![]() ![]() MUSHclient also allows you to add your own out-of-band protocols, while Mudlet only supports 102, ATCP and GMCP. ![]() Protocols: Both clients support MCCP, but only MUSHclient supports MXP. MUSHclient also allows the images to be manipulated (rotation, masking, resizing, clipping, etc), and offers drawing functions as well, giving the scriptor considerably more power and flexibility. Graphics: Mudlet allows images to be loaded and displayed, but not much else. I plan to investigate this further in the future. Mudlet appears to be much more portable, although I admit my knowledge in this regard is only second-hand. Portability: Although MUSHclient can run under WINE, it's not perfect - I know a few people have tried to get my plugin working that way, but none have succeeded. I didn't like the Mudlet editor at first, but it's grown on me somewhat - although I do still like using my "usual" programming editor for MUSHclient as well. ![]() Mudlet requires you to use its own built-in custom editor, which can be considered either a pro or a con depending on the preferences of the individual developer. Here are my thoughts on creating GUIs for the two clients, based on my scripting experiences with each:ĭevelopment: In MUSHclient you create the initial plugin, then you can edit it with whatever text editor you prefer. But as you can see, the results are fairly similar: And it looks like I'll have to leave out the pie-shaped icon timers. It's still not entirely finished - I need to tweak the bar colours, add the multiple tile sets, the sun/moon icon and time, the hotkeys and mouseover/mouseclick stuff. I recently decided to find out if I could create a similar GUI for Mudlet, and the answer is "pretty much". One thing that will really make a big difference is if the whole frame background is cut out from one large texture image: I found this link, which has some great examples. That way, the elements in the UI that are changing will naturally attract the eye because they won't follow the UI color scheme. ![]() In general, it's worth it to define a color scheme which includes multiple shades of only 2-3 primary colors and make sure your entire hub design adheres to the scheme. A nice touch would be if you can include multiple shades of the same basic color. Busy textures tend to give an app a dated look, especially if they're also tiled.įor the minimap, i think you can't go wrong with solid colors - just tone down the vibrancy and make them more pastel, earthen, or just generally more muted. The textures are a bit too busy right now, which takes focus away from what's really important – the text window and the mob icons. One thing I'd recommend is choosing less grainy/contrasty textures for the hub frame and the map. Some feedback from a purely cosmetic/visual perspective: Keep it up - we need more and friendlier user interfaces that can get new players into MUDs. The map would need to be done differently (because of the room-based thing), but I have some ideas for that, which I may implement if there's interest (it'd be great for a generic plugin, as most muds are room-based). Many muds already have a graphical title, a background texture and borders on their website, and my intent was just to see how easily such images could be used to create a themed GUI. In practice I think a smaller title would work better, but this was just a quick experiment, and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. For comparison purposes, the SlothMUD website is available here: The graphics are from the SlothMUD website, giving the GUI a similar theme, with the layout designed to be similar to their flash client. It took around 2-3 hours in total (although I was watching TV and chatting online at the same time) - most of it was done in about half an hour, with the rest of the time spent tweaking the layout, troubleshooting a couple of problems carried over from my plugin, playing around with colours, and removing a load of unused code. 0: After chatting with Splork, I decided to have a go at creating a SlothMUD-themed GUI, to see how easily the plugin could be adapted. ![]()
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