Something I haven't gotten around to doing yet but would like to is an external program you can have running in the background that will notify you when friends are playing or your favorite map comes up.
Basic idea:
Sits in the system tray (perhaps with an option to hide it completely). Double clicking on the tray icon brings up an ASE/GameSpy type interface with the servers, map name, players, etc displayed. Options allow you to select:
- how often to query the servers
- how often to update the serverlist
- a sound and/or popup bubble for friends signing onto a server.
- a sound and/or popup bubble for favorite maps.
Anybody want to help out? I'd prefer it be done in C/C++ with straight Windows API calls to keep it optimal.