[Home] [Downloads] [Search] [Help/forum]

Gammon Software Solutions forum

See www.mushclient.com/spam for dealing with forum spam. Please read the MUSHclient FAQ!

[Folder]  Entire forum
-> [Folder]  MUSHclient
. -> [Folder]  Plugins
. . -> [Subject]  Mapper for Achaea
Home  |  Users  |  Search  |  FAQ
Username:
Register forum user name
Password:
Forgotten password?
Mapper for Achaea

[Reply to this subject]  Reply to this subject   [New subject]  Start a new subject   [Refresh] Refresh page

Pages: 1  2  3  4  5 

Posted by Hunter Green   USA  (8 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 07:39 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Pretty new to MUSHclient and trying to make the switch from zMUD, and the mapper's been the show-stopper up to now, so I'm eagerly trying this out, and very impressed so far. The ability to import the XML map that Lusternia provides is an amazing advantage, and ATCP is so much slicker than all that trigger trickery we used to have to do.

I have a few questions:

= The output from the MAPPER command comes out in an almost unreadable color for me, which doesn't correspond to any of my ANSI or custom colors. Can this be configured?

= Does the Create Map Database plugin overwrite the existing database, so any changes you make are lost any time you import a new map? Does that include bookmarks?

= If one moves by abnormal means such as teleporting, being summoned, sprinting, etc. will ATCP make the map reflect the movement, or do we need triggers to account for every such situation?

Generally I'm very impressed with the mapper even though I know it's still in development. If I can get to where I can do the things I need to to do to get by, I'll probably be working on scripting and hopefully be able to eventually contribute a little to these kinds of things. A few features I hope we see, if they're not already there:

= A command like MAPPER WALK SHRINE to walk to a previously-bookmarked location by name.

= The ability to set rooms and exits with costs and "do not enter" for pathing, including a way to set that from a script or trigger.

= Recovering from "Now, now, don't be hasty".

= Exits that use special commands like "touch wall" or "enter archway", especially if they can handle losing balance without losing the path.

= A way we can build upon the imported map from IRE games, by adding those special exits, bookmarks, costs, or even rooms we had to add ourselves, without losing them when we reimport an updated map.
[Go to top] top
Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (15,754 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 08:54 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Hunter Green said:

= The output from the MAPPER command comes out in an almost unreadable color for me, which doesn't correspond to any of my ANSI or custom colors. Can this be configured?


If you click on the configuration "star" symbol on the bottom LH corner of the map window, and then on the swatch for "Messages" you can change the colour of the messages.


Hunter Green said:

= Does the Create Map Database plugin overwrite the existing database, so any changes you make are lost any time you import a new map?


Yes it overwrites the existing database, as rooms may have changed.

Hunter Green said:

Does that include bookmarks?


No, by design bookmarks are in a separate database (eg. achaea.com_23_bookmarks.db) which is not overwritten. Thus things you note for your own reasons will stay there.


Hunter Green said:

= If one moves by abnormal means such as teleporting, being summoned, sprinting, etc. will ATCP make the map reflect the movement, or do we need triggers to account for every such situation?


The ATCP message should report your new location (I noticed when making a new character this did not always happen). There was something that forced it out (eg. "map" or something).


Hunter Green said:

= A command like MAPPER WALK SHRINE to walk to a previously-bookmarked location by name.


Currently "mapper book" shows your bookmarks and you can click to go there. What you suggest could easily be added.

Hunter Green said:

= The ability to set rooms and exits with costs and "do not enter" for pathing, including a way to set that from a script or trigger.


An interesting idea. Setting "do not enter" should be easy enough.

Hunter Green said:

= Recovering from "Now, now, don't be hasty".


It currently cancels the speedwalk when it sees that. You shouldn't see it anyway if the delay is configured correctly. However a modification would be to send "mapper resume" after a delay of a second perhaps.

Hunter Green said:

= Exits that use special commands like "touch wall" or "enter archway", especially if they can handle losing balance without losing the path.


Again, perhaps a "mapper resume" could be sent after a short delay.

Hunter Green said:

= A way we can build upon the imported map from IRE games, by adding those special exits, bookmarks, costs, or even rooms we had to add ourselves, without losing them when we reimport an updated map.


Bookmarks are already handled. Costs and special exits could be written to the bookmarks database.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
[Go to top] top
Posted by Hunter Green   USA  (8 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 10:14 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
The idea of the MUDs publishing their own maps is brilliant, what a huge, huge improvement in effort and accuracy and usefulness. But those maps can never be entirely complete, due to things like private residences; so having any additional rooms lost any time you get an update will be a big limitation.

It might be better if the Create Map Database would amend the existing database, if it's present, instead of replacing it (or at least if that were an option). Since the rooms have a unique number which should remain the same from one dump to another, it could simply overwrite records in place. It would add records for any room number that wasn't already present. That way, we could import a new map file periodically while preserving any rooms we'd made ourselves (and it would also help with preserving special exits).

Perhaps I'll learn enough to look over the Create Map Database plugin and see if I could amend it to work that way, in fact. But I thought I'd let you think on the idea first.
[Go to top] top
Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (15,754 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 10:21 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
One problem I foresee is that it might be hard to tell the difference between an exit you added yourself (which should stay) and an exit that was there already, but the MUD realized was wrong (or had changed).

So maybe it would be better for user-added rooms and exits to be in their own database (either the bookmarks one, or a third one), which would not be replaced. Or maybe just flag user-added rooms and exits, that might be simpler.

So when the mapper does an SQL "INSERT INTO" to add a room and its exits, it sets a "user" flag as well. Then instead of deleting all rooms and exits, the database creation program would simply delete rooms and exits which did *not* have that flag set. This would be a fairly minor change.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
[Go to top] top
Posted by Hunter Green   USA  (8 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 10:35 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
Heh, I actually wrote my post three times, once with a second database, then I thought "that's too hard, we could just use a flag", so I wrote it again with a boolean "Imported" flag, then I thought, that's still probably making it too complex.
[Go to top] top
Posted by Twisol   USA  (1,483 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Mon 26 Jul 2010 10:41 PM (UTC)  [ quote  ]

Amended on Mon 26 Jul 2010 10:42 PM (UTC) by Twisol

Message
I was thinking it would be the server-provided rooms that would have the flag, not the user-mapped rooms, because that keeps the mapper itself from having to know about the origin of the rooms, and the flag only has any meaning to the importer. The default for the flag in the database would simply be user-provided.
'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol
[Go to top] top
Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (15,754 posts)  [Biography] bio
Date Tue 27 Jul 2010 12:12 AM (UTC)  [ quote  ]
Message
You are right, that means changing only one plugin, not two.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
[Go to top] top

The dates and times for posts above are shown in Universal Co-ordinated Time (UTC).

To show them in your local time you can join the forum, and then set the 'time correction' field in your profile to the number of hours difference between your location and UTC time.

4,173 views.

This is page 5, subject is 5 pages long:  [Previous page]  1  2  3  4  5 

[Reply to this subject]  Reply to this subject   [New subject]  Start a new subject   [Refresh] Refresh page

Go to topic:           Search the forum

[Go to top] top

[Home]

Written by Nick Gammon - 5K

Comments to: Gammon Software support
[RH click to get RSS URL] Forum RSS feed ( http://www.gammon.com.au/rss/forum.xml )

[Best viewed with any browser - 2K]    [Internet Contents Rating Association (ICRA) - 2K]    [Web site powered by FutureQuest.Net]