The Character Database is the main window first opened when you run zMUD. You can also access it any time by selecting "Another Character" in the File menu, or clicking the Chars button in the main toolbar. The Character Database is used to create, edit, and manage all of your MUD characters. A MUD character is defined as a specific character that you have created (or will create) for a specific MUD on the Internet.
In the main character display, each of your characters is displayed as an icon with a title. By default, the title of the icon is the name of the character and the name of the MUD. For example, "Zugg on Mirkwood" is the character named Zugg on the MUD named Mirkwood. To connect to one of your existing characters, select the character by clicking on its icon, then click the Connect button in the tool bar for the character dialog. You can also just double-click on the icon to connect to it, or just press the Enter key if you prefer using the keyboard. When you connect to a character, zMUD will contact the MUD for that character and attempt to log you in automatically.
You can rename an icon by either selecting Edit and changing the Icon caption, or you can click twice (slowly, not a double-click) on the icon and then type the new name of the icon.
If you want to work on your character settings (aliases, triggers, etc) without actually connecting to the MUD, select your character and click the Offline button (or press the O key). Your character window will open as normal, but no connection will be made to the MUD game itself. When you are working on your character offline, you can connect to the MUD by selecting the Reconnect command from the File menu.
The Edit button allows you to edit the properties of your character. Click the Edit button or press the E key to edit your character.
The New button allows you to create a new MUD character. Click the New button or press the N key to create a new character from a list of known MUDs.
The Delete button deletes the currently selected character. Be careful, there is no way to "undo" a deletion. You can also just press the Delete key on the keyboard to delete your current character.
The View button allows you to change how your characters are displayed. It works similar to the View options in the Windows Explorer. You can view your characters by large icons, small icons, in a list, or in detail. When viewing the detailed list you can sort on any column by clicking on the column heading. Clicking a second time reverses the sort order. For example, clicking on the Date column once will display your characters by the date you last connected to them, with your most recent characters at the top. If you click on the Date column again, the oldest character will be displayed first.
Many of these functions are also available by right-clicking on the screen. If you right-click a character you can Connect, work Offline, Delete, Edit, and change the View settings. As with most 32-bit Windows 95 and Windows NT programs, right-clicking in zMUD usually brings up a context-sensitive menu.
Finally, there is a hidden feature that allows you to open an empty MUD window. Just press the ESCAPE key and a default, empty window will be displayed. You can use this to edit the DEFAULT.MUD settings, or for general zMUD testing and debugging. Keep in mind that you cannot connect to a MUD with an empty window because no hostname or port has been specified.
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