Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 11:17 pm

Wow, it's always amazing to go through the help files and see how much stuff is really in zMUD/CMUD.

Today I ported the help files for the #commands and %functions over to the CMUD manual located HERE.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the online zMUD topics were still a mess from the automatic conversion from the old ForeHelp Windows Help file system that was used in older versions of zMUD.

So, *after* I ported the topics, I then went through and manually edited each topic to remove extra blank lines and clean up the formatting. I then wrote another PHP script to take the newly formatted topics from CMUD and copy their text back to the original zMUD topics.

But just glancing at each topic and editing the formatted as necessary took over 3 hours. The real work is to go through each topic and modify it for CMUD and test all of the examples. This is going to take a while.

And that's what I am asking for help with. If you have the time and energy, go through the CMUD help topics and post a comment in the comment section as to whether or not the topic needs to be modified or fixed in some way.

If you are a zMUD Guru, then you already have write access to the topics and should feel free to fix any typos that you find, or to improve any formatting problems that still exist.

I'm going to focus my time on writing some of the new help topics that are needed for CMUD, such as packages, multi-window, settings editor, etc. I'm the only one who can really write these new topics and I think they are really critical. The updates to the commands and functions can happen over a longer period of time, and it's something that anyone can help with.

I'll be putting together a list of credits to show in the CMUD About dialog of people who have been really helpful in testing CMUD and in helping with the help files. I really appreciate any help you can offer, and I'm sure other CMUD users will appreciate it too.

But it's days like this where the ten years of work on zMUD really show. And it's going to take a while to get that kind of detail into CMUD too.

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I remember digging through all of those and trying to locate all the typos as well as suddenly getting the idea that, 'some little piece of syntax is referenced someplace else and really needs to have an example here so it doesn't get lost'. A few took far too long to locate those references. After three or four passes I finally felt things were right, especially since every pass had a different focus to its start, such as matching the reference to its wizard's report versus looking for typos.

In any case, I am sure I will get around to really digging into those files and apologize for my lack of useful activity thus far in CMud's development.

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:00 am

I wish there was a way into the knowledge base from the drop down menus at the top of most all the mages on this site, the side menu isnt always there, and even when it is its not an obvious route to get to the manuals.

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:20 am

Actually Shalimar, there is. Select Support/Documentation from the menu along the top. That goes to the main Knowledge Base page. If you select Support/CMUD Support from the menu, it will take you directly to the CMUD area. The Support/zMUD Support is a bit different and goes to a bunch of articles that I've never had the time to convert into the Knowledge Base format.

And Vijilante, yeah, your contribution to the help system was huge. It's too bad that we didn't have the web-based system set up way back when we were trying to exchange those annoying ForeHelp files.

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

There's three links in the top menubar that lead to the help files and knowledge base (all are in the Support menu). The first goes to a generic all-products page, and from that page you can then reach the CMud/ZMud specific sections. The second and third links lead directly to the specific sections.

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:51 am

Bah.. of course, the script that I wrote to copy the changed CMUD files back to their zMUD source messed up the zMUD files! When I converted them for CMUD, I had changed the internal links and every occurence of zMUD to CMUD. So I had to write *another* script to fix this and change CMUD back to zMUD and fix the links. I hope I didn't break anything else.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

Add the new commands. I tried to find #CASE and its not there that i can see. I will search again later. That is a VERY important command to document so people dont do unnecessary nested #IF or in the need of old script conversion.

I will try to find time to go through and post examples and or text fixes.

VARTYPE is the other that comes to mind since its inconsistant. using #VAR the wrong way can shift the variable type even though its not on auto from integer to extended string etc. So proper documentation on this feature would be nice to have in there as well.

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 8:30 pm

I think you mean the #SWITCH statement? (#CASE has been in zMUD for a long time).

In any case, yes, I have added the documentation for the new commands and functions today. So if you use the Get Updates button in the CMUD Help screen, it should download the new topics.

The %vartype function actually shouldn't be used yet. The problem with Autotype variables is a bug that will be fixed in the next version. Variable type should be transparent to most people just like it was in zMUD, so only use %vartype when you are absolutely sure you known what you are doing.

Magician Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 482

yes i meant switch lol my brain is screwy

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:22 am

Btw, it appears that the Get Update function is messed up somehow in v1.09. People are starting to report a crash when using it. Works fine in v1.10 so it must have been something I already fixed when I was messing with the help stuff a couple days ago. I'll try to get 1.10 out later this week.

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:55 pm

From my use Zugg, it still seems to work, despite the crash message. I don't know exactly what the crash does, but it updated at least some of the files for me.