Zugg Software :: View topic - Inherited Settings (Classes, Packages, and Bears Oh My!)

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

I'm having a problem figuring out, for sure, how to manage multiple packages. Or classes. Or modules. Come on, the documentation isn't very clear on this.

My situation:

I play on two different muds, but I have multiple characters on each. There's little point in duplicating triggers and aliases for each character on a server. For example, each mud should have a class for login triggers that is shared among the characters on that mud.

But it's not clear how I go about creating a Session for each character, and having Sessions from one mud or the other use a common "Login" package. When I tried, it seems that the Session is being called by the Login Package, not the other way around. You can see I'm very hazy about the dependency mapping that's going on here.

What I have so far:

As you can guess, Actaeon is the name of my character. I will have other characters, and they should each "call" the HarbingerLogin package. Do I have it set up right? Or am I completely lost?

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:00 am

No, you don't. Packages are represented in the package editor by tabs. In this case, you have two packages loaded - Actaeon and English Keypad. Which is strange actually, because if you have "show default packages" enabled, then both English Directions and English keypad should show, and if you have it off, neither should. So either the keypad is loaded twice, or directions isn't being loaded, and you'll want to sort that out.

Anyway. You have two packages loaded here, and you need three. You'll find "New Package" on the file menu, which'll create a new package and a new tab in the editor for it. Anything you want to share between characters should go in the global module that's in that package (one'll be created with the package). Then you add this new package to your other characters by rclicking on the session icon in the sessions dialogue (the one that pops up when CMUD starts) and, on the Package Files tab, clicking the green plus icon and finding the package. It'll then get added to the list to be loaded when that session starts.

However, having said all that, there're some things you won't want to share and, really, I think login triggers are one of those things. I assume you're using different sessions for each of your different characters, but even so, login triggers wouldn't be something I'd be comfortable having in a shared package.

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

Ok I've been playing around with it. I'm not sure I can explain what I want to do, but I'll try.

The first mud I play allows multi-linking in certain areas of the mud. So I generally have two players online there. Very often I will also be connected to the second mud with one character. So ideally I need to have 3 sessions, 2 of which are sharing one login package, while the third has its own login package. The two login packages are, of course, for each mud.

So right this moment I am connected with two character sessions on the one mud. This means I have two tabs in the main window. When I open the package editor, I can see 3 tabs there. One for each character, and one for the login package. The Login package is currently set to Publish Global. Not sure if that's how it is supposed to be.

I have not been able to figure out how to force the window sessions to use style settings from the login package. It seems to me that I could, but they don't inherit properly. I want to do this because the characters from one mud should have the same styles, and again I hate to have to change that for every character (I have 4 more characters to set up for this one mud).

Additionally I hope to have other packages shared between characters on a mud. Stuff like disarm, autoget, and some alias won't be unique. I'd like to centralize as much as possible. So far it's been difficult enough that I wonder if I'm going about it the right way.

What really really confuses me is that the sessions are also treated as packages. I have to keep telling new sessions not to use existing sessions as packages. That could get very hairy. Indeed, it seems to have caused some crashes already.

Also when I quit on character and wish to "unload" the package, I can't. It's still there as if the other sessions are going to use something from it. It's frustrating.

Any ideas how I really should do this?

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

Oh dear, and now I tried loading the Keypad package to edit it. 1) It still didn't show up as a tab in the Package Editor (as is shown in the last screenshot above). 2) It now shows up twice in the Package Pulldown and the "enabled" packages list to the right. Also it showed up under one session. I wanted to change it for both sessions. This of course led to another crash.

Seriously? What am I doing wrong?

Magician Joined: 17 Apr 2005 Posts: 496

To edit the keypad stuff, go to View > Show Default Settings. (And then remove the one you loaded, as it was already loaded when you loaded it.)

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

Wizard Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 2320

I don't think that window sessions can use style settings on an outside package. You'll have to change the style for each window separately.

Yes, Sessions are packages. They are just like other packages, really. The only difference is in how you use them.

Since I can't tell what you have put in the various packages, I can't tell whether you are doing it right. But it does look like you have successfully created two session packages and an external package. Yes, you should be able to have aliases and triggers like that in an external package which is shared by sessions. If you have multiple sessions using a package simultaneously, you will have to be careful to prevent one session changing variables and other things that the other session wants to use. I haven't actually tried running multiple sessions simultaneously so far, so I hope that others will be able to help more.

On the unloading part, I think you need to give a few more details.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 2:43 pm

Newbie Joined: 05 May 2008 Posts: 6

Ok, I think I understand what you've written Fang Xianfu. I'll have to reread it tonight when I get back to my cMud installation. Thanks!

I'm sure I'll have more questions tonight when I get back home, but this gives me a direction to go.

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 6:25 pm

As I stated in another thread, when I moved my package to a new location and tried to load it, CMUD turned the default packages, English Directions and English Keypad into tabs.