Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

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forral
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:03 pm

Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by forral »

Hey guys,

I just have a quick suggestion. I'm really only holding onto Windows to use MUSH/Portal to MUD, but since I heard about this client I'm anxious to switch over to Linux.

As such, I'd like to see support for importing configuation files/settings/aliases/macros/triggers from other file formats, namely the MUSHClient format (.mct) and Portal (.tkp). BOTH are now open source so it'll be alot easier to edit, and I think you guys have the capabilities to make it happen. Portal is older and quite a bit outdated, but MUSH has alot of scripting languages (like Lua) and is easier, in my opinion, to port over its settings. If I were a better programmer I'd help, but unfortunately I'm not.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how Mudlet progresses, since using MUSH through Wine on Linux is, at best, buggy, and Portal doesn't work well enough to use.

Many thanks,
Forral

(Look me up on Materia Magica if anyone wants to MUD! Forral is my character name!)

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by Vadi »

While it definitely is easier, it's a ton of work. Someone was working on making just an XML Mush importer (so the scripts wouldn't be adjusted for Lua funtions, which are different... just that you wouldn't need to input every new trigger manually) but I'm not sure on the progress of that.

Not the highest priority atm for the core development of the client (new display and mxp are the next programming goal, improved ui/manual and etc are the auxiliaries), but anyone willing is welcome to give a hand with this as it is useful.

forral
Posts: 3
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 8:03 pm

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by forral »

Thanks for your reply Vadi. It's absolutely understandable that this would be a low priority, as other things are much more important. Best of luck on the client, and I can't wait to see the new features!

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Vadi
Posts: 5035
Joined: Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:13 pm

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by Vadi »

See https://blueprints.launchpad.net/mudlet ... lient-port, Naftali and I made some functions which emulate MUSH ones - so porting the Lua part of scripts is easier.

Trilliana
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:47 am

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by Trilliana »

Ok, Nub question. Just take the script on the link, put it in a word processor, save as xml and import? (God I feel so dumb if that's right)

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Heiko
Site Admin
Posts: 1548
Joined: Wed Mar 11, 2009 6:26 pm

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by Heiko »

No, just copy the code and paste it into a new script item. That's it.

Iocun
Posts: 174
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 1:45 am

Re: Cross-client compatibility Suggestion

Post by Iocun »

One also should realize that such a conversion would in all likelihood not work optimally. Some things simply work differently in, say, Mush than in Mudlet and while it would generally be possible to directly translate one into the other, the result might be a lot uglier and less efficient than if the same thing was written for Mudlet in the first place.

I think the best one can do, as a user, is to try to keep pure Lua code and client-specific code somewhat apart, to make such translations easier. For instance, the whole "bowels" of a curing system, i.e. the part that decides what action you take in a certain state, can be written in Lua only, without requiring any send/echo/timer/trigger/other client-specific thing. Personally, I even use my own self-defined functions as variations of send/echo in my curing system, so that the actual commands send() and echo() are only actually called within the functions where I define my own variants.

This would make changing to another Lua-based client relatively easy, since I'd have to change the client-specific commands only in a few, selected places.

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