A WinSock-based MUD client
Version 1.0.6

Introduction

Hello, I'm Sam Denton.  My e-mail address is std@kodiak.com.  I really want to hear from you if you are having any problems what-so-ever with MudWin.  I also want to hear from you if everything is working just fine.  In particular, please tell me about your system configuration.

Caveat emptor.  This is a beta-test version of the software.  Not all planned features have been implemented yet, but those that have are presumed to work.  So far all testing has been done with Trumpet Winsock Version 1.0 Rev A.  Reports of any experiences with other WinSock implementations are welcomed.  Also, my testbed is a Packard Bell 25MHz 486/SX with a 640x480 8-bit color VGA and 4 MB of RAM.  I would like to hear of experiences on less capable machines.

Changes from the previous version

There is now a session log facility!  There are still a few glitches in the user interface, but the actual logging of the session works fine.  Under the Options menu item, there are two new selections Logging and Log File... to control it.  The second of these lets you create a log file and start sending a transcript of your session to it.  The first one is grayed out until a file is opened, but then lets you turn logging on and off.  If logging is turned on when you exit a session, it will be automatically turned on to the same file (overwriting it, not appending to it) the next time you connect to that server.  If logging is turned off, it won't be, and MudWin will forget the name of the log file.  Turning logging on and off counts as a change to your configuration, even if it winds up the same as when the session started, so when you exit you will be prompted to save the changes.

There is now a "scroll lock" facility!  There are still a few glitches in the user interface, but the actual locking of the session works fine.  The text insertion point in the session window is always kept in view.  If the point is at the very end of the window text, new text is inserted before it, and the window scrolls to keep it in view.  If the point is anywhere else, new text is still appended to the end of the window text, but the window does not scroll to show it.  Of course, this all renders the scroll bar practically useless, at least when new text is arriving.  If anyone has any advice to offer (particularly about the Windows Edit control not working as documented), please share it with me.

There was a problem where if you changed the background color of a session, and then scrolled backwards, the text overwrote itself and everything became a mess.  Also, if you selected text, the highlight didn't show up, so you weren't sure exactly what was highlighted.  Mea culpa.  I had done something a long time ago so that if you chose a dithered color for the background, it would look good.  I obviously never tested it enough.  Now the big bugs are fixed, but  the session will have two different colors for the background, solid where the text actually appears, dithered on the bottom of the window, below the last line of text.

Some small items:  The Edit menu item now has cut, copy and paste items for the command input area.  You could alway use the Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V keys to edit commands, but it wasn't documented.  Now it is, so don't say you weren't told.  If Local Echo is turned on, toolbar macros are now echoed, not just commands that you entered.  If you are running multiple sessions and data is received in any session other than the "active" one, you will be told via the status line.  The right mouse button (if pressed in a session window) will bring up a short list of things to do, similar to the use of the right button in an OLE application.  I have changed the icon for MudWin.  The old icon was pretty dorky, the new one is much nicer (in my opinion, and I did them both).  If you prefer the old one for the Program Manager display, it is still around and can be accessed via the Program Manager's File/Properties.../Change Icon dialog.

There is still no GUI interface to the automatic login facility; you will have to edit a file by hand.  Use a text editor to look inside any of the .MUD files saved by MudWin.  The first line should read [session] and the rest of the file should consist of lines of the form KEY=VALUE.  Add a line to the end of the file that reads autologin=TEXT.  As soon as a connection is made with the MUD server, this text will be transmitted.  So, if your MUD requires you to login by sending the word connect, your character's name (for example, Gandalf) and a password (for example, xyzzy), then the text should be connect Gandalf xyzzy.  Refer to the section on Macro Substitution for more details on what you can transmit.

About the menus and dialogs

Almost all of the pull-down menu items do something, but in a few cases they just pop up a message box telling you that the feature still hasn't been implemented.  In depth discussions about what all of the working menu items do may be found below.

The dialog boxes that you see on your system might look different from those shown here.  Although not required, MudWin will use the CTL3D.DLL to give its dialog boxes a three dimensional appearance.  If you don't have this DLL, don't worry;  MudWin is smart enough to get along just fine without it.