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KaVir · 04-01-2011, 05:36 AM

I've been working on improving the interface for God Wars II for nearly a year now, making it easier to navigate through a mixture of graphics, sound, and enhancements to the text. The following screenshots demonstrate my GUI using MUSHclient and Mudlet:
For the past few weeks I've been working on a snippet that adds the same feature support to other muds, and it's now pretty much complete. The snippet is relatively self-contained, and is designed to be easy to install and easy to use - I've added it to a few codebases already, and it generally takes me around 5-10 minutes (at least once I've worked out where the hooks need to go).

The underlying concept isn't new - muds like BatMUD, Maiden Desmodus, Primordiax, Archons of Avenshar, etc, have been offering graphical interfaces for a while. But those are handled through private clients and closed protocols. What makes this different is that it operates on existing open source clients, using an open protocol (MSDP) that allows owners and players alike to quickly and easily design custom GUIs for their favourite muds. You can see some of the interfaces my players have created for MUSHclient and TinTin++ , and .

A handful of other muds have also made progress in this direction - for example the Aardwolf MUSHclient plugin and the IRE Mudlet interface both work in a similar way. But implementing full server-side support is a non-trivial job, and many mud owners still view graphical interfaces as some sort of mysterious black magic that requires a huge investment of time and skill. While it's certainly possible to invest a lot of time into GUI work, even a simple interface can be a huge improvement, and it's something that can be achieved extremely quickly.

Here are a couple of simple proof-of-concept "themed" demo GUIs I created for other muds - they took me about 1-2 hours each:
Here's a slightly more fleshed-out GUI I created and then adapted - it took around 2-3 hours of tweaking to create the first one, the other two took only a few minutes each once I'd found suitable images:
In layman's terms, the snippet provides the following features:
In more technical terms, it adds support for TTYPE, NAWS, MSDP, ATCP, MSSP, MSP and MXP, as well as UTF-8 (using CHARSET) and XTerm 256 colors. The plugin is a Lua script bundled with some public domain images to get you started.

The Realm of War has already installed the snippet, while several other muds are currently in the process of adapting it to their needs, including Realms of Despair, SlothMUD and 4Dimensions.

If you're interested in using it as well, or just want to read more, you can . Even if you hate graphics, you may still find some of the other features useful.

04-01-2011, 05:36 AM	#1
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	GUI snippet I've been working on improving the interface for God Wars II for nearly a year now, making it easier to navigate through a mixture of graphics, sound, and enhancements to the text. The following screenshots demonstrate my GUI using MUSHclient and Mudlet: For the past few weeks I've been working on a snippet that adds the same feature support to other muds, and it's now pretty much complete. The snippet is relatively self-contained, and is designed to be easy to install and easy to use - I've added it to a few codebases already, and it generally takes me around 5-10 minutes (at least once I've worked out where the hooks need to go). The underlying concept isn't new - muds like BatMUD, Maiden Desmodus, Primordiax, Archons of Avenshar, etc, have been offering graphical interfaces for a while. But those are handled through private clients and closed protocols. What makes this different is that it operates on existing open source clients, using an open protocol (MSDP) that allows owners and players alike to quickly and easily design custom GUIs for their favourite muds. You can see some of the interfaces my players have created for MUSHclient and TinTin++ , and . A handful of other muds have also made progress in this direction - for example the Aardwolf MUSHclient plugin and the IRE Mudlet interface both work in a similar way. But implementing full server-side support is a non-trivial job, and many mud owners still view graphical interfaces as some sort of mysterious black magic that requires a huge investment of time and skill. While it's certainly possible to invest a lot of time into GUI work, even a simple interface can be a huge improvement, and it's something that can be achieved extremely quickly. Here are a couple of simple proof-of-concept "themed" demo GUIs I created for other muds - they took me about 1-2 hours each: Here's a slightly more fleshed-out GUI I created and then adapted - it took around 2-3 hours of tweaking to create the first one, the other two took only a few minutes each once I'd found suitable images: In layman's terms, the snippet provides the following features: In more technical terms, it adds support for TTYPE, NAWS, MSDP, ATCP, MSSP, MSP and MXP, as well as UTF-8 (using CHARSET) and XTerm 256 colors. The plugin is a Lua script bundled with some public domain images to get you started. The Realm of War has already installed the snippet, while several other muds are currently in the process of adapting it to their needs, including Realms of Despair, SlothMUD and 4Dimensions. If you're interested in using it as well, or just want to read more, you can . Even if you hate graphics, you may still find some of the other features useful.