For as long as I've been playing, I've been using the mush client, the most accessible client for a visually impaired player. Recently, however, I've encountered some errors that have affected the client that have inhibbited its usage. When I launch it and log into my character, I keep getting messages such as "Alias function "handle_GMCP" cannot execute - scripting disabled/parse error", or C:\Program Files (x86)\MUSHclient\worlds\Achaea\oracle.lua contains an invalid path. Not only is scripting enabled, there doesn't seem to be any folders missing as someone mentioned in the game. This is a problem because with out sound, it is impossible for me to play at all. Would anyone happen to know how to resolve this issue? Do values need to be changed in the mush client folder itself? Is it something in the client?

I like having sounds when I MUD, but I couldn't figure out how to use them with Mudlet. So I went to Nexus, which is generally good for me.

Alas, after a while, the sound just dies. All my triggers stop working. (I have one set to "You see exits" so I should get a beep every time I move. Perhaps I'm an odd fish, but I like the sonic feedback.) I try activating the background music, but nothing happens.

The last time this happened, I restarted my PC and it worked again. It happened just now, and I restarted Nexus and it worked. Any idea how I might prevent it from happening in the first place? Thanks in advance.

I've recently picked up the unnamable class with the dual cutting specialisation. As a visually impaired player that uses Mush Z, I am unsure how to utilize only 100 aliases with the many venoms combined with limbs. Furthermore, I have no experience with coding or scripting, so I am lost on what I should do. Does anyone else use mush? Would anyone happen to know how I could create a limb tracker with sounds so I may know when limbs are going to break? Are there other visually impaired players I should reach out to, since mezghar and glathna have retired? Is knolege of coding or scripting required to get the full potential out of this specialisation?

Geyser in Userwindows

Thanks to Edru2, it is now possible to put labels, miniconsoles, and the mapper inside userwindows! Userwindows in Mudlet are pop-up windows that you can drag around with your mouse, resize, or even move to another monitor. Previously, only miniconsoles could go into a userwindow.

Here's a demo of the chat capture EMCO working right inside a userwindow!

Sounds interesting? Check out the docs on how to get started.

Tooltips for labels and gauges

Continuing their roll, Edru2 added tooltips to labels and Geyser objects! You can now add a tooltip easily with mylabel:setToolTip("tooltip here"), check out some examples.

Stylesheet for the current profile only

Edru2 has also added setProfileStyleSheet() - an easy to use, drop-in replacement for setAppStyleSheet() that only affects the current profile and not all of the other ones as well. Super handy!

If you're a UI author, it is strongly encouraged to switch over to this new feature. You can easily handle old Mudlets that don't have this feature yet with:

local stylesheet = [[<em>my stylesheet here</em>]]

if setProfileStyleSheet then

   setProfileStyleSheet(stylesheet)

else

   setAppStyleSheet(stylesheet)

end

Explicit formatting for Geyser labels and gauges

Previously, if you wanted to format the way a label looks like, your only option was to use the format string every time you echo'd something to a label. No longer! Now there are explicit :setBold(), :setUnderline(), :setItalics(), :setStrikeThrough(), :setFont(), :setFontSize(), and :setAlignment() functions available thanks to demonnic's work on this.

Geyser child show fix in next update

Okay, that was a ton of Geyser improvements. Ready for one more?

In Geyser, when you hide a container, all of its children get hidden as well. Makes sense, right? However, there is a way you can still get a child to show - if you call :show() on it explicitly. This means that you can get a child of a hidden container to show up! This obviously doesn't sound right, and it affects things like anitimers working correctly.

We've fixed it - but in QA testing, we've discovered that a few UIs have been built that rely on this broken behavior to work: that is, getting a child to show up even though their container is hidden. As we don't want to introduce an update that fixes-but-really-breaks things, we've postponed this change until the next 4.7 release. Meanwhile, if you're a UI author, test this Windows / macOS / Linux version of Mudlet to see if your UI is affected and if you need to fix it.

All fonts unlocked

The setting for picking a main window font was previously only limited to monospace fonts, as those are the ones that we've optimised our custom-made text display for. As part of our internalisation work, we've added emoji and non-English letter support to the display as well - which now makes it good enough to be used with all fonts!

Non-monospace fonts in Mudlet still aren't perfect, and not all fonts are designed to be used for their letters, so beware. On top of that text games are still optimised for monospace fonts - those are easier to align text and columns with!

IRE Composer improvements

New function: unzipAsync()

Have a zip, need to unzip it? The new unzipAsync() function by Vadi will do that just for you! It also won't freeze Mudlet up while it's unzipping because it's asyncronous and multithreaded.

Notepad: now for all languages and emoji's

The notepad now will correctly store and load contents in utf8, allowing for all languages and emoji's to show up. Thanks to SlySven for making this work!

Mudlet $410 bounty for better screenreader support

We have an outstanding bounty of 410 USD to add screenreader support to our super quick, custom-made game text display widget - so visually impaired users can get game text read out to them. Interested in making some cash? Dive in, and join us on Discord to talk about it!

Are you on Mudlet 4.5.1-de?

Unfortunately due to a publication error, Mudlet 4.5.1-de will not automatically update to 4.6.0. Go to mudlet.org/download and manually install the new version. Don't worry - all your profiles will stay.

Credits

Thanks to all coders: atari2600tim, demonnic, Edru, Faenriis, mpconley, shacknetisp, SlySven, and vadi2 who made this release possible!

Thanks to all translators Gandalf07, Leris, Marco "M0lid3us" Tironi (wiploo), Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin), vingi, and Ömer Albulak (albulak) for translating Mudlet into their own language.

Changelog

added:

• Geyser objects (as well as the usual labels, miniconsoles and mapper) can now go into userwindows
• unzipAsync() function
• setLabelToolTip() and Geyser equivalents :setToolTip() functions

improved:

• tab order in connection screen now makes better sense (a11y)
• all connection screen input fields now have their names read out for a screenreader (a11y)
• Mud Client Media Protocol: Client.Media has been renamed to Client.Media.Default per protocol change
• notepad now works with utf8
• IRE Composer now handles \
• blinking text will now show up as italics (like in MUSHclient), as opposed to normal text like before
• all fonts can now be selected in main window settings

fixed:

• labels being really slow over the mapper window
• gmod not re-enabling modules properly on reconnect
• possible crash if you managed to close a profile without closing Mudlet while settings window was open
• module priorities not to get lost

1) For which modules is gmod.enableModule() required?

2) The main command line grows in height after receiving input for the first time, how do I fix that?

3) Is there any way to get an echoPopup to not show a tooltip?

4) Is there another way to reset Mudlet besides resetProfile or restarting?

5) How do you delete old permKeys?

Any suggestions? Something simple I'm missing?

Brand new package manager

Edru has been busy revamping how Mudlet interacts with packages! First up, the new package manager, as seen below, allows you to see a package’s description with additional details like images, links, styling with markdown, etc.

How do these descriptions arrive in new packages? Where do they come from? Well, we’re glad you asked:

Brand new package exporter

Edru has revamped the package exporter as well, making it much easier to create, update and (re-)export packages as well as add a description and other information to them:

Want inspiration for creating your own package descriptions? Check out some of these popular extensions for Visual Studio.

Scripting news

File watches are now in Mudlet! Wilk’s work allows your scripts to get notified whenever an external file is changed. This enables some interesting possibilities, such as editing code outside of Mudlet and having it show up live. (link to 45sec video demonstration)

Another great feature for multiplayers by SlySven is an improvement to the central debug console, which will now say which profile an information came from.

Leveraging that momentum, SlySven has also improved the multiplayed profile tabs so they can now be re-arranged as you desire.

Credits

Thanks to all coders who made this release happen – Andrew Eisenberg, Andrew Waters, atari2600tim, Chris Mitchell, Damian Monogue, Gustavo Sousa, Kamil Tunkiewicz, Kebap, Manuel Wegmann, Mike Conley, mudlet-machine-account, OzlynnJeez, Piotr, Serity, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin.

Thanks to all translators who contributed to keeping the translations up to date: Alan Sneath (alsneath), Hsin-Hsiang Peng (Hsins), Leris, Marco “M0lid3us” Tironi (wiploo), Matthieu (Jack_potta), and vingi.

Changelog

added:

• AdjustableContainerRepositionFinish event, change in AdjustableContainerReposition event
• file watch functions (addFileWatch, removeFileWatch) and event (sysPathChanged)
• getPackages and getModules functions
• brand new package manager to view your installed packages
• brand new package exporter to share your Mudlet things with others
• dreplaceLine, hreplaceLine as well as support for windows other than the main one
• getConnectionInfo() will now also say if you’re currently connected or not

improved:

• getOS() extended to include extra version (and for GNU/Linux, distribution) return values.
• new keys without a name will automatically get assigned one
• StickMUD will have the IRE mapper script installed by default for new profiles
• Discord toggle for Clessidra will work right away, without needing to connect first
• area parsing in XML files is now more resilient
• mudlet will no longer freeze when exporting really large packages
• top buttons in Mudlet are no longer monospaced
• profile tabs in multiplay mode can now be re-arranged by dragging
• debug console will now show which profile a message comes from
• clicking on the line # in the code editor will let you type in it
• mapper right-click menu will no longer hide custom items if you open it low
• saveJsonMap() can be used without a path, just like saveMap()
• you can add new variables in editor without having to click on one first
• cleaned up mapper right-click menu; it’ll only show items relevant to current selection
• unknown MSP elements will be skipped and Mudlet will do its best to play the sound anyway
• duplicate parent names won’t be included anymore when exporting/importing packages (but if you’d like to, you can right-click to do it anyway)

fixed:

• fixed crash when using MSSP with the * event handler
• clicking on a label/miniconsole in a floating userwindow will no longer steal focus from the input line
• changing tabs in multiview will no longer cause consoles to flash
• there will no longer be a line across the screen for a split moment when a new profile is opening
• searchAreaUserData() will work again when both key and value are provided for searching
• clicking on the timestamp will now visually select the whole line
• auto-complete will no longer try to complete on short words like ‘do’
• text will now longer be automatically deselected while typing with the spellchecker on
• –quiet command line explanation fixed
• cancelling a package download will now actually cancel it
• perm* functions are working well again
• getMapLabels() won’t crash when used on an area that doesn’t exist
• generic mapper update notifications will work well again
• miniconsole message if you don’t pass enough parameters fixed
• fixed nonsense message for when there’s no rooms in the map
• generic mapper will stop responding to the map opening after it’s been uninstalled
• code won’t run twice on setScript and resetProfile
• resize events won’t be emitted anymore if the size didn’t actually change
• getMapMenus() fixed
• small memory leak when JSON map export is aborted

infrastructure:

• added automation to auto-link Linux and macOS PTB to updater (#4861
• added tests for variable interface
• added support for building Mudlet in Docker on Linux
• added mpackage for testing cecho/decho/hecho and console transparency to tests
• added an automated check to verify improvements against Mudlet’s C++ style guide
• Qt 5.14.2 is now used for all official builds

If I want to track which limb I'm parrying in a window (or the limb I'm targetting, or just about anything), do I just trigger the line, assign it to a variable, and call the window, with the window itself displaying the variable ? I know I can use GMCP but I don't see any GMCP for targetting or limb parrying.

Or is there a better way? I'd like one that doesn't make a lot of unnecessary calls and whatnot. Would prefer an efficient re-write as that is half the reason I'm currently re-doing stuff. If there's a way to just throw it to the window or that one section of the window, without re-drawing the whole thing every time a value/variable changes, that would be preferred.

Multi-name city charging script

Lets you charge any number of dirty criminals all at once. Uses multi-line command, so be sure to set the command_separator variable if you have changed your in-game command separator from the default setting.

regex:  ^city charge (.+) with (\w+)$

local command_separator = ";"  --default is ;
local s = ""
local t = string.split(matches[2])
local name = ""
local i = 0
local c = 0
while c < #t do
  assert(c < 100,"overrun")
  i=i+1 c=c+1 
  if i == 12 then
    send(s)
    i = 0
    s = ""
  end
  name = t[c]
  s = s.."city charge "..name.." with "..matches[3]
  if i < #t and i ~= 11 and c ~= #t then s = s..command_separator end
end
send(s)

What is Mudlet?

Mudlet is a platform with which you can play multiplayer, pure-text online games – called MUDs, precursors to today’s online games. There are thousands of unique worlds online – download Mudlet for free on Windows/macOS/Linux, join one and enjoy!

New games in Mudlet

Cleft of Dimensions

Do you have a soft spot for an old SNES RPG? Are you a fan of retro gaming? The Cleft of Dimensions is an adventure-driven MUD with content inspired by a variety of classic video games. Do you want to jump on goombas? Maybe you’d rather immolate them with lava or bombard them with meteors. Then again, why fight when enslavement’s an option? If that doesn’t work out, you’ve got this motorcycle you could crash into them. The Cleft has 16 character classes, each with a distinctive playstyle.

Gameplay in the Cleft features exploration, puzzles, quests, and combat. At time of writing, the world contains 98 areas. Quests range from deciphering treasure maps and committing industrial espionage to seeking the blessings of the mana spirits or just going fishing. A remort system facilitates repeat playthroughs to find content you missed the first time around.

The Cleft opened in July 2000 and has been in active development ever since. We’re always innovating. Recent features include Discord integration and areas written with artificial intelligence. Check us out!

Core MUD

Core Mud is an interactive text MUD set on the planet formal star-charts refer to as Hermes 571-G, but that everyone in the know refers to simply as “Core”. Core is one of the most distant settlements known to mankind, most famous for its lucrative yet oppressive mines. But more than mankind can be found here; Core is a diverse group of 9 races in total, all vying for recognition or profits, or both, working for The Company, the megalithic entity running the colony itself. To The Company, everything is secondary to profits. It is up to you to determine how best to survive in this environment, whether that be through combat training, superior mining skills, or technical prowess.

Core MUD is always free to play and features a fun and supportive atmosphere. Roleplaying is encouraged but not mandatory. Mining is your primary source of income, but there are multiple ways to scrape together a few credits… or a few million. Core Mud also features an economy which is player-driven; players own merchandise shops featuring energy weaponry or useful tools, pubs featuring assorted alcoholic (of course) and non-alcoholic beverages, and clinics for healing, to name a few. Come join us today!

Want to add your game in here? It’s free.

Drag and drop link to install a package

Yes you read that right – just drag and drop a link onto Mudlet and it’ll download and install the package for you:

Carrion Fields UI

Alternatively, you can also drag and drop the package file itself and it’ll install as well.

New core dev team member, Delwing

Please welcome Piotr, aka Delwing / WilK to the team! Delwing has previously made the excellent web-based Mudlet map viewer, VS Code autocompletion for Mudlet, and with scripts for the Polish game Arkadia.

This time around in Mudlet, Delwing added room borders:

Along with a complete customizable map info panel:

And some very sleek-looking room selection:

You can also now customise the colour of the room character. Thanks to Delwing for adding these in, and looking forward to more!

SlySven has put a huge amount of work into the mapper as well – and it can now save/load in JSON as well. This is something that crowdmaps will find handy to integrate so changes to the map can be clearly seen as text.

View-only mapper

Thanks to ktunkiewicz‘s work, the mapper now has a view-only mode – instead of editing – and of course it starts off in view-only off the bat:

Map makers no longer have to worry about players messing the map up with an accidental click.

Profile autosave

We’ve listened and new profiles created on 4.11 will now save automatically by default! Something so simple can go a long way to a better player experience.

Named patterns

matches[2] and friends is a good workhorse in Mudlet, and now they’ve been joined by new friends – you can now use matches.mycustomname!

Before

After

Notice how the attacker and weapon are changing places, being either first or second – but that doesn’t affect our echo at all. Try this out for yourself, and find the docs for it here.

String interpolation

It sounds pretty complicated, but it actually makes things easier – a new function, f(), allows you to combine text and variables together in a more intuitive manner:

-- old way:
cecho("\nHello, "..matches[2]..", how is it going?")

-- new way:
cecho(f("\nHello {matches[2]}, how is it going?")

Coding improvements

Kebap has put a lot of work in and improved all of the “wrong argument type” errors to be much more descriptive, and they’ll now tell you what went wrong and where:

The function needs a name/id, but none was given

I have to say that on the technical side of things, this makes the code look much cleaner – if you’re curious, have a peek.

Additionally, whenever a function couldn’t do its job for some reason, it previously returned nil+message – the message will now show up in the Debug console as well, which can aid you in debugging:

Mudlet in Polish

Thanks to Delwing and Sirith, Mudlet is now available in Polish! There is a community of Polish games out there; now when a new player starts Mudlet for the first time, it’ll be in their native language.

Text games are a great way to learn a language, so if you were thinking of picking up Polish – now’s your chance!

macOS scrolling

Touchpad scrolling for macOS now behaves a lot more naturally, we hope you like it!

More updates?

Regular monthly updates were interrupted by one of our partners, Travis CI, suddenly turning their back on the open-source community. We’ve taken the time to migrate our macOS and Linux builds to Github instead, and in the process switched to using CMake for building in combination with a C++ package manager, vcpkg.

Regular, monthly updates are now back on track for the foreseeable future.

Credits

Big thanks to all coders who made it happen: Damian Monogue, Dustin Heywood, ethorondil, Gustavo Sousa, Jonathan Picazo, Kamil Tunkiewicz, Kebap, Manuel Wegmann, Matthias Urlichs, Mike Conley, Piotr Wilczyński, Stephen Lyons, tdk1069, Vadim Peretokin, and wiploo.

Of course, our fantastic translators as well: Alan Sneath (alsneath), Heimen Stoffels (vistausss), Hsin-Hsiang Peng (Hsins), Leris, lostnow, Marco “M0lid3us” Tironi (wiploo), Mi11et, Piotr Wilczyński, Sirith (Senareil), Vadim Peretokin, and vingi.

Changelog

added:

• ‘look’ command in generic_mapper can now be translated
• addCmdLineSuggestion() allows you to add words to the tab completion
• custom HTTP method requests are now supported (ie PATCH)
• debug console now shows warnings from functions (which are returned as nil+message normally)
• f() function for string interpolation, ie send(f(“My target is {target}”))
• functions are now accepted everywhere [[code here]] is as well
• generic mapper: new ‘lazy’ map mode to match room names only, ignoring exits
• getProfileTabNumber() to return the # of the current tab
• getWindowWrap() so you can make echo’s that don’t wrap
• registerMapInfo() allows you to customise the map info label
• launching Mudlet for the first time ever? The input line will now have a placeholder text saying where to type the text
• map info box is now customizable
• modules can now be loaded before scripts in a profile with the -1 module priority
• named captures are now supported in regex triggers (matches.)
• placeholder text for command fields to explain what are they for
• mudlet.org/it/for our Italian players
• room characters can now be custom-coloured
• rooms now have borders in the 2D view
• saveJsonMap() and loadJsonMap() now support the Mudlet map format in JSON
• setRoomCharColor() allows you to customise the colour of a room character
• showNotification() to show an OS (computer) notification
• sysDownloadFileProgress event to monitor download progress
• view-only mode in the mapper, which is on by default
• X11 (Linux middle-click) selection is now supported
• you can now install a package by dragging the URL onto Mudlet

improved:

• ‘deleteOldProfiles’ now deletes old modules as well
• ‘no map loaded’ will now differentiate between actually no map loaded, and not knowing where you are
• Adjustable.Container now deals with corrupted save files and table for save slots
• all “wrong argument type” errors are now gone, will give an actual explanation instead
• c/d/hecho text formatting can do italics and bold
• connection dialog now looks better in dark themes
• default background color is now transparent, not black, in c/d/hecho
• default, unused profiles no longer require a confirmation to delete
• event engine can now pass large numbers through OK
• exists() function will now error on a wrong input type
• expired timers are now periodically deleted when you’re offline, instead of in bulk when you reconnected (which made Mudlet freeze for a while)
• getMapLabel() now returns foreground/background colors and the image as base64
• GMCP package names are now parsed in a case-insensitive way, per spec
• installing a package by dragging it into Mudlet will now give a notification
• installPackage will now return true/false indicating if it worked
• internal: history code is now a single code path, not duplicated
• italics and emojis won’t overlap each other anymore
• line spacer pattern now uses a spinbox instead of a free-text line edit
• loading a map will now choose a better folder to start in
• more functions will now validate their arguments instead of throwing an error
• name search function can now be customised in the generic mapper
• new profiles are not preinstalled the “send text to all games”
• script anymore. There’s a better package available now
• https://forums.mudlet.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=23023
• newline is now its own entry in the history buffer(edited)
• profile save is enabled by default on new profiles
• permGroup can now be used for keys
• removed all QPalettes from forms/dialogues, enabling stylesheets to cover more aspects of Mudlet
• response size limit is removed in HTTP calls
• right-clicking on a room will select it for the pop-up
• room selection now looks better
• scrolling is now smoother in general
• scrolling transition is smoother when screen splits using scrollwheel
• setFont() won’t work with unknown fonts
• settings dialog will now close when the button is released, and not pressed, as expected
• simplified unknown text for given encoding message
• small text under icons in the connection dialog is gone
• telnet options within subnegotiations are now ignored, instead of breaking output
• timestamps are now copied as well when they’re visible
• trigger patterns now have an explanation of where the text goes for newbies
• TTS won’t try to speak out <, >, and no text
• typing in the connection dialog will now highlight the relevant icons
• using Alt+O will now re-focus on the package manager if it was open
• you can drag left/right to increase selection after double or triple-clicking on a word
• you can now copy text from the update dialog
• you can now multi-select in the package manager

fixed:

• Adjustable container attached menu shows elements now on hover (or similar)
• crash with reloadModule()
• Discord link in Mudlet will now always work
• display() won’t freeze on Geyser labels anymore, can show _G as well
• export action isn’t enabled anymore in Variables view, as those weren’t exportable
• flyout labels will close when leaving the parent item
• generic mapper script: correctly handle ‘set player location’
• IRC ‘/quit’ no longer crashes Mudlet
• just one ‘about’ button will now be on screen, instead of many if Mudlet was left running for a while and an update was available
• Lua trigger conditions are now properly deleted when the profile is closed, fixing a small memory leak
• map labels for an area are now deleted with the area
• MXP playing MSP handles with no attribute names won’t crash anymore
• MXP tags with UTF8 strings are now shown correctly
• pressing Alt won’t steal focus from the input line anymore
• room exits that go off the map are now drawn
• some games appeared twice in the connection dialog
• speedwalk() in reverse mode won’t reverse the numbers as well
• tempTimer() won’t have a small memory leak anymore
• unhighlighting during control-selection now works OK
• module contents aren’t lost anymore if saveProfile() is called during load

infrastructure:

• CMake is now the primary source for macOS and Linux releases
• CMake build now generates translations properly
• PTB and snapshot builds now get separate icons
• Apple has stopped supporting macOS 10.13 – Mudlet’s minimum is now 10.14

What has happened in Mudlet in just the last month alone? See below. This of course doesn’t cover everything since the last release in November!

set_variable("variableName", value)

get_variable("variableName")

delete_variable("variableName")

let obj = {
    key: "value1",
    keyTwo: "value2"
}

set_variable("obj", JSON.stringify(obj));

let obj = JSON.parse(get_variable("obj"));

FUNCTIONS

run_function("functionName", false, "Package name");

REFLEXES

let reflex = reflex_find_by_name("Group", "Enable/disable", true, false, "Bashing")
reflex_enable(reflex);
reflex_disable(reflex);

const index = current_line.parsed_line.text().indexOf(args[0]);
replace_current_line(index, args[0].length, " MONO ", '#8a8986', '#000000');

MORE NEXUS BASICS

GMCP 

if (args.gmcp_method == "Room.Info") {
    let room = args.gmcp_args.name;
    let area = args.gmcp_args.area;
    set_variable("currentArea", area);
    set_variable("currentRoom", room);
}

if (args.gmcp_method == "Room.Info") {
    set_variable('roomEnvironment', args.gmcp_args.environment);
}

if (args.gmcp_method == "Char.Items.List") {
    let mobs = args.gmcp_args.items.filter(e => e.attrib == 'm') || [];
    set_variable("mobs", mobs)
}

if (args.gmcp_method == "Char.Vitals") {
    let rage = parseInt(args.gmcp_args.charstats[1].substring(6));
    set_variable("rage", rage);
}

send_GMCP("IRE.Rift.Request");

if (args.gmcp_method == 'IRE.Rift.List') {
    let rift = args.gmcp_args;
    set_variable("rift", JSON.stringify(rift))
}

MISCALLENEOUS

display_notice(JSON.stringify(GMCP), 'gold')

NEXUS PACKAGES

UI DOCUMENTATION 

This release has been a long time coming, thanks to the vagaries of obtaining a new code signing certificate for our Windows builds. Consequently there are a lot of changes which made it into Mudlet 4.10. Let’s go over some of the highlights!

Extra command lines

To turn on a commandline in a miniconsole, see here. To create a stand-alone, free floating command line, see here.

Background images for miniconsoles

You know what else you’ve been waiting and asking for? Background images on miniconsoles! Edru has been on a roll!

This also means that the usual c/d/heho color formatting functions now accept transparency as a parameter. See here on how to set a background image.

This also means that you can try setting a background image for the main window as well – but you might find that games often hardcode the black background, so it’s not ideal.

Math in Geyser

Have you been struggling to get your Geyser elements lined up just right and wished you could nudge it over just a few pixels? Been avoiding Geyser and using another option so you could have math in your constraints? Well, now you can use Geyser and receive all of its updates and use math in your constraints.

This means for example if you have a 32×32 label you want to center you can do so by using Label1:move(“50%-16px“,“50%+10px“), or using “50%-16px” for both the x and y when making the label.

Other Geyser Improvements

Geyser.Label also allows you to use “nocolor” as the text color, which will then allow for coloring the text via CSS. It also picked up the Geyser.Label:rawEcho(txt) function, which skips over all the formatting assistance normally provided by Geyser.Label:echo().

Geyser.MiniConsole gains Geyser.MiniConsole:display() which works just like regular display(), but outputs in the miniconsole instead of your main display.

New color functions for feedTriggers

Multi-view forever!

Telnet CHARSET support

Game admins will be happy about this feature – it is now possible to automatically set Mudlet’s text encoding – for example, to be utf8 in case your game supports emojis – using the CHARSET protocol. Big thanks to Tamarindo from StickMUD for pulling that one in.

Music/sound in MXP

Tamarindo also went ahead and added sound/music support to Mudlet’s MXP implementation. That said, there’s a much more modern Mud Client Media Protocol that you should aim to use

Scrollbar improvements

macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Apple will stop supporting 10.13 High Sierra in November 2020, and Mudlet will have to follow suit. Thus Mudlet 4.10 will be the last version to support 10.13, which had a good run of 3 years!

Credits

Thanks to all coders that have contributed to this massive release: Andre Castellanos, Damian Monogue, Eraene, Fae, Gustavo Sousa, Ian Adkins, Jonathan Mohrbacher, Kebap, keneanung, Manuel Wegmann, Matthias Urlichs, Mike Conley, Stack, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin.

Thanks to all translators to translated Mudlet into their language: Alan Sneath (alsneath), Anubisa, emeraldboy, Hsin Hsiang Peng (Hsins), Kae (itsTheFae), Leris, Marco “M0lid3us” Tironi (wiploo), rodeos, rodeos, Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin), vingi, and 王AQ (Anselmus).

This massive piece of work would not be possible without all of you

Changelog

added:

• ability to display room names on the map (no auto-align them yet)
• an event to catch all events – `*`
• background image for miniconsoles is now possible, same as labels
• background image for the main window is now possible
• English spellchecking dictionaries are now included
• game admins can now set encoding via telnet CHARSET (so utf8 for emojis)
• miniconsoles can now have commandlines in them
• music is now supported in MXP
• option not to highlight text (history) when pressing the ↑ button
• option to use your own pathfinding algorithm instead of the built-in one
• you can now create standalone commandlines now allow you to ask the player for info
• transparency in now supported by cecho/decho/hecho
• you can now use math in Geyser constraints, ie “50% + 3px”

added & improved functions:

• ansi2string() given a string with ANSI codes in it, remove them all
• cfeedTriggers(), dfeedTriggers(), and hfeedTriggers() to enable testing color triggers
• createCommandLine(), enableCommandLine() for creating custom commandlines
• enableHorizontalScrollBar() to show a horizontal scrollbar in miniconsoles as needed
• getClipboardText() and setClipboardText() for interacting with the clipboard
• getFgColor() and getBgColor() now report how many characters the same color applies to
• getHTTP() downloadFile’s cousin and allows you to pass custom headers, joins putHTTP(), postHTTP() family for consistency
• Geyser.Label:createRightClickMenu() to create menus in labels
• Geyser.MiniConsole:display() to display straight into a miniconsole
• Geyser.UserWindow:setStyleSheet(), setUserWindowStyleSheet() to adjust the userwindow title and borders – great for dark themes
• hecho() can now set the background color only, without affecting foreground
• isActive() and exists() now work with buttons
• keepcolor parameter to replaceWildcard() and replaceAll() functions
• purgeMediaCache() to remove MCMP & MSP media files
• setCmdLineStyleSheet() to customize the font, colors, position of the command line
• setMapBackgroundColor() to change background color of the map from the usual black
• setMapRoomExitsColor() to customize the color of room exits drawn on the map
• spairs() which iterates over a table in a sorted way
• tempAlias() and tempKey() now can take Lua functions and not just text
• tempAnsiColor() trigger now works as it should

improved:

• ‘errors’ button text is now capitalized
• a message is now shown when a replay ends
• Client.Media – package messages themselves are no longer case sensitive
• compact input line option is now per-profile
• errors console now shows a horizontal scrollbar when needed
• exit line in generic mapper is now case-insensitive, and a few other triggers improved
• in case of compiling Mudlet yourself without TTS support, TTS functions won’t error anymore
• links at the end of the line now won’t be clickable in the empty space
• more accurate row and column reporting through NAWS protocol
• Mudlet logo artwork, now sharper and better-looking. Dev and PTB builds are now clearly distinguishable
• Mudlet’s savefiles are now saved with a more sorting-friendly name
• Mudlet’s usual, development and PTB icons got improved
• multiview tabbars aren’t re-arrangeable anymore, as doing so didn’t re-arrange the views anyhow
• profile history in connection dialog now translates dates
• scrolling now uses the upper pane’s height, so you aren’t missing text when scrolling, or getting too much of it
• shrinking rooms in the mapper will keep everything in its place
• string.split() now works with many more characters
• stylesheets can now manipulate color of Geyser Labels
• tabs and tab stops in profile preferences now make sense, which is a bit friendlier for a11y
• upped the limit of regex capture groups in aliases and triggers to 33
• zooming the mouse in and out in 2D mapper will keep the position more stable

fixed:

• ‘map config’ alias in generic mapper now works
• appendBuffer() now keeps links, so copying text with links in it to miniconsoles works
• crash when closing a profile with toolbars
• crash when selecting/copying text
• crash trying to move too many rooms at once via right-click
• fixed MXP with values containing =
• Materia Magica’s MXP now works better with Mudlet
• multiview now stays when you change focus between profiles
• resetProfile() to work again
• static items in HBox/VBoxes won’t be resized anymore when the box changes size
• sysDataSendEvent will no longer reveal the password
• vertical scrollbar now moves when you scroll with PgUp/PgDown
• vertical scrollbar now shrinks in size as you get more text

infrastructure:

• added some useful defaults for Visual Studio Code’s C++ integration
• building with libzip 1.70.0 that lacks version numbers now works
• cleaned up IRC code
• debug output now spams a bit less for unprintable codepoints
• deleted Github Action for clearing whitespace (more spam than help)
• enabled Github’s new CodeQL security code scanning
• fixed crash importing map with custom exit lines on Qt 5.14+ (macOS)
• internal code that only works with the main window is now in a separate class of its own, making the programmers happier
• Lua binding code cleaned up and improved for consistency and code style, now more fresh!
• Mudlet can now be built & run remotely in the browser with Github Codespaces
• Mudlet can now be built in MSYS2 on Windows
• Mudlet’s wiki is now upgraded to latest and greatest
• new PTBs are only built on days where there are new changes
• updated Linux builds to use Qt 5.12.9

This is an amazing release that adds drag and drop packages, custom cursors, draggable labels and more! Mudlet is now more powerful than ever for building stunning, modern interfaces for MUDs.

Drag and drop packages

Thanks to Edru, who massively improved Geyser and Userwindows in the last update, you can now drag and drop packages into Mudlet to install them. Pretty simple!

Credit: Eraene’s DarkTheme

Along with this comes a sysDropEvent, so you can code a custom action when a file is dropped into Mudlet. If you’re a package author, remember you can make use of the sysInstall event to notify that your package has been installed. Enjoy!

Carrion Fields added

This game has put together a seriously impressive Mudlet package and we’re honoured to have them added to Mudlet officially! Double-click on CF in the Connection screen to play

Carrion Fields is a unique blend of high-caliber roleplay and complex, hardcore player-versus-player combat that has been running continuously, and 100% free, for over 25 years.

Choose from among 21 races, 17 highly customizable classes, and several cabals and religions to suit your playstyle and the story you want to tell. Our massive, original world is full of secrets and envied limited objects that take skill to acquire and great care to keep.

We like to think of ourselves as the Dark Souls of MUDs, with a community that is supportive of new players – unforgiving though our world may be. Join us for a real challenge and real rewards: adrenalin-pumping battles, memorable quests run by our volunteer immortal staff, and stories that will stick with you for a lifetime.

Adjustable Containers

Edru didn’t just stop with drag and drop – adjustable containers are in as well! What does it mean? It means labels/miniconsoles that you can move around and reposition just by dragging! No code needed.

Try this code in Mudlet:

testCon = testCon or Adjustable.Container:new({name="testContainer"})
testLabel = Geyser.Label:new({x=0, y=0, height="100%", width="100%", color="green"},testCon)

Search within the script

Dicene also added a cool feature – you can now hit Ctrl+F to search within the script only, not your entire Mudlet profile!

He didn’t just stop there either – you can now toggle whenever you’d like to search within variables, default off so it’s quicker:

CP437 encoding now supported

Thanks to SlySven, the CP437 encoding is now supported. Along with a custom font, Medievia makes use of this to draw amazing custom maps

Check out a few more screenshots.

Custom cursors

Yep, custom cursors are here! Curious? Download, drag, and drop this demo package into Mudlet to try all the cursors out

Big thanks to Edru for adding these in.

New API features

gcms added MXP as another format that you can get data / events from, just like GMCP. Check it out!

demonnic did a pass over the table functions – table.contains() can now check within multiple nested tables, and table.collect(), table.n_collect(), table.matches(), table.n_matches() to make working with tables easier.

Thanks to Edru, you can now manipulate the syncing of a module with enableModuleSync(), disableModuleSync(), and getModuleSync(), and add/edit the Scripts as you see them in Mudlet with enableScript(), disableScript(), setScript(), getScript(), permScript(), and appendScript().

Edru also improved on the userwindows – you can now choose whenever they should be popped out or docked at start, and if docked, which area should they be in. Autodocking while dragging can now be disabled, too!

A few more improvements are also present – see the full changelog below.

Geyser:show() fixed

As mentioned two months ago, we’ve fixed an issue where you could still :show() the child of a hidden container. If your UI relied on this broken behaviour, make sure to update it!

Script editor sizes

Alias/trigger/script editors are no longer huge by default, and they’ll remember their sizes as well. Thanks to dicene for covering this off!

Polish translation ⭐

Big thanks to mwarzec for translating the entirety of Mudlet into Polish! In his own words, it was possible thanks to:

home.. sweet home.. and no reasons to go outside..

Did I miss 4.7?

We skipped 4.7 because that was the April Fools version

Credits

Thanks to all coders who made this release amazing! atari2600tim, Damian Monogue, Edru2, gcms, Ian Adkins, Jim Tryon, Kebap, keneanung, Mike Conley, Richard Moffitt, Slobodan Terzić, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin.

Thanks to all translators: DarkApocalypse , Dawid Chomaniuk (pd.chomaniuk), Jelle Z. (jelle619), Leris, Marco “M0lid3us” Tironi (wiploo), mwarzec, vingi, and thomazleventhal for their work in this.

Changelog

added:

• ‘sysDropEvent’ event that allows drag and drop over labels/miniconsoles/main window
• Adjustable Containers are now part of Mudlet. This means nice labels you can drag to move without having to code it
• CLI option –profile to load a specific profile on start
• copy2decho() and copy2html() utility functions
• CP437 encoding is now supported
• enableModuleSync(), disableModuleSync(), and getModuleSync()
• enableScript(), disableScript(), setScript(), getScript(), permScript(), and appendScript()
• getMudletInfo() to show debugging information about Mudlet
• Geyser.changeContainer() to change the parent of a label/window
• Geyser.container raiseAll/lowerAll()
• Geyser:setCursor(), Geyser:setCustomCursor(), and Geyser:resetCursor() (and non-Geyser equivalents) to set a custom cursor over a label
• mxp events and an ‘mxp.’ table for MXP content (similar to GMCP)
• set/resetMapWindowTitle() to change the name of the mapper
• set/resetUserWindowTitle() and shorter titles by default
• setFgColor() for Gauges
• setWindow() to change the parent of a label/window
• table.collect(), table.n_collect(), table.matches(), table.n_matches() to make working with tables easier
• you can now drag and drop packages into Mudlet to install them!
• you can now search just within the script, and not the whole of Mudlet, with Ctrl+F. Enter/Shift+Enter navigate results
• Mapper is a Geyser object now as well under Geyser.Mapper

improved:

• echo() is now limited to 10k characters on a single line
• Geyser:setOnEnter/setOnLeave() now support tables of arguments like other functions
• setLabelClick and others now accept Lua functions directly
• 3D mapper is only loaded when clicked on now
• Mudlet’s language is auto-detected and set for new players automatically
• Noto Font only included where it’s useful (Linux), smaller Mudlet size for macOS and Windows
• searching for variables in editor is now optional and defaults to off (faster search)
• setConsoleBufferSize() won’t allow you to set the limit to be bigger than your computer’s/processes memory anymore
• splash screens are now different for official / dev / public test build versions
• table.contains() can now check for multiple items
• tempComplexRegexTrigger() won’t throw an error if expiration is set to 0
• the collapse/expand icon for search is now sharper
• there’s now a frame around the search line in Mudlet
• trigger/script/etc sizes in the editor are now better by default and will remember their position
• updated algorithm for calculating the width of a character
• updated Noto Font to a newer version
• updater window now mentions ‘update’ explicitly
• UserWindows: you can now choose dockPosition on start
• UserWindows: you can now disable automatic docking
• removed getMudletLuaDefaultPaths(). This is a rare case where nobody at all was using the function and it wasn’t needed, so no backwards compat is broken

fixed:

• echoLink() fixed to show text right away
• logging in other languages will now record characters properly
• MXP now handles &text; tag correctly
• toolbar turning black on old macOS when 3D mapper window is opened
• many issues with Geyser Flyout labels fixed
• Geyser:show() won’t allow showing children of a hidden parent anymore

infrastructure:

• big thanks to TheFae for refreshing the frontpage and the downloads page on the website
• added use of Github Actions to automate infrastructure tasks (updating dependencies, translations, etc)
• added use of Github Actions to build Mudlet in macOS and Windows
• createButton() deprecated, now uses an internal wrapper
• text available for translation improved, some \n’s removed

This is just half of what went into this two-month release. Seems interesting? Join our team! All are welcome