Zugg Software :: View topic - ZMud Makes Me Go Berserk! (big image warning)

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

That is kind of a MUME joke, berserk is a way of fighting where you can't flee.

I have always had access violations when I edit buttons, and sometimes when exiting the program. It was never a mud problem till I started mapping Mume, now I don't get one violation but every time information is received from the mud. This makes the game unmappable and unplayable as I can not clear the notifications to close the mapper till the action is over and hopefully I have not lost everything.

Does anyone know why this might be happening?

Would anyone know how I can close the mapper or try to turn off active mapping with alias or triggers?

Anyway this is a hoot of a story, I am fighting a black bear and things are not going well for my slightly bold thief and my last command before ZMud locks me out of the game is "Change Mood Wimpy'.

Also you can see a problem I am having --- putting any old last command in the queue and I can't say have often I need to clear it.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Which version of Windows are you using?

You can use:
#MENU {Mapper|File|Map Off}
to turn the mapper off via script or the command-line.

I use some scripts to clear stuff from the map queue sometimes.

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

Cool, I saw that but I thought it created a menu.

I get so many errant commands in there, and I have not found an approach to #nodir-ing them out, maybe soon. Certainly I have not configured it best.

With paragraphs and the mapper, each line is a paragraph, then how do you choose an 'exits begin paragraph' if the room contents change before the exits adding paragraphs?

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Generally I wouldn't worry about clearing stuff off the map queue unless it has a direction in it. If it has a direction in it and it is on the mapper queue and it does not correspond to a movement, e.g. examine down, then your next move can be interpreted by the mapper as down instead of where you really decided to go. IIRC, this is what I generally try and clear off. I don't currently have my settings readily available so I can't see exactly how I do this... But I can tell you I spent many, many hours getting the mapper working properly and reliably on your MUD, but I finally succeeded (IIRC). One day, I might, possibly, create a nice self-contained package for CMUD. But that would be quite a lot of work (since my settings have lots of old scripts mixed in from development / testing, and I can't remember exactly how they work), so I don't know if I can be bothered.

OK, actually I do have my settings handy now, and I'm feeling very generous! Wink

I have an alias called AutoClearMapQueue in a class called Mapping, which contains the following code:

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

I think why I create rooms from the %lastcom in the queue is that the mud prompt is a > and that also is a shortcut exit maker, I think it will clear up if I can get the mapper to understand the paragraphs right.

Thank you for the script. I am going to read all I can get on mapping and try to understand the things available. Disabling all but directions sounds like it will work

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Yeah, well I'm not sure what you mean by "> is also a shortcut exit maker" but you need to take out > as a shortcut exit maker. What I can tell you though is that the whole thing is _ONE_ paragraph! I'm not sure how zMUD decides that we have moved to a new paragraph, but it might be a blank line or an indented line (neither of which are used here): I don't believe it detects that a line is substantially shorter than 80 characters width, because that would be a very unreliable method, and therefore it has no method of detecting new paragraphs on many MUDs. So even the Exits paragraph should be set to 0. For some reason I seem to have 20 as my Exits start line - no idea why. I also have two map configurations (well more actually, but let's simplify) - one with Room Descriptions and one without and I swap between them depending (using #CONFIG).

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

Yes, it is a blank line, I just read, that demarcates paragraphs. I have had ZMud assign any number of exits begin line, my current one is 10 I think.

I also see the words "defaults to >" in the below example and so I should be just able to change that to something less likely to confuse the process.

From "Shortcuts and Tricks" in the mapper section of help.

... Simply prefix the non-standard direction with the MapDir character (defaults to >) and the mapper will create the new room as you move. So, for example, if one of the exits from the room is "enter", simply type ">enter" on the command line and a room will be created and linked with the Other exit called "enter".

as an OT aside:

I was able to make a log player to improve my speed reading, though I needed a third party script to replace carriage returns with pipes. I think it might be interesting to try to create maps offline either triggering on logs or generating mapper instructions from visual dialog script. It is funny, I learned programming logic from that (VDS) little program's help file, and now have programmed in Never Winter Nights , Morrowind, and ZMud languages. LOL, I don't have a word of C.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

My log reader was supposed to help me by letting me re-use key macros for a second time while reviewing a past conflict and also to evaluate conditions at the insane speeds the mud was sending. These were the first alarm type triggers I ever used so I really have little idea what this logic is doing practically.

I think I will clean it up. It takes some megabytes of mud output and spams them out. I was debugging when I abandoned it but it does work with some other strange little files for balance.

I write novice and often silly code, and this script seemed ugly and particular.

an alias named ReadX

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

I see. My first thought when you said "log player" was "log reader", probably because I had seen the install file for a MUD reader for zMUD yesterday...

Anyway, a real-time log reader for z/CMUD would be nice. (Your one, as far as I can understand it, appears to work with random delays.) I already suggested something along those lines to Zugg for CMUD here. Unfortunately I couldn't get hold of any spec, or even details of how RMA logging worked. (CMUD does now include HTML logging and Timestamp logging, so it would be possible to make a player though.)

...

Well, I went searching for RMA logging again, and updated that thread! Wink

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

Just noticed on a reread you asked about my win version. XP Home Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600, it says, though I thought it should read sp 3?

*suspicious glances

I tried CMud and will perhaps buy it though I didn't, because I had the access errors with that too. I am unsure if I tried everything to run the program or just loaded a ghost code into it, I mean something bad that I can't see. Really though I suspect windows, my flavor came bundled with deeply insistent adware and I replied with impulsive prejudices.

I wanted a random cascade, spills of data and lulls to emulate my last mud's output, but was disappointed because such things follow action types and not data blocks, so the product appeared laggy. I would have to type the data blocks to have what I really wanted, still the idea of training offline was ok. I am not very good at combat.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

With the AVs (Access Violations), you might have a problem with MDAC (search the forums) or perhaps a dodgy map database? Do you have a copy of Microsoft Access installed? You can do a repair in that if you have it. You might need to fix MDAC... Try running zMUD with your map on another computer and see if it has the same problem... or if you can reproduce the problem in CMUD, preferably having tried more than one computer, and you have a list of steps to reproduce the problem, you can probably send the map to Zugg for him to have a look at... Or I suppose you could just send it to me and I could check it (I have MS Access).

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

Mine seemed to have appeared after changing the aspects of buttons, or when creating new buttons. I also got an access violation exiting ZMud after I got the AV (new term) editing buttons.

I am at MS looking at a yellow button which will check MDAC, my puter is so messed up it I found a file made by Recover outside the file table (I think it is called a table), I run Check Disk and it dumps the file back in the folders as a tmp, useless, then next time will delete the thing. When I think about my puter I imagine electrical chickens with their heads cut off. I reported the AVs to Zugg on a feedback dialog once. I will have to start with MDAC, later though, a 5 year old needs to conquer VVardenfell.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Hmm, if you get AV's without even using the mapper, you might have a corrupted *.MUD file... Might want to search the forums for that.

Adept Joined: 04 May 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Boston

I have tested that. I can have them on a clean install and text import after two ticks. I haven't really tried to re-create the errors. I suppose I should look closely at circumstances. Thanks for the suggestions and info :)