Zugg Software :: View topic - CMUD - Awesome base foundation ideas there Zugg!

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

Personally I think the concept of certain toolbars not displayed by default is a good thing. Leave that filter bar undisplayed until the user turns it on. If they keep it on then it should be there where they put it everytime until they turn it off. I never really liked how the zMud map window couldn't remember that I want the drawing tools bar on at all times. Things like that are just irritating.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 873 Location: USA

Some of my thoughts have been covered- you CAN tell a lot about the process you're expecting users to follow from the screenshots you posted (not just details about font, etc.). The following don't quite seem to fit in either "filtering" or preferences threads, though they're kind of topical- happy to move them if so.

1) Can we have a "last modified" field in the browser? That would help track down things that broke. (Not a big deal for variables, but it would be helpful for the higher level stuff).

2) the screenshot shows the settings in the tree itself- can we still set up the view like zMud and Windows Explorer, with the tree on the left for folders and a list on the right in another window?

3) I see that the top level "folder" type appears to be mud specific. Could you make that generic so that it's easy to have scripts shared between different muds/characters? As an example, lots of people have robots that sell stuff, gamble, chat like Eliza, etc. You need some generic code, and some server-specific triggers to feed data in and send output. It would be nice to keep the generic code in one place. (Or is that part of what I see up there in the main window captioned "Pkg" something?)

From the other two threads, I can't quite tell if the character-independent packages are supposed to be totally global-level or not: the screenshot has some folders named "C1", etc. so that might be the separate characters but still within the Realms of Despair folder?

-Tarn

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:51 pm

Tarn, let me see if I can help you understand this a bit more:

1) That's a good idea and should be simple to implement, so I'll add it to the wish list

2) No. You can set filters so that the main tree list only shows the settings and not the folders, and then you can click the name of the current folder pulldown that is shown just above the tree to view the class folder hierarchy to select a folder. There is no way to display the settings in multiple columns like in zMUD. From what I found in testing, the single-column vertical list on the left could show almost as many settings as the multi-column list that used to be above the editor panel. And in many cases, finding a setting in the multi-column view was more confusing and could take longer than just scrolling a simple single-column list.

The docking of the editor panel has been removed because it was a very common support issue for us. People were getting the edit panel undocked and closed and lost and were having to delete the SETTINGS.DOK file to remove it. The only useful reason to undock the editor panel was to make the editor window larger (since so much space was taken up with the settings list along the top). In the new interface, there is no settings list along the top, so the editor occupies a lot more space, and a single click of the splitter between the editor and the tree view on the left will hide the tree view so that the editor uses the entire window. So it's easy in the new version to have a large editor window without messing with docking.

3) No, the top level "folder" is the package name. In the screenshot example there are two packages: "Global" and "Realms of Depair". The "Global" package is a set of toolbar buttons, and the "Realms..." package is the MUD character specific settings. It's a *lot* easier to share settings between characters in CMUD by just putting the shared settings into a package and then loading that package for each character. So just put your generic code into a package. This is somewhat like the "inherited settings" in zMUD, but there isn't any limit on how many packages you can load, so you might put your "gamble" stuff into one package, your "Eliza" stuff into another package, etc.

The C1...folders in the example are just some test folders (short for Class 1) that I play with. It has nothing to do with characters.

Each character has it's own list of loaded packages. This is defined in the Character selection dialog when you edit the character and select the Packages tab (used to be the Files tab in zMUD). Each character can load any list of packages that it wants. Any package can be shared between characters.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 873 Location: USA

Novice Joined: 16 Oct 2000 Posts: 43 Location: USA

Back after a last-minute work grind and a nice little break for Christmas.

Wanderer Joined: 01 Oct 2005 Posts: 54

Apprentice Joined: 20 Sep 2005 Posts: 135

Wanderer Joined: 01 Jul 2002 Posts: 81 Location: USA

Not sure if this is the right place, but I would like to make a suggestion for the mapper, or maybe part of the Pro edition.

Could there please be a way to edit one zone of a map while you are playing in another zone?

That was one of my favorite parts of having zMapper. I could open my map in zMapper and add to a zone while playing in a different zone with zMud.

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 9:06 pm

With the Pro version you should be able to edit a different zone than you are playing, just like with zMapper.

Newbie Joined: 03 May 2002 Posts: 9 Location: USA

WOO! Great idea!! I'll buy in no matter what the cost! Been using Zmud since 95 and couldn't do without it! Tiggers and bounty hunting go hand in hand!! You stated package sharing, will that include mapping as well?

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:30 pm

Sharing maps is something I'll look at in the future, but that will have to wait until the mapper is rewritten to store files in a more generic SQL format instead of using MDAC/ADO like the mapper does now.

Wanderer Joined: 06 Jan 2006 Posts: 70

Perhaps a better version of #FIND in the map? I use a custom made script to match the room names and exits and pump out a list of vnum's for easy teleport. Perhaps maybe this could be included in with the mapper?

Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2006 6:44 pm

You should probably start a separate topic on specific issues like #FIND. The current #FIND command doesn't use exits because on many MUDs the exits shown for a room change depending upon what door is open. So that's why it only uses the room name and the first line of the room description.

In any case, yes you can expect to see improvements in the mapper once I get to that point.