Zugg Software :: View topic

Wanderer Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 68

Recently started on a new mud and zmud crapped out on me...so I was thinking about perhaps finally making the switch over to C before I get too entrenched with triggers, alias, and whatnot. Two quick questions, though...:

1. Is it still as buggy as its reputation would have me believe? Don't mind a few small things...but needing to reinstall it to get packages and whatnot working again when they die for no apparent reason...If that's true, I think that might be a bit much for me, heheh. So just how buggy is it?

2. Noticed two versions in the store...the pro one has ssh and advanced scripting support...what exactly is advanced scripting support?

Thanks,
asm

Wizard Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 1127 Location: London

1. It's fine for me now. My scripts aren't in the Larkin or Vijilante league but they're probably more complex than most and, while it has crashed on me a couple of times, they've not caused any package corruption. CMUD 1.34 wasn't usable enough for me to move away from zMUD (even though I'd had CMUD installed since v1.00) but CMUD 2.18 is good enough that I don't have zMUD installed at all anymore. Also, it's worth noting that 2.18 is the first 2.x public release, so Zugg should have a lot of feedback from normal users when he gets back from holiday, so you should expect to see the remaining bugs getting squashed.
In hindsight, I don't think 1.34 was quite good enough for the normal user but in my experience 2.18 *is* worth the upgrade. And there's always the 30 day free trial ;)

2. I've got CMUDPro and I don't think there's any 'advanced scripting support' that I can think of, where was the page that mentioned it?

Wizard Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Posts: 1265 Location: USA

Well, as for stability, my scripts are fairly complex and I must say that if I'm not causing crashes with my stuff normal users should be fine.
If you follow the tips in the conversion guide you should be far along the path to happily using Cmud.

Read the help files for converting between Zmud and Cmud!
Cmud is very compatible with Zmud but it is not the same program keep that in mind.

A couple more things to check when you convert.

1. Database variables containing string lists.
A. They DO work but there are new functions that you may wish to try.
B. When you convert your settings over from Zmud check any database variable that contains string list values to be sure that they still contain the correct values. If they do not I suggest deleting and recreating them.

2. Database variables referenced via @var.key.
At the moment there appears to be a bug that sometimes affects setting the value of a database variable via the var.key = value syntax. If you get an error that states %concat requires two arguments then for the time being it is suggested that you use the equivalent syntax '#addkey var key value' instead. Usually it looks like people are trying things like 'var.%1 = %2' when this error occurs. This would look like the following using #addkey.
#addkey var %1 %2

3. Concatenating things by placing them beside each other is usually a bad practice. varname%1=4 should probably be written as #var %concat("varname",%1) 4

As for the advanced scripting support. I believe you are talking about the added functionality of the Zmapper Com interface. I think Zugg also mentioned something about the database interface once he redoes that as well. Cmud Pro gives you the functions required to read and interact with a map that has been altered with the Zmapper pluggin. Note I said read and interact with. Not create a new one as if you had the plugin.

Wizard Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Posts: 1265 Location: USA

One more thing to note. If you are looking in the beta forum many of us have been updating across most if not all of the beta versions.
As such we are more likely to have problems with our packages because we have been well, using beta versions Laughing

People converting strait from Zmud will have to deal with the changes between Zmud and Cmud but will not have had beta versions installed on their machines.
CMud does not actually touch your .mud files from Zmud. It reads them and creates a new .pkg file. Any changes that you then make to your pkg files do not affect your .mud file or play in Zmud at all. Aside from spoiling you to the new features that is. Twisted Evil

Wanderer Joined: 19 Jul 2004 Posts: 68

Ok, those posts were helpful, thanks. Mostly considering switching now since I don't really have more than a couple simple alias's for the mud, which I hope will ease the transition. The page that mentions advanced scripting support can be found here. Wish it was more specific, but this thread cleared it up, I think.

Wizard Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 1127 Location: London

I think that page will need to be updated. It also mentions that CMUD includes a theming and skinning component which is no longer the case (it was 3rd party code and very buggy). v2 and upwards contain inbuilt support for Lua scripting which isn't mentioned there so I think it's just out of date now.

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:37 pm

I'll update the store page mentioned above when I get a chance.

The "advanced scripting" in CMUDPro that is mentions is the zMapper COM API that you'd normally need to purchase zMapper to get. This allows you to do more advanced scripting for your maps without needing to own zMapper. In the future CMUDPro will also include a more advanced API for SQL databases when the new database module is rewritten.