Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 9:58 pm

Today I took a look at the mapper in CMUD. And honestly, I could not get it to fail. Some people have reported problems with the mapper when the window is docked, but I couldn't get it to fail. I was able to delete rooms, and I was able to use the #FIND command without any problems. Any problems that I had were MUD related (like the weather changing on Imperian and making it no longer recognize the rooms that I had mapped).

I think the problem most people are having with using the mapper is that they don't have the "English Directions" package loaded. Select the Edit Session action and go to the Files tab. Make sure English Directions is listed in the package list. If it's not listed, click the + button and then open the English Directions.pkg file. Of course, if you are on a non-English MUD, then use a package that defines directions for whatever language your MUD uses.

In zMUD, these English Directions were loaded as part of the default settings. CMUD splits these settings into different packages to make it easier for people to change their settings (like removing the English Keypad package to remove the default macros assigned to the keypad, use a different set of language files, etc). But for some reason, some people are using sessions without these default packages loaded.

I don't know how sessions got created without these packages in the default loading list. It might be something left over from sessions created in previous beta versions of CMUD.

If you have other mapper problems that are not caused by this English Directions package issue, then please post here.

Remember that the mapper code in CMUD is the same as the mapper in zMUD. Thus, if the mapper in zMUD doesn't work on your MUD, then the mapper in CMUD isn't going to be any better. The vast majority of mapper problems are caused by bad mapper configurations, or tricky MUDs that make it hard to map on purpose. I can't help much with that.

I also think people are confused about this "mapper rewrite for CMUD" project. I am not planning a full scale "rewrite" at this time. What I'm planning is to eventually replace the Microsoft MDAC/ADO database system used for the map databases with the SQLite SQL database system that is used elsewhere in CMUD. This change should be transparent to the user. Thus, even after the "rewrite", the mapper is going to look and work mostly the same as it does now.

With that said, I do plan for some other enhancements to the mapper later in the year. But I'm not ready to talk about those details yet. I wanted to make sure that people really understood what I meant by a "mapper rewrite" and weren't waiting for something completely new.

If you have a MUD that is hard to map, please create a separate topic and we can try to help you with it. There are many commands in CMUD that you can use to get the mapper working properly. Keep in mind that every MUD is different and it's impossible for the mapper to automatically handle every situation. So, it's common to require some custom tweaking for the mapper to work on your particular MUD.

Finally, when posting problems with the mapper in CMUD, be sure to be as detailed as possible. Explain exactly what you are doing and what the mapper is doing wrong. Also note whether or not undocking the mapper window helps or not.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

My only problem with the mapper at this time is that zMapper has not been usable as a plugin so far. I make extensive use of zMapper during the mapping process in zMud. Until it is once again available I really can't properly compile any of my map scripts. Since they don't compile correctly I actually have no working map, my scripts control everything in the map.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:35 pm

I have already sent most of my major mapper errors to you via send feedback option. The only other problem I've had (and this is minor) is that issuing a recall command does not update the mapper to the recall location (whether it is docked or undocked).

Newbie Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1

I found a bug with the automapper that causes my CMUD to crash every time.

First i do Config > New Configuration or reconfigure.

Then if I click the helpbutton it freezes

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

1)autoconfigure (and general mapper GUI?) issues, pretty sure this is lurking in the bug database, though

EDIT: figured I'd be more specific, I meant that the window doesn't seem to repaint itself very properly--buttons still retain their mouseover highlighting, hidden buttons become visible, etc.

2)MapDir character (>) does not work. Sent to MUD as plain text and thus unknown command error from MUD (in case you were wondering, this basically makes mapping a Simutronics MUD virtually impossible).

3)VERY MINOR. Menus don't seem to be initially synced with mapper status (ie, all menu options initially ungreyed even if they require the user to select a room first). Fixes itself after use, though I dunno if the menus are really active or just look that way.

4a)Transparency option seems to create a very strange window within a window effect similar to an MDI form with at least two children (which are clones of itself). Though CMud doesn't draw them correctly anyways, each window seems to mirror the other in an inverse fashion (resizing one of the windows down and right will cause the window being resized to move that way while the window underneath will resize up and left)

4b)using the upper-left window icon menu (the one with the Minimize/rollup/etc options), the Close option (ALT-F4) will get rid of the transparency mess but seems to sever all traces of the mapper file from the character (just a blank window minus all the toolbars AND menus with the text Map for (your character name here centered in the window display area).

Not sure how to fix that without just deleting the character and starting over, so I guess I will stop for now.

Posted: Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:51 pm

Vijilante: Post an example of what isn't compiling. zMapper *is* loaded as a plugin into CMUD and the normal %map etc COM variables should all be available. But if it's a parser issue, I'll need to see the part of the script that doesn't compile.

Tech: Post a summary of your feedback. I've got about 500 items in the current feedback tracking system, and I'm not going to have time to go through all of those before this release on Friday.

I cannot reproduce a problem with the #recall command. I opened a map, clicked on a room, then selected Set Recall Location from the Actions menu in the mapper window. I then selected a different room and made it the current location. Then I typed #RECALL and it properly set the current location to the room that I had just marked as the recall location. I can't see anyway to make this fail.

Umilard: I'm not sure if it's really frozen. It is probably displaying an error dialog about not finding a help topic that might be hiding behind the rest of your windows. Try pressing ESC to close the error dialog and see if that helps. CMUD 1.24 has several bugs with the help system that are already fixed in v1.25.

Also, when reporting a problem, please let me know if you were trying to use the mapper with multiple sessions. The bugs with the multiple window/sessions in v1.24 could cause problems with the mapper. Currently, only a single mapper window is supported, so trying to load the mapper for multiple character windows will cause problems (and will still cause problems in 1.25...some major changes are needed to support multiple mapper windows right now).

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:02 am

Matt:

1) Not sure what you mean by "autoconfigure issues". If you mean that the UI of the config window has problems and isn't properly themed, I have fixed that today for v1.25. In 1.25 all of the mapper windows use the correct themed controls and should no longer have button painting/overlap problems. I'm assuming that is what you were referring to.

2) I'll see what I can do about the MapDir char, although that may be beyond what I can do easily before the next release. I've made sure it's on my bug list though.

3) Hmm, not sure about that one. The menus are tied to Delphi Actions, so if the menu item is enabled, than the action associated with it is also enabled. The enabled property for the actions is set when you select a menu.

Also, I just loaded the mapper and when it initially opened I clicked on the Edit menu and all of the items seemed to be properly disabled. So I'm not sure why I can't reproduce what you are reporting.

4a) Not sure what you mean by the transparency option. Are you talking about the option that is in the menu that you get when you right-click on the caption of any floating window? That option isn't supported when a window is docked, and seems to work fine when the mapper is undocked, just like with any other window.

4b) Can't reproduce this either. First, to get rid of transparency, you just select the Transparent option again and click the None button in the popup window. When I closed the mapper window using the Close option or the Alt-F4 option, the mapper went away, but clicking the Map button in the main toolbar brought it back again.

Maybe I've just already fixed something that was causing these problems. I'm really going crazy trying to figure out why people are having so many problems that I can't reproduce.

Beginner Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 22

One issue: When I have my mapper docked, and I expand the mapper so all the room names are listed upon the left... if I click upon one of them, it gives me the "An error has occurred in the application." It does not select the room.

Further, if I press the delete key to delete a room, nothing happens (it does work when I have a link selected, and the link is deleted). The right-click delete works, though.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:23 am

Ah-ha!!

OK, Caelin, first I reproduced the crash with clicking on the nearby list and have fixed that. And now suddenly I get the problem with not being able to delete a room just like you said. And the items in the Edit menu are dimmed when I try to select them.

So, somehow I've gotten the mapper into the failure mode that people have been mentioning. I'm almost afraid to touch it now ;) But now I should be able to figure out what is causing this. Thanks.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:27 am

Bah, I'm stupid...

The Delete option was disabled because the map wasn't in Map Mode! You can't delete rooms when in Follow mode...the map *must* be in Map mode. Once I switched to Map mode, then the Delete option was highlighted properly.

The Delete key isn't supposed to delete a room. This shortcut was removed because it was too easy to accidentally delete a room. You must select the Delete option from the Edit menu, or the right-click context menu. Even when I had a link selected the Delete key didn't do anything. So I think that was working normally.

Beginner Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 22

Glad to help!

(And being able to click rooms will be so very appreciated...)

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:32 am

Ah-ha! (Again! :)

OK, I was looking through the source code for uses of the Delete key. And I did come across something. The zMUD mapper code was trying to intercept the delete key in the global "form" keydown event. And yes, this Delete key was working in zMUD.

The problem is that when the mapper is docked, the "form" for the mapper is now the main CMUD form (that contains the MUD windows, etc). So the mapper window form's keydown event no longer fires. Thus, the delete key doesn't work.

Not sure how to properly fix this one. The main problem is that the map component itself doesn't accept keyboard focus. The map component is just a graphic box that displays the map. So, there is actually no way for the main window to tell that the mapper is focused (since it isn't). If anything, the zone pulldown box at the top of the mapper is the control that has the keyboard focus.

I don't want the map to have keyboard focus because I still want CMUD macros to work while the map is being viewed. So I'll have to take some other approach to this Delete key issue. I'll see what I can come up with. It should probably just be handled as a regular menu shortcut for the Edit/Delete menu option.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:33 am

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:38 am

OK, I found it. This is going to be a real pain. It's a problem I thought I had fixed long ago.

The problem is that Windows only expects a single menu to be active within an application at one time. When the mapper window is docked to the main CMUD window, there are now two menus...one at the top of the main CMUD window, and one in the mapper window. Even though you can select menu items in the mapper properly, none of the menu shortcut keys work (including Delete key).

I'm going to take a break and give this some thought. I hate to kludge stuff like this, but I'm probably going to have to do something nasty to try and trick Windows into looking at the correct menu bar.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:39 am

Fang: Yes, the Delete function already prompts. I was wrong...the shortcut wasn't removed. It just wasn't getting called because Windows is confused about which menu bar to look for shortcuts in.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 2:14 am

Zugg.. my recall issue was a silly one. in zMUD type 'recall' would issue the #RECALL command and I thought this was baked into CMUD as well because I never set the alias in zMUD and I never saw a setting for it. Why it never occurred to me to try #RECALL correctly is a question best lest to my psychiatrist. Embarassed

As for my mapper issue, it may actually be more a parsing error when I think about. I have a mapping trigger that works perfectly in zMUD and works 99% of the time in CMUD, but there is a particular room in the MUD that sends CMUD into serious trigger loop and some nasty parsing errors (after I disable the trigger loops it's spits outs the trigger statements looped to command line, complains about a stack error and eventually disconnects me from the MUD) There doesn't seem to be anything inherent in the scripts that would cause the problem, and as I said the same script (sans #PRIORITY call) works perfectly in CMUD. I included the script and the sample room description that could that recreated the problem consistently. I also sent you an email about it a while back.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I found my couldn't compile errors. They were a few lines of #SHOWs that I had in for debugging. I tend put such debug lines directly at the left edge so they stand out from the indenting rules to make them easier to find when I am ready to remove them. So with the compatibility report giving bad info about where the problem was, I got a bit frustrated a couple of months ago and just never really took the time to hunt it down. Sorry for the erronious report.

Apprentice Joined: 12 Mar 2005 Posts: 195

only one minor porblem im havin..

find room. do the search. the dialog window gets plonked on the bottom under my cmud window, so i cant see it and have to minimise to view and use it.

docked - goes behind
undocked - appears on top like it should

Apprentice Joined: 12 Mar 2005 Posts: 195

oh also if i click anything on the "nearby" tab i get this error..
(happens when both docked and undocked)

date/time : 2007-03-01, 15:36:08, 671ms

operating system : Windows XP Service Pack 2 build 2600
system language : English
system up time : 5 hours 27 minutes
program up time : 5 hours 18 minutes
processors : 2x Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz
physical memory : 200/511 MB (free/total)
free disk space : (C:) 214.05 GB
display mode : 1280x1024, 32 bit
process id : $a30
allocated memory : 65.29 MB
executable : cMUD.exe
exec. date/time : 2006-12-15 14:29
version : 1.24.0.0
madExcept version : 3.0b

callstack crc : $6e614378, $c8a6e277, $c8a6e277
count : 6
exception number : 5
exception class : EAccessViolation
exception message : Access violation at address 6E614378. Read of address 6E614378.

Main ($420):
6e614378 +000 ???
00cad09b +03b cMUD.exe MapNew 7015 +2 TNewMapF.NearbyListMouseDown
00505b48 +038 cMUD.exe Controls 4716 +1 TControl.MouseDown
00560b26 +14e cMUD.exe cxControls 2715 +22 TcxControl.MouseDown
0057667f +01f cMUD.exe cxContainer 3937 +1 TcxContainer.MouseDown
0057924a +062 cMUD.exe cxContainer 5770 +7 TcxCustomInnerListBox.MouseDown
00505be9 +091 cMUD.exe Controls 4728 +7 TControl.DoMouseDown
00505c4c +054 cMUD.exe Controls 4737 +5 TControl.WMLButtonDown
004fad68 +084 cMUD.exe StdCtrls 4468 +14 TCustomListBox.WMLButtonDown
00579848 +034 cMUD.exe cxContainer 6019 +4 TcxCustomInnerListBox.WMLButtonDown
0069e8a0 +020 cMUD.exe cxListBox 335 +2 TcxInnerListBox.WMLButtonDown
005058af +1df cMUD.exe Controls 4645 +53 TControl.WndProc
005095de +18e cMUD.exe Controls 6342 +33 TWinControl.WndProc
004facd6 +076 cMUD.exe StdCtrls 4447 +14 TCustomListBox.WndProc
0057941d +029 cMUD.exe cxContainer 5840 +3 TcxCustomInnerListBox.WndProc
005091b0 +034 cMUD.exe Controls 6237 +3 TWinControl.MainWndProc
0047f828 +014 cMUD.exe Classes 10966 +8 StdWndProc
77d496c2 +00a USER32.dll DispatchMessageA
0052e6f0 +0ac cMUD.exe Forms 6873 +13 TApplication.ProcessMessage
0052e737 +00f cMUD.exe Forms 6892 +1 TApplication.HandleMessage
0052e9d2 +0a6 cMUD.exe Forms 6976 +16 TApplication.Run
00d50f48 +088 cMUD.exe CMUD 316 +17 initialization
7c91312f +069 ntdll.dll RtlUnicodeStringToAnsiString
7c812b94 +0b6 kernel32.dll GetVersionExA

Beginner Joined: 23 Sep 2006 Posts: 22

Magician Joined: 23 Nov 2004 Posts: 364

i've had problems with the mapfilter within a zone, things like if i forget to clear the mapfilter in about 5 mins down the road i will get an error message forever until i control alt delete zmud from processes. if someone else has a more descript version of this problem and have had it, i'm going to try reproducing this and taking screen shots.

Beginner Joined: 09 Dec 2004 Posts: 10

These aren't really errors, more like nuisances.
I've noticed a couple of things with the mapper in c(1.24) vs z mud.

num pad
in z, i could tool around the map using the num pad even with the map focused. (while connected to a mud)
in c, i can't use the num pad to move around unless the main mud window is focused. if the main mud window is focused, the num pad works fine.

mouse wheel
in z, the mouse wheel consistantly zoomed the map, and that's what i want it to do in c, too.
in c, the mouse wheel sometimes zooms the map, sometimes causes the zones drop down to scroll (extremely annoying!).
it seems like when the map is first opened, it will zoom with the mouse wheel, but after a while it switches to scrolling the zonelist, and even clicking the map surface to try and refocus it doesn't restore the zooming.

maybe the zones drop down is intercepting the num pad key strokes as well as the mouse wheel?
personally, i'd just as soon get rid of the zone drop down if that would fix it. what's the point?

i just played around with it some more, and it seems that once that zone dropdown gains focus, it never loses focus. clicking on the map surface or anywhere else on the map window not withstanding.
closing the map and reopening removes the focus from the zone dd and the wheel zooms again.
even with the zone dd unfocused, the num pad doesn't work though.

Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 7:11 pm

NowhereMan:

NumPad: The number pad should still work with the map focused. I just tried it and it seems to work fine here. How is the mapper in CMUD docked (or not)? I tried it with the mapper docked and it still worked.

Mouse Wheel: Yeah, this is the issue with keyboard/mouse focus that I was talking about above. Since the map doesn't actually accept keyboard focus, the zone list can often grab the focus, and once the zone list has focus, then it has it's own routines for the mouse wheel. I'm hoping that when I resolve the focus issue and the menu toolbar issue that I mentioned above that the mouse wheel will also start working again.

But the zone drop-down is very important for people who have lots of zones. In zMUD, the only way to see the zone list was in the "nearby panel" on the left. And when the mapper is docked to the right or left of the MUD window, there isn't a lot of room for that panel anymore. So the zone list is a much easier way to select a zone. So I'm not getting rid of that...I just need to fix the focus issue.

As I said, the map itself doesn't accept focus (it's not a focusable Windows control). The only control in the mapper window that can accept focus is the zone list. So yes, once the zone list gets focus, it won't give it up.

The real solution to all of this is to make the map component a focusable control. But this is really something that will need to wait until the mapper rewrite since that's a complex change and not something I can do in just a day. Right now I'm just trying to fix as much of the easy stuff as I can before I go away for a couple of weeks.

Beginner Joined: 09 Dec 2004 Posts: 10

i had the map undocked.
once the map is docked, the numpad works for me, too.
i like having my map undocked because i have 2 monitors and i float the map onto a separate monitor.
(i can't remember how i lived with 1 monitor)

since you mentioned it:
i too have many zones. around a hundred, probably. i guess i'm just used to using the zones flyout and haven't tried using the drop down much. one problem i have is that half my zones start with "The ", which makes the drop down (and the flyout panel) less useful. i think it would be great if the list could somehow show "Graveyard, The" for "The Graveyard" so that i can click "g" and see it. i could rename the zones myself, but i have scripts that work using the name the mud gives to the zone, so that would complicate things. okay. got a little off topic there.