I'm trying to make a list of exactly which clients support XTerm 256 colours, as its not something that can be negotiated, clients which added it generally did so in later versions, and clients which don't support it do some strange things (some of them treat XTerm codes as colour-off, some as inverse or flashing, and some even display the control codes on the screen).
It seems that Mudlet Beta 15 fixed a crash bug with the XTerm colours, but is there a way to identify versions prior to that? Mudlet includes its version with TTYPE, eg MUDLET-1.0, MUDLET-1.1, etc, but I can't find any older versions for download to see what format the beta versions used. If I just check for "MUDLET-1.*" or later, would that at least avoid sending XTerm colour codes to any old beta versions of Mudlet that might still be floating around?
XTerm 256 colour
Re: XTerm 256 colour
I'm sorry, but you can't. Mudlet has identified as 1.0 since the very beginning and identifies as Mudlet 1.1 today. Mudlet 2.0 is going to be published relatively soon.
As to the 256 color crash of some pre 1.0 Mudlet beta versions: There have been 2 updates. The first one to fix a crash and the second minor one to fix 256 color background colors which were not always interpreted correctly, but I don't remember when I've fixed these issues. The second one is non critical.
In any case, it's nice to hear that you'll have a go at 256 colors. The only other MUD that I'm aware of that uses them right now is the ASCII art color gfx Mush http://8bit.memoryleak.org/. I've used this for some of my very early alpha testing. It's stunning and a must see.
As to the 256 color crash of some pre 1.0 Mudlet beta versions: There have been 2 updates. The first one to fix a crash and the second minor one to fix 256 color background colors which were not always interpreted correctly, but I don't remember when I've fixed these issues. The second one is non critical.
In any case, it's nice to hear that you'll have a go at 256 colors. The only other MUD that I'm aware of that uses them right now is the ASCII art color gfx Mush http://8bit.memoryleak.org/. I've used this for some of my very early alpha testing. It's stunning and a must see.
Re: XTerm 256 colour
Hmm, well do you know if many people are still using the beta version? It looks like there are two choices really, either enable 256 colours for all versions of Mudlet, or only for 1.0.1 onwards. If I go for the latter then players could still manually switch it on, but it would autodetect as 16 colour ANSI. I could also send them a message recommending they update though...
I've actually supported 256 colours since June, but up until now they've only been used for configurable options (eg if someone wants to change their colours for combat messages, channels, etc) - so if a player's client didn't support 256 colours, they just didn't set them.
But recently I've allowed clans to add colour to their titles for the 'who' list, so I'm trying to work out which clients (and which versions of those clients) are able to view 256 colours. Players can still set their colour mode to ANSI or XTERM (and probably MXP as well once I've sorted this out), but the default autodetects based on client.
A while ago I started working on a snippet that adds support for several mud protocols, but I got sidetracked and never finished it. As 256 colour autodetection is based primarily on TTYPE, I'm thinking it might make sense to add it to the same snippet. However if I do that I want to make sure I get it right before other people start adding it to their mud!
What would you prefer, to have all versions of Mudlet autodetect as supporting 256 colours (with the understanding that people using old beta versions of Mudlet may have problems), or to only set it 'on' by default for versions after 1.0 (requiring those using old versions to switch it on manually)?
I've actually supported 256 colours since June, but up until now they've only been used for configurable options (eg if someone wants to change their colours for combat messages, channels, etc) - so if a player's client didn't support 256 colours, they just didn't set them.
But recently I've allowed clans to add colour to their titles for the 'who' list, so I'm trying to work out which clients (and which versions of those clients) are able to view 256 colours. Players can still set their colour mode to ANSI or XTERM (and probably MXP as well once I've sorted this out), but the default autodetects based on client.
A while ago I started working on a snippet that adds support for several mud protocols, but I got sidetracked and never finished it. As 256 colour autodetection is based primarily on TTYPE, I'm thinking it might make sense to add it to the same snippet. However if I do that I want to make sure I get it right before other people start adding it to their mud!
What would you prefer, to have all versions of Mudlet autodetect as supporting 256 colours (with the understanding that people using old beta versions of Mudlet may have problems), or to only set it 'on' by default for versions after 1.0 (requiring those using old versions to switch it on manually)?
Re: XTerm 256 colour
Yes, it's better to reject 256 color mode for anything before 1.1.