Now that the communication routines are a lot smoother I’ve been able to test and debug more of the rewritten code. I fixed a bug in the new command interpreter and one in the string builder today. I also came up with a better way of handling per-area repop points so it’ll be a lot easier to set up new hometowns with race/class spawn points, especially since I’ve added repop point editing to the zone editor.
I spent today working through a handful of bugs in the new communication code in the MUD engine and fixing a few problems in the Basternae version 2-to-3 zone converter. Some of the text formatting still needs some work, but things are a *LOT* better now than they were before, especially with the network portions running smoothly and reliably now.
Now would probably be a fine time for a line count on the project:
Main Codebase:
98,868 lines total
77,254 lines of code (78%)
8,375 lines of comments (8%)
1,261 mixed (code + comment) lines (1%)
11,978 blank lines (12%)
Editor:
8,191 lines total
6,350 lines of code (77%)
1,446 lines of comments (17%)
8 mixed (code + comment) lines (0%)
387 blank lines (4%)
MUD Screen Editor:
1,137 Lines Total
876 Lines of code (77%)
185 lines of comments (16%)
0 mixed (code + comment) lines (0%)
76 blank lines (6%)
Since we last checked in, the editor has just shy of doubled its lines of code while the core codebase has shrunk a little thanks to a bit of recent code cleanup.
One of the things that was always a pain in the butt was creating and editing the ANSI color screens for the MUD intro, race and class selection screens, and the menu. With our new screen format it was actually pretty easy to build an editor specifically for Basternae screens. I spent a few hours today and here’s what I came up with:
(click for full image)
It’s nothing spectacular, but it does make the task of editing MUD screens a little easier. Since applications like TheDraw and ACIDDraw have been just about completely lost to the sands of time (and they were DOS apps anyway — yuk!), it’s hard to find an ANSI screen editor that will run in Windows these days (this runs on Vista and XP).
With the built-in “import” and “export” options it can actually be used to edit any ANSI screen. It only does foreground text colors, but it should do for now. I expect I’ll release it as freeware soonish since other MUD admins might find it useful even though the file format is specific to Basternae.
UPDATE: Yep, released it here: http://findmud.com/mud-screen-editor
I found and fixed a few minor bugs in the core MUD engine today. I also found and destroyed some duplicate code and unused functions.
I’m not sure, but I think about May might be a good time to put a server up. It’d just be for development until the game was in a playable state (read: had enough zones to make it worth playing).
Today’s improvements include editing of mob and object special functions and detailed editing of exits and resets (load commands).
I spent a while working on the zone editor again today, and the quest editing section is complete. Even though the version numbers I’m using are completely arbitrary, the editor is now at version 0.14.
No fancy screenshots to show today, but I made a lot of progress on the zone editor, with a lot of good progress on room, quest, and object editing.
There’s a ton of things in the MUD engine that use flags. Rather than go through and create a separate dialog box to edit each batch of flags, I’ve come up with a way that just lets me tell the flag editor dialog what type of flags it’s using and it will fetch them and populate itself. That means it only takes a few lines of code to be able to edit the flags on a mob/object/room/shop/exit/etc.
Here’s an example:
private void btnEditExtraFlags_Click( object sender, EventArgs e )
{
int value = 0;
bool parsed = Int32.TryParse( txtExtraFlags.Text, out value );
FlagEditor editor = new FlagEditor( FlagType.item_flags, value, 0 );
DialogResult result = editor.ShowDialog();
if( result == DialogResult.OK )
{
txtExtraFlags.Text = editor.Value.ToString();
}
}
This means that something that would have been an entire class (probably >150 lines of code for each set of flags) is now reduced to <10 lines of code per item.
Here’s the resulting dialog:
There’s a fair amount of behind-the-scenes code, but it’s still pretty easy and efficient. With this change I’m pretty far along on the zone editor. Sometime in early March I hope to be able to create a working mini-zone with it. After I declare it usable I’ll make it available for download.
One thing that has always been a little annoying is updating/changing the about box every time the program version or date changes. Here’s a neat little way to make it pull the values from the assembly info:
private void aboutToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Assembly assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
AssemblyCopyrightAttribute copyright =
(AssemblyCopyrightAttribute)AssemblyCopyrightAttribute.GetCustomAttribute(
assembly, typeof( AssemblyCopyrightAttribute ) );
AssemblyTitleAttribute title =
(AssemblyTitleAttribute)AssemblyTitleAttribute.GetCustomAttribute(
assembly, typeof( AssemblyTitleAttribute ) );
System.IO.FileInfo info = new System.IO.FileInfo( assembly.Location );
DateTime date = info.LastWriteTime;
MessageBox.Show(
title.Title +
” version ” +
assembly.GetName().Version.ToString() +
” released ” +
date.ToShortDateString() +
“.\nThis application is ” +
copyright.Copyright +
“\nWritten by Jason Champion (Xangis).\nFor the latest version, visit http://www.basternae.org.”,
“About ” + title.Title );
}
With the following AssemblyInfo:
[assembly: AssemblyTitle(”Basternae Editor”)]
[assembly: AssemblyCopyright(”Copyright © 2006-2008 Zeta Centauri, Inc.”)]
[assembly: AssemblyVersion(”0.9.0.0″)]
We get the following about box:
It’s pretty easy to customize it to grab other assembly attributes once you know how to retrieve them.
Not much to report today, but I picked up the basternae.net domain. Now the full trilogy points here (.com, .net, and .org). Yippee!