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eclpmb
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Joined: 29 Feb 2004
Posts: 36
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 7:59 am   

Automapper and colours
 
My mud makes extensive use of colour; So much so that room detection fails on trying to use speedwalks. If I set the mud to not use colour the speedwalks work once I've remapped the rooms. This however is a dull experience.

Is there anyway to pre-process the text that is sent to the automapper to strip out colour information?
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Tech
GURU


Joined: 18 Oct 2000
Posts: 2733
Location: Atlanta, USA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 8:28 am   
 
You shouldn't need to do that. How do you have you map configured? You can try changing it to map on just room name instead of room name and description. Also if you have a custom mapping script you can modify that. Finally you can come up with your own trigger(s) to send #OK (map movement confirmation command) to let the map know the mapper movement was successful.
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eclpmb
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Joined: 29 Feb 2004
Posts: 36
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 7:18 am   
 
Tech wrote:
You can try changing it to map on just room name instead of room name and description.


I've tried setting it to map on room name, and setting 'room description changes' I've also used #tag to make sure the exit line is processed and that the prompt is detected, and reconfigured the mapper. The only thing that works reliably is setting the mud not to send colour at all.

Not all rooms cause problems. Here is a sample room that is causing issues. The colours don't change between visits.

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#990000"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Water </FONT><FONT COLOR="#007F7F">Gate </FONT><FONT COLOR="#00007F">Way</FONT><FONT COLOR="#
BFBFBF">
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">This path is covered in </FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">dull </FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">yellow </FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">s<
/FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">n</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">. The </FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00"
>s</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">n</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF"> is soft and fluffy and
whenever the wind blows the </FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">s</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">n</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">d</FONT><
FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF"> flies into the air scattering. There is a
strong </FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">s</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">a </FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">b</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF"
>r</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">e</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">z</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">e bringing in the smell of the
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">o</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">ce</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">n</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">.
There are tiny shards
of sea shells scattered amongst the </FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">s</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#7F7F00">n</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">
d</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">. In some place there are larger
shells decorating the shore line.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#00AA00">

</FONT><FONT COLOR="#BFBFBF"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#BFBFBF">[Exits: north east west]</FONT><FONT COLOR="#BFBFBF">
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#0000FF"></FONT><FONT COLOR="#BFBFBF">


Tech wrote:
Also if you have a custom mapping script you can modify that. Finally you can come up with your own trigger(s) to send #OK (map movement confirmation command) to let the map know the mapper movement was successful.


I don't have a custom mapping script. As to sending #ok, that doesn't help me any more then simply turning off room detection entirely, which is what I'm trying to avoid.
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Fang Xianfu
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Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5155
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:32 am   
 
Are those <font> tags MXP tags sent by the MUD, or are they html tags you wrote to try and duplicate the colour of the description?

If it's MXP sent by the MUD, you could ask them to use the RoomXXX element flags to delimit rooms. That'd help the mapper immensely.

Trouble is that the most reliable way to capture rooms, I've found, is by forcing the MUD to colour rooms a certain way and using ANSI triggers. This can't be done in your case, so I really don't know what to suggest. If you can manage to set up a full set of #tag triggers (Room name, exits, prompt, and description as well if you can) that only fire on rooms and on nothing else, you'll probably see an improvement. The trouble is getting it to that state without ANSI triggers.
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eclpmb
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Joined: 29 Feb 2004
Posts: 36
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 2:36 pm   
 
Fang Xianfu wrote:
Are those <font> tags MXP tags sent by the MUD, or are they html tags you wrote to try and duplicate the colour of the description?


That's the exact output of the mud in 'colour mode html' - I used a client that doesn't understand MXP to grab that output

The mud also has a 'colour mode ansi' which sends ansi codes - as near equivalent as it can generate. As the example shows though the room titles have more then one colour. For that matter, some rooms have every letter in the room name different. The mapper has worse problems in this mode, getting only the room name to the first colour code.

Fang Xianfu wrote:
If it's MXP sent by the MUD, you could ask them to use the RoomXXX element flags to delimit rooms. That'd help the mapper immensely.


It's the Dawn of Time codebase, with patches to support MXP colouring. I'll ask the coder.

Fang Xianfu wrote:
If you can manage to set up a full set of #tag triggers (Room name, exits, prompt, and description as well if you can) that only fire on rooms and on nothing else, you'll probably see an improvement. The trouble is getting it to that state without ANSI triggers.


I don't see a way of doing this reliably. The room descs can be anything from one short paragraph to a screen of coloured ASCII art.

The mapper actually works most reliably with 'colour mode nocolour' set - but I like the colours and was hoping for a way to get things working.
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Fang Xianfu
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Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5155
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 2:39 pm   
 
Descriptions are usually the hard part, but they're not needed. It's the names and exits that're important.

Exit lines are normally always in the same format (and thus are matchable), and room names always come after a direction command (so you know which line they're going to be if you use an #oninput trigger).
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eclpmb
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Joined: 29 Feb 2004
Posts: 36
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:31 pm   
 
I managed to get a more complete dump of the mud output - it turns out that the roomX elements are there, but improperly nested. For example -

Code:
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#990000"><RName>Dr</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">a</FONT><FONT COLOR="#990000">gon</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FF0000">dale</

    FONT><FONT COLOR="#00FFFF"> Questmistress</FONT><FONT COLOR="#BFBFBF"></RName></FONT>


As you can see the RName starts in the middle of a FONT tag. This explains why the mapper is only getting the first 2 letters of the room name, i suspect.

A #MXPTRIGGER on RName in this room gives 'Dr'

Any advice on getting this working with the mapper correctly?
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Vijilante
SubAdmin


Joined: 18 Nov 2001
Posts: 5182

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 7:37 pm   
 
First bit of advice it to let the mud admins know about it. It is likely a relatively small fix for them to make. Beyond that you would have to do some pretty complex scripts to overide the MXP tagging. I can't suggest going to that effort when the mud admins will likely fix it rather rapidly.
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eclpmb
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Joined: 29 Feb 2004
Posts: 36
Location: United Kingdom

PostPosted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 8:14 pm   
 
Well I have asked, and i've been told it's been put on the ToDo list - along with the other 41 items. I'm just trying to look at this from all angles.
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