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dot-console

The player's console — a physical key, a line, history, completion and a bounded scrollback, with command sources rather than a command system, so a server's console becomes a source by duck typing.

dot-console is the console a player opens with a key: line editing, history, completion, scrollback and drawing. It is not a command system. dot-server already has one — commands, cvars, permissions, aliases, config execution, argument completion — and a second would be two copies of one thing, while naming dot-server’s would make it a hard dependency.

Requires dot-core. Not dot-server, which it bridges to by duck typing, and not dot-ui.

Sources run the line

Sources are asked in order and the first that claims a name handles it, so a local quit quits the client rather than the dedicated server.
DotConsoleLocal What belongs to the machine the player is at: a volume, a bind, a screenshot, quit. Works with no server in the process.
DotConsoleBridge Wraps anything with execute and complete, so a server’s console becomes a source without this addon naming a type in it.
DotConsoleRemote A send_fn that puts the line on a wire, for RCON or a chat command.

Usage

var console := DotConsoleController.new()
add_child(console)
console.setup()

var local := DotConsoleLocal.new()
local.add_command(&"quit", "Quit", func(_a): get_tree().quit())
local.bind_setting(&"sensitivity", settings)      # duck-typed; one copy of the value
console.add_source(local)
console.add_source(DotConsoleBridge.wrap(server.console))   # when there is a server

var panel := DotConsolePanel.new()
panel.controller = console
canvas_layer.add_child(panel)

And the line every game with a console forgets:

if panel.has_keyboard_focus():
    return      # otherwise typing `noclip` walks the player forward

Three details that are not obvious

The key is bound by position, not by character

The console key is the one under Escape, and it produces ` on a UK keyboard, ^ on a German one and ² on a French one. Binding the character means the console cannot be opened at all across most of Europe, and the player’s only clue is that nothing happens. open_physical_key is a physical keycode; open_action comes first so a rebinder can move it.

The scrollback is a ring

An unbounded console buffer is a memory leak with a plausible name: a dedicated server logging a line per tick fills it in an afternoon, and the console is the thing you would open to find out why the process is growing.

A password typed into a console has been published

It goes into the scrollback, into the history where the next Up arrow puts it back on screen, and into the screenshot somebody posts to ask why their server will not start. DotConsoleLine.redact keeps the command name and replaces the rest with a fixed number of asterisks, because the length of a password is information too.

The controller draws nothing

DotConsoleController is a Node with no Control in it; DotConsolePanel is a Control that draws what it says. That is what makes a headless suite possible.

Play