Hi! Welcome to the creation side of $MUDNAME$!
This document is just a list of tips and handy bits of information for
new $MUDNAME$ creators.
Bulletin Boards
As a player you probably noticed some bulletin boards in various rooms.
As well as the half a dozen player accessible boards there are some
20 or so creator boards. Some of these are general announcements of new
mudlib features, project developments, domain developments etc etc.
You are expected to keep up to date with all of the administrative/coding
boards because it is the main method of communicating important information
to creators!
This is not such a difficult task with the aid of the board master object.
This is your own private bulletin board which transmutes into any board
at your command. To get one type: clone /obj/misc/board_mas. This should
tell you that one was cloned and put in you. Unless something unusual
happens you should never have to do this again. This board is much like
other bulletin boards with a few extra commands. The main one is 'new'
which searches for a bulletin board with unread messages on it and turns
into that board. This means that a sequence of 'new' and 'r' repeatedly
will let you read ALL the new messages quite easily ... although it can
still be very time consuming!
Mailer
This is a command now. Type mail to use it.
Inform
Players get informed of log on events. Similarly creators get a whole
string of events to choose from. The easiest way to play with these is
to go 'inform all' and then turn off the ones you don't want as you
like.
Communication
As well as the usual player commands for communicating creators get a few more.
"cre" is for the creator channel. This prints to all creators and lords on
(well, those who haven't earmuffed it) in this form ...
Ember: look at /doc/new/concepts/newbie
Pinkfish: and don't forget to pat your womble too!!!
"cre @" is the creator emote thingy. Prints like ...
(cre) Ember blinks nervously.
intercre is the inter-mud creator channel. This is broadcast to
random assorted muds that are connected to Divided Sky ... you can get a list
using the "mudlist" command.
Don't flood the creator channels with random conversations, because we might
lose valuable question/answer sessions then.
Errors
In the course of programming you will invariably end up with errors.
These will _sometimes_ be printed out for you at the time they occur,
but frequently are not, or are only partially printed out. The full dump
of the error is put in /log/debug.log ... so the usual command to look
at what went wrong is "tail /log/debug.log" although sometimes the error
trace may be a bit too long for this in which case you run screaming.
Some people alias the above tail command for ease of use.
Arrays
Arrays are handy little things, but they have their tricky aspects. The
main one to look out for is that arrays are passed as pointers whenever
possible. What this means is that if you return an array or assign to an
array, you aren't making a copy of the contents, so modifying the new
array modifies the original. This is a subtle thing, and won't cause
problems often, but beware! If you are in any doubt, add a null array
onto your array ... this guarantees that you are working with a copy.
(something like: return sensitive_array + ({ }); )
Liquids
Plug for my own stuff ;) If you want to make something with liquid in
it, this is handled by /obj/container. Have a look at the doc "potions"
which is around somewhere in /doc (/doc/create/potions or some such).
The '!' escape command thingy
This is available to any player, but particularly useful for creators.
From the editor, or any place accepting input, you can escape the command
back to the standard command line by prefixing it with a '!'. This means
that if someone asks you a question while you're half way through writing
a message, you can (at the beginning of a new line) type
!tell pinkfish ahhh, that's clever
And then continue on with the rest of your message.
Note that starting a command which will use input (like more, or the editor)
like this leads to great confusion.
This file will probably be updated as new hints and tips are thought up.
Bingle on,
Ember
