Allow custom decks via JSON [Feature request]

Since CardCast has shut down and (as of time of writing) api.cardcastgame.com returns NXDOMAIN, there is currently no easy way to add custom decks other than importing them into the database. To avoid reliance on third parties in the future, adding custom decks via URL in JSON format could be a way to achieve this:

/addcardcast <deck code> is replaced by /addurl <url>, where <url> is a link to a hosted JSON file (or an API that returns JSON for that deck). The format of the JSON could be similar to Cardcast’s to aid compatibility, although finding documentation on that is harder now.

Obviously for some servers the ability to load these files is a concern, so I propose an option (perhaps in build.properties) firstly to allow/disallow this feature, and later on to whitelist certain domains.

[devgianlu]

That is a fantastic idea, I can write a PR if @ajanata will merge it.

The shutdown of Cardcast removed a key feature in my app and having a way to create custom decks directly on the phone would be awesome.

[BrozzSama]

@devgianlu I don’t know what the future plans are for #241 if it still going to be developed might good to implement the solution of having the system identify cards with “___” in order to have compatibility with CRCAST JSON format, as @ajanata already suggested. For the time being it could be useful to provide a helper script in your branch like the one I posted below that converts CRCAST decks into PYX compatible json, since it seems like there is no “official” way to do this as of right now.

import json
from re import split

in_file = 'input.json'
out_file = 'output.json'

with open(in_file) as json_in:
    data = json.load(json_in)

data['watermark'] = data['deckcode']
data['responses'] = data['whites']
data['calls'] = data['blacks']
del data['deckcode']
del data['blacks']
del data['whites']

for response in data['responses']:
    response['text'] = [response['text']]

for call in data['calls']:
    if '_' in call['text']:
        call['text'] = split(r'_+', call['text'])
    # No fill? No problem.
    else:
        call['text'] = [ call['text'], '' ]

with open(out_file, 'w') as json_out:
    json.dump(data, json_out)