Zugg Software :: View topic

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Zugg, I know that one of your goals is to allow zMapper users to create a zone within zMapper and then using the export feautures output the zone into a format that can be read by a MUD, so I wanted to alert you to a possible problem. At least in envy codebases, and I think many others too, a room is defined somewhat like this:

#Vnum
roomName
roomDesc
roomFlags
exits

where exits may be empty or not. When it is not empty, it usually has the format:
DexitType
exitDesc
doorKeywords
exitFlags keyVnum roomVnum

where roomVnum is the room to which that particular exit leads and there are as many of these blocks as there are exits from the room.

The problem is that to accomodate this syntax, you would need to let the user run a query for each item in the recordset or make zMapper do this automatically. I don't know of a solution, but possibly a different syntax that when used in the export template, tells zMapper to get all record that match some field of the current one.

Hope you understand what I mean.

Kjata

Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2002 5:53 pm

Yep, you are exactly right. Right now, since you can only export one table at a time, there is no way to combine the room info with the exit info.

This is on my list to improve. The next version is going to have scripting in zMUD that I'm going to try out. It it works pretty well, then I'll be putting the same COM object interface into zMapper. And since I've figured out how to call the Microsoft Scripting engine, my plan is to allow you to embed VBScript (or JScript or whatever) into the Customized Templates for exporting.

I'll probably implement this just like ASP scripts. So, you'll be able to use <% script here %> and <%=value%> to output anything you want in the template.

The new COM interface has a way to grab the exits for a room. Yes, it might end up being a bit slow since it will have to query the exit table for each room, but I don't think it will be a huge problem. After all, the exit table is indexed by the room numbers.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Great.

This looks like it's going to be really powerful.

Kjata

Apprentice Joined: 06 Dec 2001 Posts: 131 Location: USA

Forgive me if I am being dense and potentially redundant. Kjata spurred my curiosity with her post. Whether or not making a zone in zMUD for export to a mud was your intention Zugg, it simply never occurred to me :P I hardly ever map so I really bought the mapper hoping it would be usefull to me and because I wanted to show my support.

How about a "what if?" to see if I'm following the idea here.....

If I have an export of a mud that looks like so:

Room name: Some Cool Room, Zone name: Some Cool Zone
Zone: [ 1], Room Num: [ 12], Creator: Aennor Lights: 22 V/AVG/TP:824/0/0
Sector: City, Action Code: No
Flags: *-<Don't Use> NO_HIDE
This room is watched by: [ 1111] - A Tower.
Description:
Blah blah blah.
Extra descs: 'banner sign' - 'poster'
Chars present: Aennor(PC), a warhorse(MOB), a city lamplighter(MOB), a woman(MOB),
a gray palfrey(MOB)
Contents: a fountain, a streetlamp
Exit north: To: [ 11], Key: [ -1], Keywrd: None, Type: NOBITS
No exit description.
Exit east : To: [ 10], Key: [ -1], Keywrd: None, Type: NOBITS
No exit description.
Exit south: To: [ 9], Key: [ -1], Keywrd: None, Type: NOBITS
No exit description.
Exit west : To: [ 8], Key: [ -1], Keywrd: None, Type: NOBITS
No exit description.

...... if I am understanding correctly I will be able to re-import it into the mapper database and create a map of it?

If so very cool! :)

--
Aennor the Paragon of Gratuitous Agony
Staff on WoTMUD
wotmud.org 2222

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2002 5:54 am

Umm, not really. I'm sure it is *possible* to create a script that would do this. After all, it's just a matter of parsing a text file and calling the appropriate routines to create a room, add exits, etc.

But what Kjata was talking about was zone *exporting*, not importing. The export options are very flexible already and will also allow scripting. But importing is a different story. In order to understand the MUD format, look at what zMUD already implements to automatically create rooms as you walk around the MUD. That is already the functionality you are looking for.

zMapper doesn't have any knowledge of the MUD, or it's output format, or anything like that. So it is unlikely that zMapper itself will be able to create MUD using that kind of free-form data input. You'll really need to use zMUD to do that.

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

Just for clarification, I'm a he.

Kjata

Apprentice Joined: 06 Dec 2001 Posts: 131 Location: USA

quote:

Umm, not really. I'm sure it is *possible* to create a script that would do this. After all, it's just a matter of parsing a text file and calling the appropriate routines to create a room, add exits, etc.

Well that's kinda what I meant. I'm talking about taking a text file with 100 rooms like that and inputting them,

Assuming I can handle the scripting (VB likely) to parse my file and so on, it should be possible? Each room has attributes and those attributes include exits to other rooms?

--
Aennor the Paragon of Gratuitous Agony
Staff on WoTMUD
wotmud.org 2222

Apprentice Joined: 06 Dec 2001 Posts: 131 Location: USA

quote:

Just for clarification, I'm a he.

Doh! Sorry.

--
Aennor the Paragon of Gratuitous Agony
Staff on WoTMUD
wotmud.org 2222

Apprentice Joined: 06 Dec 2001 Posts: 131 Location: USA

quote:

But what Kjata was talking about was zone *exporting*, not importing. The export options are very flexible already and will also allow scripting.

Okay call me dense (you won't be the first one. :P) but if you can do an export in a given mud's format, wouldn't you be able to reverse it?

Select from X where (blah blah blah)
Insert into X where (blah blah blah)

Yes I see what you mean that I could/should script/code it but isn't it just falling off a log easy to import it as well the same way?

And.... I'm not a coder so I could be completely off. Just musing here. )

--
Aennor the International Man of Misery
Staff on WoTMUD
wotmud.org 2222

Newbie Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 4 Location: USA

Zugg,

I've just noticed your reply in this thread which looks
very much like a problem that I am trying to describe at
http://www.zuggsoft.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8020&FORUM_ID=7&CAT_ID=1&Topic_Title=configuring+the+mapper+for+MU%2A+admins&Forum_Title=zMUD+General+Discussion

I am not succeeding wih this, would you possibly be able to give a few clues about how to start doing this? I have read the help files and so on but it is defeating me at the moment :(

many thanks

Newbie Joined: 28 Aug 2002 Posts: 4 Location: USA

Hmmm Zugg, now you're back, do you have a few minutes to give an example or two of how to achieve this?

thanks in advance...