Mushclient Project Update - bigmap
Small post, but this is worth sharing. Nick Gammon has written a ‘bigmap’ plugin to go with the default Mushclient install for Aardwolf. Others have done similar in other clients, but keep in mind this will be available in a single download and install to completely new players to the MUD.
Combined with the stat window and small map window - this puts it light years ahead of the standard interface for new players whether that is the java client, fmud, telnet or even a mainstream mud client that hasn’t been configured or had plugins added yet.
The video itself is rough, but gets across the idea. The link below is a short movie file showing movement between a few areas and Mesolar with the bigmap plugin on. Notice that it shows the continent name at the top, coordinates at the bottom and minimizes itself when you leave a continent. If you cross the border between one continent and another, the screen is updated with the correct continent bigmap.
Development continues on additional plugins. Move updates to follow..
very well done, i think the whole project is a excellent idea, i personally have tried to convince rl friends to join aardwolf and they find it too confusing, hopefully this should simplify things for new players
just one question, what font is that?
Myrk
The font on bigmap is called “Dina” available at:
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Jibz/Dina/index.html
The font on the rest is auto-set by the installer based on screen dimensions. The copy in the video is fixedsys 9.
Thanks for the comment!
As a new player of Aardwolf, but a long-time player of MUD’s in general….let me first say that Aard is incredible. Hands down the best MUD I’ve played.
Secondly, the steps you are taking to make a native mushclient is a step beyond. I have never seen another mud do this. Great work.
I have installed the aard mushclient, and noticed something that makes it virtually unusable to me. I need a portable installation that doesn’t use the registry.
My situation is a little more complicated than this example, but this demonstrated my point…If I install mush on a flash drive, and take it to multiple computers, if the flash drive doesn’t get the same drive letter on every computer, then the plugins all fail.
Any chances of having a -portable flag in mush? or storing it’s reg settings in an INI file instead of in the registry?
i really would like to use the aard version of the client, but until that is done, I’m stuck with the regular version (which is great, but the plugins don’t work yet)
-AltReality
The Registry has been a thorn in my side for a while now, and you aren’t the first to comment. I did some preliminary work on trying to move registry stuff elsewhere a while back, so it probably isn’t a huge job.
Meanwhile there have been some posts on my forum about it. Search for “registry portable” - there are at least 3 posts.
See here for example: http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/?id=7713
A couple of people have a system of dumping the (appropriate part of the) registry to regedit save file, load that into the target computer temporarily, and then remove the registry entries later.
However as a separate issue, the plugins shouldn’t really be dependant on the drive they are on, although they may well be right now.
What we are working on is a “plugin installer” plugin, that is a single plugin that loads all the Aardwolf plugins in a subdirectory.
What this should do, with some luck and possible fiddling, is let you make a portable version, perhaps with no plugins installed at all. Then after starting it, you do a “load plugin” of the installer plugin (this could be an alias) and then let the installer bootstrap the others in.
I don’t think this will be an insurmountable problem - for now we’ll get a nice set of plugins, and keep this issue in mind in doing an installation process.
Thanks for raising the issue, we should probably have as a goal, that with the Aardwolf directory of plugins to hand, that everything else should install onto a totally different drive to where it was last time.
Wow… I never thought I’d see the day when I’d watch a MUD video
Well done, well done indeed 
Also very cool to customize MUSHclient like this
-V
Very nice Lasher! Good job!!! You have an idea when this big map will be added?
–>Nink<–