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» Introduction Introduction The LoD MUD client was written by David Carroll (Taeloch) for use with The Lands of Draknor. That's why you can't tell the program what MUD to connect to! The program operation is loosely based off of Daniel Kelly's GMud32, though I did not consult with him nor look at his program's source code. It was all written by me, with two notable exceptions. To make the main screen display multiple colors without sinking a ton of memory into using HTML, I adapted the ColorPane class, published by O'Reilly books. The telnet connection is handled by the Apache Commons Net library. Getting started is easy: just click the "Character List" button and "Connect". That will connect you to the game. Or if you already have a character, you can start setting them up there. Explaining the game itself is beyond the scope of this document, but there are a lot of help files available in-game, and the people playing that can answer questions you may have about the game itself. That's all you really need to play the game, but this program offers some more advanced features that many long-time MUD players rely on to make the game more fun or easier. The Character List The Character List screen is where you can configure settings for multiple characters, giving each one their own set of macros, aliases, etc. Or you can share one set with multiple characters. The Character List screen is accessed by clicking the "Character List" button on the main screen, or using the menu of the same name. The list box on the left side is a list of all characters that have been set up within the program. Starting off, there is just a single character called "Default". This is the character that is loaded automatically when the program starts. This character can be deleted once you have created one of your own character entries. To the right of the list are four dropdown boxes that allow you to select the set of Macros, Triggers, Aliases, and Variables that each character has assigned to them. Explanations of these concepts are later in the help file. To the right of each dropdown box are buttons that let you manage these sets of macros, etc. To change these, you must first select a character, at which time the dropdowns will change to show which sets are selected for that character. If the box's value is changed, it will automatically save for that character. For these items, the "Edit" button will bring up the appropriate editor, which is exactly the same as the ones accessible from the main screen. The first text box in the middle, "description", is purely for your own good and does not do anything except save per-character. This is in case you have multiple characters and get them confused, you could put "Lev. 50 Human Conjurer" in it for one character and "Lev. 32 Orc Barbarian" in for another. The second box should be pretty self-descriptive: as soon as you connect to the game with the selected character, the text in that box will be sent to the game for the purposes of automatically logging in. As of the time of this writing, that would be "[enter]username[enter]password[enter]". Please note that the client's configuration files are NOT encrypted nor obscured in any way, so if you use this feature your password will be saved in plaintext in the config files. The buttons along the bottom of the window are for managing the character list: New to create a new character, Delete/Rename to remove/rename the selected character. Close will close the window and save all changes. Connect will close the window, save all changes, and connect to the game with the selected character's settings. If that character has text in the "output upon connect" window, it will immediately be sent to the game. Macros The simplest feature of the program is called "macros". These allow you to send one or more commands to the game all at one time just by clicking a button or pressing a function key. The macro buttons are the buttons that line the left side of the window. To edit the macros, just click the "Edit Macros" button or menu from the main screen, or select a macro set from the appropriate list on the Character List screen and click "Edit". The list along the right side of the window lists "F1" through "F12", which corresponds to the keyboard key you can press to activate the macro. To edit one, just click on the key you wish to configure. The "Button Text" field shows the text that the button will display. The large text pane shows the commands that will be sent to the game when you click the button or press the function key. There are numerous uses for macros, though they are most commonly used for very simple tasks, such as casting spells. Your most common spells or skills can be set up to activate just by pressing a function key. As stated previously, you can send multiple commands at once. For instance, if you keep food in a container, the macro can get a food item from your container and then eat it, allowing you to save a little bit of typing time. Triggers Triggers allow you to automatically react to something that happens in the game. For instance, when the game announces that someone has gained a level, you can automatically announce your congratulations! Unfortunately, since the trigger cannot identify who has gained a level, your congratulations cannot be personalized. Perhaps another useful trigger could take the place of the example eating macro above. Whenever the game announces that you are hungry, you can get a food item from your container and eat it. To access the trigger configuration, click on the "Edit Trigers" button or menu item, or select one from the list on the Character List screen and click "Edit". To add a new trigger, just click the "New" button. In the window that pops up, enter the text that will enable the trigger. For instance, this could be "You are hungry." Then press enter or click "OK" to add it to the list. The new trigger will be automatically selected, so just type into the large box the commands that will be sent when the trigger text appears on the screen. It's that simple! As a warning, you should try to make your trigger text as specific as possible. If, for instance, you made the word "the" a trigger, it will go off quite a few times. Also, it is possible that some nefarious gamers can take advantage of your triggers. In the example used, if someone says "You are hungry" over and over while in the same room, you will eat for every time they say it. It's not likely to happen, but be aware that it's possible. It is also possible to cause a trigger to go off based on commands sent by a macro or alias. Further, if an action performed by your trigger causes another trigger event to fire, a loop can occur. In some cases this is a desireable event, but it should generally be avoided unless you are sure of what you are doing. Aliases Used simply, aliases are not much more complicated than macros, except that it reacts to what you type instead of a button or function key. Used to its fullest, it can make a complicated task very easy. Because of this complicated nature of aliases with arguments, this helpfile section is pretty long. But if you want to use the advanced features, it is suggested you read it in its entirety, as it points out some common problems that may be encountered. Aliases can be modified by clicking on the "Edit Aliases" button or menu, or editing one from the Character List window. Clicking "New Alias" brings up a small window into which you can type the command you wish to use to send your alias text to the game. Note that you can use spaces in your alias command, though it usually makes things more complicated. Also be aware that if you make an alias that is named the same as a command in the game, the alias will take priority, and the game command will not be available to you unless it is part of the text sent by your alias to the game. In its most basic form, an alias allows you to send one long, or multiple, command(s) by typing some short word or phrase that you have set up. To continue with the food examples, you could make an alias called "food" that, whenever typed, would get a specific food item from your container and eat it. If you have opened the Alias Editer screen, you have probably noticed a field just below the alias list called "Argument Split Char". This is where aliases can become far more useful. You can make an alias that takes arguments and modifies itself before sending the commands to the game. These arguments are separated by the character(s) seen in that box. The arguments separated by the Split Character (":" by default) will be assigned to variables in your alias, noted by "%#", where the first argument is "%1", the second is "%2", and so on. This may seem a bit confusing right now, but an example may help clear it up. Note that the example assumes that you have not changed the Split Character from its default value of ":". If you have, just substitute your preferred character. Example #1: You have a fine collection of wands at your disposal, but
like to keep them in a backpack. You would like to have a single command that
will get any one of these wands from your backpack, zap someone with it, and put
it back. That's quite a few commands, when a single alias would take care of
this easily. Just make a new alias (we will call ours "bzap") and enter this
into the text pane: Now to activate it, you can type this: Misusing the alias arguments can result in unexpected behavior. If there is a %# in your alias, but you do not provide enough arguments, it will be sent as it was ("%2", for instance). See: Example #2: We will assume again your alias is called "bzap" Sometimes you only want one argument to an alias, meaning you would not use the Split Character. This is handled in two different ways. If there is a "%1" in your alias, everything entered after the alias text will be inserted in place of "%1". If "%1" is not found, however, the text will just be tacked on to the end of the alias. These may help explain (the aliases, again, will be called "bzap": Example #3: Inserting a single argument Example #4: Appending a single argument Example #5: Unexpected appending Command History The MUD client keeps track of previous commands you have typed and allows you to go back to them easily, simply by pressing the "up" key on your keyboard. If you happened to pass by the command you were looking for, just press the "down" key to go back to it. Auto-Clear Input There was a feature in Z-MUD, a popular commercial client, which, after entering a command, would leave the text in the input box. That way, you could type a command, press enter to send it, and then repeatedly press enter to send the same command. The text would also be highlighted, so that typing anything would remove it and allow you to type a different command. I never quite understood why anyone would want that to happen, but some very important people asked for it, so I added the feature. -- That's me! *evil laugh* By default, the input box will be cleared automatically each time you press enter, but if you wish to enable this feature, go to "Configuration" under the "Options" menu and turn off "Auto-Clear input". Command Stacking Sometimes you would like to send multiple commands at once, but don't want to mess with an alias or macro. In that case, you can just stack your commands. This is generally used in conjunction with the command history to execute a few commands repeatedly. To configure command stacking, choose "Configure" from the
"Options" menu. In the configuration screen is a section for stacking: a
checkbox to enable or disable the feature, and a textbox so you can configure
the character that enables stacking. Keep in mind that the character will
ALWAYS cause the commands to split, which is why you have the option to
disable it. For example, if you were to type a message with a common
emoticon (assuming the default character has not been changed): NumPad Directions When this option is enabled, you can enter directions using the number pad. 8=North, 2=South, 6=East, 4=West, 9=Up, 3=Down. Numlock must be on for this feature to work. Speed Walking Sometimes you want to get some place far away but don't have any way to get there with magic, and typing all those direction commands can be annoying. You could use command stacking, but there's a more convenient method called Speed Walk, sometimes called "paths". One string can send all the commands needed to get somewhere, even through closed doors! First, the option needs to be enabled (it is by default), and the first character must be a special character ("#" by default) that can be set by going to the "Options" menu and choosing "Configuration". In the window that appears is a checkbox to enable/disable speed walking, and a text box that lets you choose your own speedwalk character. The command is not case sensitive (upper and lower case are treated the same). The easiest way to explain how Speed Walking works is just to show an example: Example: entering the following command into the client You may notice that there is an "unlock" ('X') command in the middle. You would need to have the appropriate key available for it to work, otherwise you will not go through the door and may end up somewhere you were not expecting to be! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Features
