[MUD-Dev] Re: Some thoughts on languages and users - was: Ma

[cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA (Chris Gray)]

[Adam W:]
:It seems that this would be a natural place to actually write the client's
:interface itself in mud-language plus a few commands to pop up different
:sorts of widgets, along the lines of tk/tcl perhaps.  I did something like
:this on my last commercial project.  The game's map editor began as a
:simple console where I could type commands and edit scripts (which were
:similar to shell scripts - the regular list of commands for interacting
:with the game map, plus a few conditionals/loops etc).  When everyone but
:me started whining for a mouse interface I coded up some simple slider,
:dialog, and button types that could have an attached script.  Thus it was
:pretty easy to do favorites buttons, or bookmark holders, or whatever,
:since each script could have its own local variables and such.

This sounds interesting. It would be incompatible with my current server,
unfortunately, but I do like the idea. I'll have to try to see if I can
build the Java stuff in such a way that I can enable that kind of greater
flexibility when the server is ready to support it. Hmm. Could work. Right
now there are special MUD-code routines called up in the server (they are
attached to the character) when certain user interface events happen (entering
a command line, hitting a numeric keypad key, clicking on a "mouse button",
clicking within a "mouse region"). That set could be arbitrarily expanded,
by just having a way to identify the event (as specified by MUD-code that
tells the client what interface elements to create), and then calling MUD-code
specifically setup for that event. The only real difference to the server is
that the classes are now MUD-code determined, rather than fixed. A client
with that kind of generality could easily be temporarily restricted to just
send the initial fixed set, until everything is up to speed.

Sigh - more work! :-)

--
Chris Gray   cg#ami-cg,GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA


-- 
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.