NetRain is a Visual C++ project that utilizes .NET 4.7.2 controls via C++/CLI to display the raining green code (a.k.a. code rain) seen in the Matrix franchise. Code rain can be generated in either of the following modes:
- Randomized: In this mode, all the related parameters (e.g. the size and fall speed of each raindrop) are randomly generated and the code rain effect is always green.
- Based on Network Traffic: This mode works as a network visualizer.
Each raindrop's color corresponds to a type of traffic (i.e. green is for TCP packets, orange is for UDP packets and blue is for any packet that has
127.0.0.1as both source and destination). Each raindrop's length corresponds to the number of packets of the specified type captured in the last 6 seconds before the raindrop first entered the screen.
Neither of the two available modes starts with a full code rain effect. Instead, during the first seconds of each execution a faint code "drizzle" appears. That was done on purpose, since the packet capture process takes a few seconds to begin and until then raindrops are always green.
The code switches between the two available modes automatically, based on whether you simply run it, or run it as administrator. You can't run the network visualizer mode without admin rights, since it uses raw sockets to capture traffic, so the screensaver is always randomized.
Note
This started off as an attempt to create a C++/CLI executable with a larger codebase than a plain code exercise, which would also be as simple as possible, with as few dependencies as possible.
The solution can be opened using Visual Studio 2022 and it contains 5 different projects:
- NetRain_UI/NetRain.vcxproj: This is the base project that contains the entry point of the application. It was first created using the C++ Windows Forms Project with GUI extension. It is the only C++/CLI project in the solution.
- NetRain_Resources/NetRain_Resources.vcxproj: C++ static library that contains the glyphs displayed in the code rain as resources and also handles resource reading.
- NetRain_CodeWeather/NetRain_CodeWeather.vcxproj - C++ static library that defines the basic object structure that will hold information related to the code rain effect.
Also defines a
CodeCloudclass that generates (and randomizes) the related objects. It uses stdlib.h for random number generation. - NetRain_Networking/NetRain_Networking.vcxproj - C++ static library that contains a single instance packet sniffer. It retrieves information for transmitted packets of various protocols, using WinSock2.h. The retrieved information will afterwards be used for parameterizing the code rain effect.
- NetRain_Common/NetRain_Common.vcxproj - C++ static library that contains consts and enums that will be used across the rest of the projects.
The main idea from which this project originated was conceived during discussion with Vartalus, who also contributed in its creation.
@Vartalus: Thanks for the excellent collaboration during this project and all the previous ones.
This project was also made possible due to the existence of the following repositories:
- rezmason/matrix - The SVG files that have been used as resources in this project are slightly modified versions of texture_simplified.svg. Some glyphs needed to be modified so that they could be rendered correctly using GDI+.
- memononen/nanosvg - Referenced in NetRain_Resources, its header has been added to the solution's
includefolder, for easier building. The folder in question is not taken into account for code and language stats.
