags we can make the search feature search for the tags and the server names combined, and with that we could trim the server names to like 64 characters at most (that gives you plenty of space to put your community name and gamemode... i don't need to see your website in your server name imo). Servers should still be able to have big ass names... just not on the serverbrowser

[Disinterpreter]

Is it worth it to make small changes and then a whole rewrite? idk I always hated how the server names work, its just a big incomprehensible mess. Most server names have tags on them because that's one of the only ways to appear on searches.

If we focus on adding language, we could add it on the version column a flag instead. With the new tags we can make the search feature search for the tags and the server names combined, and with that we could trim the server names to like 64 characters at most (that gives you plenty of space to put your community name and gamemode... i don't need to see your website in your server name imo). Servers should still be able to have big ass names... just not on the serverbrowser

I agree with it, because many servers in their names have a language-code, name, tags, short-description, and it's really overload for simple name.

by the way I'm thinking is description/motd field is need, I think we can add it and put it in full server information?

[Fernando-A-Rocha]

In #3933 ive been working on a specification for the new server attributes, documented on wiki (wip) what do y'all think? I believe it's suitable for what you guys are suggesting here.
https://wiki.multitheftauto.com/wiki/Server_Browser_Rules

[Disinterpreter]

In #3933 ive been working on a specification for the new server attributes, documented on wiki (wip) what do y'all think? I believe it's suitable for what you guys are suggesting here. https://wiki.multitheftauto.com/wiki/Server_Browser_Rules

Looks good. But we need to make a value like "any" for servers where language doesn't matter.

[PlatinMTA]

Looks good. But we need to make a value like "any" for servers where language doesn't matter.

default value (or no value) should be international

[Fernando-A-Rocha]

Looks good. But we need to make a value like "any" for servers where language doesn't matter.

default value (or no value) should be international

@Disinterpreter as platin suggested, no value set for the languages rule could default to displaying international (multi-lang)

It's all a matter of what info we want servers to provide, and how the UI interprets it in the official MTA client

[Disinterpreter]

It's all a matter of what info we want servers to provide, and how the UI interprets it in the official MTA client

It is true. It's doesn't matter will it be "any" or "", if a client (filters) can handle it.

[Fernando-A-Rocha]

exactly! We cannot trust what data servers provide because of the protocol. Clients will query the servers for the data, and they can receive garbage strings, so everything needs to be carefully parsed and filtered.