Zugg Software :: View topic - Customizing CMUD to better resemble zMUD?

Wanderer Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 57

Hi there... I'm thinking of returning to mudding after a long, -long- absence... I used to use zMUD, and had become very familiar with the look and feel of it; obviously now I'm tempted to make the switch to CMUD, because of the potential speed benefits, but I'm wondering to what extent is it possible to customize the look of it (particularly of the package editor, which at first glance appears quite different) to better resemble that of zMUD? I know this might seem an odd thing to want to do - I'm a bit of a creature of habit though, and really that 'classic' zMUD look defined the mudding experience for me, so it's something I'd like to recapture. *reminisce*

Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 11:14 pm

It is an odd thing to want to do. CMUD looks different because it looks better. Seriously, I can't use zMUD any more not because of the features it lacks, but because it's so ugly in comparison.

There used to be a theme engine that'd do this, but it was removed because it was barely used and caused too many problems. But once you get used to the new style, I'm sure you'll wonder how you ever put up with zMUD.

On the topic of the package editor: it's a very, very different editor now. It does many, many things that the old settings editor didn't, and often in a much less confusing way. CMUD has new options for many things that need to be displayed there, too. So, in short, there's no way to make it look like the old editor.

Wanderer Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 57

Yeah, I guess it's just that I haven't taken the time to get used to it (or at least, not yet). My preference in terms of progam aesthetic tends towards the minimalist (for example, I run Windows with just a blank desktop background and tend to disable as many superfluous toolbars as possible in the programs I use) - I guess my first impression was just that zMUD could be slimmed down a lot more than CMUD can in this respect. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to answer - perhaps I'll try both and see how it goes.

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 5:32 pm

zMUD did have some "features" that allowed you to put the window caption on the side so that the entire vertical space could be used for MUD output. Unfortunately, that kind of "nonstandard" Windows behavior causes all sorts of problems with various 3rd party programs like WindowBlinds and makes it harder for zMUD to work in Vista and with various Windows emulators.

So when I wrote CMUD, one of the goals was to make it a lot more Windows "compliant" and that meant getting rid of some of the features like the caption on the left. These days with larger screens and higher resolutions, it's really not worth trying to get an extra few pixels for the MUD output. When zMUD was first released and we only had 640x480 resolution, it was more important.

For the settings editor, the main difference is that CMUD combines the folder list with the settings list into a single integrated tree-like structure. This makes it easier to represent features such as multi-state triggers and multi-state buttons. But a new "Class Panel" was added to the most recent CMUD version that you can enable in the View menu. This will add a panel of the settings within the current folder and you can rearrange the panels to make it look more like zMUD. Of course, the class panel will have the same problems with multi-state settings that zMUD did, which is why it is turned off by default.

Wanderer Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 57

Thanks, the Class Panel was just what I was looking for (and between that and the 'Flat' theme I'm much happier with the overall look).

One thing which feels a little odd (and perhaps it's a bug, I'm not sure), is that when navigating via the Class Panel, clicking even just once upon a class navigates straight through to its contents (in the way one would typically expect double-clicking to) rather than simply selecting it (so for example to change the 'enable class when connecting' settings you have to actually be inside the class itself.)

Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 4:48 pm

Yes, unfortunately that is true and it's just a difference between CMUD and zMUD that cannot be easily fixed at this time. Selecting a class object makes it the current default class, and this will cause the class panel to show the contents of the class. Sorry it doesn't work exactly how zMUD did, but CMUD is really a completely different program and I did as much as I can to make it work as closely to zMUD as I could given the different internal design architecture.

Wanderer Joined: 23 Apr 2005 Posts: 57

Oh, heh, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm complaining about the various differences - I know it must be a pain in the proverbial to bring out something new and then have people wanting to make it seem like something old. Honestly I'm a -big- fan of the programs generally and I'm looking forward to spending as much time with CMUD as I have with zMUD. Smile