Edit: Note that this thread is fairly old, BFS is up to 0.8a which is compatible with S2 patch X10 - the below text still describes BFS quite well though.

Recently pubstat's new idkey system broke some functionality of BFS, so we're releasing BFS 0.7. 0.7 doesn't bring a huge amount of new features, but it does do some cool stuff and has some speed improvements (gets you on the track faster, uh huh). See below for the changelog.

If you haven't heard of Browse For Speed:

Browse For Speed is an extremely useful tool for finding servers and joining them. It is able to query demo/s1/s2 servers, lets you maintain a favourites list and keeps track of your friends. It also lets you remotely control your servers via an admin interface.

Querying Features:

• Ability to query/join Demo/S1/S2 servers, with filters (cars/public/private/empty/full/tracks/ping)
  
• Maintains a favourite server list
  
• Maintains a friends list
  
• View extended server information (racer list, server rules etc)

Admin features:

• Connects to servers via insim (connecting via insim relay also supported)
  
• Sends/receives server messages
  
• Ability to send private messages
  
• Shows racer list, with context menu (kick/ban/force spectate)

General:

• Ability to launch an arbitrary number of programs before LFS (Pit Spotter etc supported)
  
• Able to get a server list and query much faster than the in-game browser
  
• Available in 9 languages (thanks to the translators, see CREDITS file)
  
• Extremely easy to add translations (place an XML file in the lang folder)
  
• Free and open source. If there is any doubt in your mind about what this program does, you can get the source, go through it, and build it yourself using free tools.

The only remote machines BFS will contact are:

• The LFS master server (to get a server list)
  
• Each LFS game server
  
• LFSWorld (for pubstat queries (BFS caches these queries so you don't hit the limit))
  
• If (and only if) you have version check enabled, it will query www.browseforspeed.net purely for version checking.

0.6 to 0.7 Changelog:
* Improve list drawing - faster, no flashing, huge friends lists are now very fast
* Coloured server names
* Supports all the characters found in LFS (providing you have appropriate fonts installed)
* Added quick refresh to only refresh currently displayed servers
* Fix more encoding problems
* Version column included in Favourites list

Browse For Speed requires the .NET 2.0 framework. I am no Microsoft fan, but .NET is something they have done right. It is a standard, and you can develop .NET applications without using any Microsoft products. It's only a 24meg download, and doesn't require a reboot . There's a link to the download on our main site page.

www.browseforspeed.net - for the community



Edit: Oh, btw, translators: We wanted to release this asap because of the broken pubstat functionality - if you send in updated translations we'll put them on the site - we'll send out instructions shortly.

Edit: If you did not download 0.7a (your download did not have an a on the end), please re-download. I screwed up and packaged the wrong dll, and pubstat queries will not work.

Thanks for the update, keep up the good work

The is awesome work (Thanks for replying to my email BTW!) and will get it over as soon as I get home, thanks a bunch and keep it up!

Yep, top work guys

Everysingle time I play LFS, it's via this awesome little app you guys have produced.

Thanks

I love this app, keep it up

Excellent new version

Keep the ball moving!!! ^_^

Thanks for the comments!

If you managed to download 0.7 and not 0.7a, go and download 0.7a, because I packaged the wrong dll. Sorry!

Breakfast for Scawen?

Boring for Some

wow, this is excellent!!! and i didnt even know about it b4 now

GREAT WORK

Awww dam it needs .net 2

My chipset drivers don't like .net so I can't use it

Whats the point in having a program that needs other programs to run it. illepall

Any way of including the .dlls or whatever to run it with?

Thanks for this BFS

There is a bug in BFS, haven't tested this new version, will do later when i get home, but in previous versions, if i type a password for a server i want to go in, it doesn't remembers it next time i start a program...
Because i'am an admin on one demo server and two S2 servers, it would be nice if program could remember the password for those particular servers. Is this possible?
Thanks

It does save passwords for favourite servers (it's a bit crazy to remember them for any server, as servers come and go, and the saved passwords would just pile up). Add your servers to your favourites.

Quote from wabz :

It does save passwords for favourite servers (it's a bit crazy to remember them for any server, as servers come and go, and the saved passwords would just pile up). Add your servers to your favourites.

Ok, didn't know that, thanks

Is there anyway to change the background to white, don't really get on with the blue cell's......

The background was changed to blue due to it being a colour easy enough to allow all the colours of LFS server names to be read easily.
And also still easy enough to read server names without colour.

Nice tool!

Especially the colored server browser.
As it's possible to run multiple apps before lfs with this tool, i wonder if it s possible to make (for the next version) running 2 outgauge mod together cause i never understand how to get momoleds + CSR (sound mod) together.

Yes it is, just look at the "start before LFS thing) - but 2 OutGauge mods is impossible without a relay, LFS Companion does that, but i (or anyone else) never got CSR working - i started a thread on running two or more outgauge apps here

Hope this helps!

Superb! Keep up the good job!

Hey I have a weird bug , if I join a favourite server it sometimes tries to connect in demo mode , altho it's a s2 server , I then have to switch modes and connect from lfs again

Does it only happen for one server or does it randomly happen? Have a look at favourites.xml - has it been saved as a demo server (there should be a <version> tag)? If so, try removing/readding the server.

Quote from noemfie :

Hey I have a weird bug , if I join a favourite server it sometimes tries to connect in demo mode , altho it's a s2 server , I then have to switch modes and connect from lfs again

This happened to me also yesterday, although not from a favorite server, but from some S2 server..
It said "server uses different code" so i pressed "back" and see the demo is selected, although i haven't been on a demo server for a while..
Can this be fixed?

Ah. Do you remember what server this was? I have a feeling there is a demo server with the same name (possibly with trailing whitespace) as the S2 server. I remember this happened before with the Redline Racing servers - I'm not sure this is a bug in BFS, but in the way that ambiguities with a hostname can't properly be resolved.

Quote from wabz :

Ah. Do you remember what server this was?

It was LOTR, or LOTA server, something like that, it said on the entrance scene "League of the Americas" if that helps...