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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:51 pm

Today I'm adding the Event support for CMUD. This is one of the remaining features that needed to be done before the public release.

In zMUD, there were some "special" aliases that were called by zMUD. For example, there as an "atconnect" alias that would be called when you connected to the MUD. The mapper also had various special aliases.

The problem with these aliases is that they don't scale well to the concept of packages. When you execute an alias, CMUD looks for the current alias with a matching name that is enabled and executes it. There is no way to execute more than one alias.

What we have discussed in the past for CMUD is a new concept called "Events". Events are sort-of a cross between Aliases and Triggers. They have a plain name, like an alias (as opposed to a trigger pattern), but when an event "fires", all events with the same matching name are fired.

To create an event, you use the #EVENT command:

Apprentice Joined: 29 Jun 2001 Posts: 198 Location: USA

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 12:30 am

Yep, there will be loop protection just like with aliases.

Apprentice Joined: 11 Aug 2006 Posts: 100

Will there be a predefined-event for the tick timer reaching 0/resetting, etc?

More so, what predefined-events will there be?

I have been waiting for these! *cheer zugg*

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 3:32 pm

Event driven MUD scripts! *drool* Like VB6 for MUDs. Twisted Evil

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

This is great! Now, I'll have to get started on converting my scripts to be the modular, event-driven, black boxes I've always wanted them to be!

Posted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 7:12 pm

The current pre-defined events are (these are just converted from the old at* aliases):

OnConnect - fires when connected to the MUD
OnDisconnect - fires when disconnected
OnExit - fires when session window is closing (CMUD exit, or manually closing the MUD window)
OnRoomEnter - fires when entering a room in the mapper
OnWalkEnd - fires at the end of a speedwalk in the mapper
OnRoomWalk - not sure on this one (it's the old atroomwalk alias), but I think it fires when you are about to leave a room
OnRoomCreate - fires when a new room is created

Adding events for the tick timer is a great idea. In fact, there are probably other useful events that can be added, so if people have more ideas, let me know. It's pretty trivial to add a call to an event within the CMUD code now.

I'll add events for:

OnTickWarning - fires when the tick timer warning is normally displayed
OnTick - fires when the tick timer expires
OnEverySecond - fires each second when the clock is normally updated
OnEveryMinute
OnEveryHour (we probably dont need OnEveryDay, do we?)

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

We can use #alarm for things like 'atmidnight'...

It might be nice to add a watch event to variables, but that could get complicated on the syntax I suppose. Still it could be nice to see an OnHpChange which can then do checks like if hp low, cast cure, etc...

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

Wonderful. This will make it a lot easier to catch the same action in multiple areas. If you've ever created a trigger that just calls an alias, and that alias does 3 different things, then events will probably make your life easier.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

A couple of other ideas:
OnRoomEdit - fires when a room is edited by the AutoMapper (not via #CALL %roomwhatever(, stuff)), e.g. when the Room Description was blank before and gets filled in. %1 should be the roomkey or something.
OnRoomLost - fires when the AutoMapper gets lost, i.e. enters a room that wasn't the one it was expecting. I think there is a message "Slow walk aborted" or something that gets echoed after a while under these circumstances, but it seems a bit silly to make a trigger for that. %1 should be the roomkey or something of the last known room.
OnRoomFound - fires when the automapper was lost but now is found(!), e.g. when you press the Find position button and it finds the room. %1 should be the number of possible matches, %2 ... %n the roomkeys or something of the matches. Or maybe OnRoomFind when there is more than one possible room match, and onRoomFound when there is only one?

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

Do any of the mapper events fire when you do a #FIND to update your position? Or a #TELEPORT?

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

OnWindowFocus

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

And OnWindowBlur. It would be nice if you could enable triggers when you minimize/leave the MUD screen (like setting AFK, or turning on an activity siren)

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:50 pm

I probably won't add any mapper events until I work on the mapper rewrite next year. It was easy to just convert existing "atalias" calls into events, but adding new events requires that I have a better understanding of how the mapper works than I do right now. The mapper is very complicated and it's been years since I worked on it, and now isn't a good time to spend several days trying to figure out how it works again.

For the MXP stuff, you can use the existing MXP triggers instead...they are much better for that kind of stuff. For detecting a change in a variable, use the existing Expression triggers...they work much better than they did in zMUD.

So, I don't want to create a ton of system events that duplicate too much existing functionality. But things like OnWindowFocus and stuff like that are good ideas.

Remember that in the settings editor when you create an event, you get a drop-down list of all defined event names, so we don't want this list to get too unmanageable.

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:38 pm

OnCommandLine - would let you know when the last user entered command was... you could have it turn off triggers and whatnot if you have not manually entered anything recently

OnMacro - same as above but for macros

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 3:18 pm

Shalimar: Not sure how OnCommandLine would be any different than setting up an #oninput trigger? And not sure what you mean by OnMacro.

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:19 pm

Zugg, I'd assume that he meant that onmacro "would let you know when the last user entered macro was... "

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:58 pm

Right, and that doesn't really make any sense to me. Perhaps he could post an example of what he is trying to do with such an event.

Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:22 pm

A system to check if user is idle or not. If one hasn't manually (typing or macro) entered any commands within a given timeframe, it could be used to turn off any classes that would break the afk scripting policies that alot of muds have.

Maybe on OnIdle event would be better suited?

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

shalimar,

I think we're being asked for suggestions about situations where events are needed. That is, where current scripting stuff can't do what we want it to.

Scripting aliases, variables, macros and triggers for when the user is idle is already possible for the most part. If you have a special case where an event is needed, please explain why it can't be accomplished with current scripting commands; or at least why creating an event for OnIdle would be vastly superior to using the-already-implemented scripting commands.

I like the idea of creating as many events as possible if they are neccessary (OnConnect), if they significantly simplify our scripts (OnTick), or if they are so broadly manipulated by most users that the need is evident (OnPrompt). I don't see why OnIdle shouldn't be an event except that Zugg is working on creating a stable client with basic functionality for public release. In my opinion, duplicating the functionality of current scripting commands doesn't make sense right now, unless there is something specific you want to accomplish and are not able to. I believe this is the point Zugg was making and I apologize if I'm off the mark.

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 7:35 am

I thought OnPrompt was an example of a custom event. Since you'd always have to raise the event manually via triggers.

Enchanter Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 698

Posted: Tue Nov 21, 2006 6:28 pm

OnIdle is a possibility for the future. But it's not a simple event that I can just add to the current code. I'd have to build in some code to detect when CMUD is idle, and add some sort of idle time preference. This is possible later, but right now I was looking for quick and easy events to add, like the OnTick, where the logic for it already exists. But I'll put OnIdle into the wish list for the future.

Beginner Joined: 06 Nov 2006 Posts: 26