Note: we’ve pulled the 3.3 release as it has a crash issue – have a look at 3.3.1 as it’s got all the fixes!

Finally welcoming summer in the northern hemisphere, Mudlet 3.2.0 is here. Mudlet can display text in many other languages now, coroutines are available, and userwindows (stand-alone miniconsoles) have been massively improved!

Encoding in Mudlet

Veteran Mudlet developer SlySven worked to teach Mudlet to display text in Spanish, Russian, and many other Western languages!

Go to Preferences > Encoding to select the encoding you’d like to use.

This is the first baby step in enabling Mudlet to support internalisation. Choosing the encoding will help Mudlet display the letters right, but triggers will not work with non-English text and nor will some Lua string.* functions like string.len(). We’ll be adding these features incrementally and it will all be ready in Mudlet 4.0.

Coroutines

Lua coroutines are now available in Mudlet, opening up a lot of possibilities for writing your scripts better – check out the demo in the manual. Big thanks to the core Mudlet developer ahmedcharles for enabling this!

Script loss fixed

If you happened to insert an XML-invalid character such as 0x0 in your script, Mudlet wouldn’t be able to load it back in and lose everything that followed it. This has been fixed – credits go to to Buck in Discord for identifying the problem and SlySven for fixing the problem! 0x0 and it’s friends will now get saved and loaded just fine.

First time user experience

First impressions matter – whenever you’re getting your friend on Mudlet or someone is thinking of checking out this underrated thing called MUDs. Mudlets is now much better – on first launch, a welcome screen is now automatically shown:

We’ve also made it so the Connections window automatically opens up if you don’t have any profiles on autoload, and the last used profile is automatically selected.

There’s too much blank space in though, isn’t there? MUDs that get onto Mudlet’s default profiles list are ones that make a significant contribution to the open-source Mudlet project, or those that go the extra mile to add a great gaming experience for their players on Mudlet: mapper support and a UI package.

Userwindow improvements

Would you like to make your miniconsoles separate from the Mudlet window? Move them over to another monitor perhaps? Or make dock them inside Mudlet? You can with openUserWindow(), check it out. This release has improved a lot of things for userwindows – they’ll now remember their position when you open Mudlet, won’t inherit borders from the main window, and will close with the profile. Once you open a userwindow, you can use all the same cecho(), copy(), paste() on it just as with a miniconsole.

Thanks to the modest itsTheFae for his work in making this happen.

Floating toolbars improved

Floating toolbars – those that you can make in the Buttons view and stick buttons in – no longer spazz out when you click on the script editor.

 

Changelog

• added alert() function in case you need to alert the user for something
• added getServerEncodingsList(), setServerEncoding(), and getServerEncoding() to choose encodings from script
• added tempKey(), permKey(), and killKey() functions
• added ability to choose encodings (UTF-8, ISO*, and many others) in preferences
• added support for coroutines!
• added support for the telnet BELL code to have Mudlet icon flash/blink for 3s
• added loadWindowLayout(), saveWindowLayout(), and a boolean argument to openUserWindow() for controlling the layout of userwindows
• added mudletOlderThan()
• fixed a possible crash if you closed Mudlet profile while it was still playing a sound
• fixed being able to open multiple ‘About’, ‘Module Manager’, ‘Package Manager’ windows
• fixed clicking on floating toolbars interrupting the editor when clicked on
• fixed floating toolbars to close when the profile is closed
• fixed floating/dockable mapper window to close when you close with its profile
• fixed map auditing always complaining about a default area missing
• fixed save profile dialog to ask a proper question
• fixed userwindows inheriting borders from the main display
• fixed white-on-yellow search highlighting to be the normal black-on-yellow again
• fixed a crash if scripts used sysDisconnectionEvent
• fixed script loss when special characters (like U+000B) were used in scripts
• fixed lua-zip error when opening Linux AppImage
• fixed labels placed under the mapper window preventing clicking on the mapper
• improved AND/OR trigger tooltip to mention that matches go into multimatches[][] instead of matches[]
• improved borders settings Preferences – you can now set them to negatives
• improved first-time experience: connection dialog opens automatically and a welcome message is shown
• improved last-used profile to be autoselected when you open the connection dialog
• improved moved map format selection to be in map options
• improved Mudlet to autoload profiles much quicker
• improved performance inside code Mudlet by using multi-arg .arg() instead of chained .arg() calls
• improved userwindows to open in their last position on the screen by default
• improved connectToServer() to also save the parameters for the next time
• improved a bit of MCCP-related code with a cleanup

Credits

This release was brought to you by Ahmed Charles, Florian Scheel, itsTheFae, kbasten, Mike H, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin. Depressed by cancelled projects at work? Interesting in contributing to a project and actually seeing your work get used by people? Hop on board!

Random tip: you can use Unicode art in Mudlet! Try doing cecho(“°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸,ø¤°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸”) or cecho(“<green>(╯°□°）<dark_green>╯︵ ┻━┻”). You can find more examples over here.

Like clockwork, a new Mudlet release is here with a ton of improvements across the board.

Enhancement to multiplaying

A feature that’ll come in quite handy where MUDs allow you to play multiple characters at once – you can now have one profile talk to other profiles in your code. A new function raiseGlobalEvent() allows you to raise events from one profile that will be received in all other open profiles.

Show Lua errors in main display

Mudlet now gained an option to display runtime Lua errors in the main display, previously available in the Errors view only:

This would be an option familiar to MUSHclient users. To enable it, enable “Echo Lua errors to main console” in the “Main display” preferences.

Show script name in error message

If you defined your function that you used elsewhere in a trigger/alias/etc, and it had an error, you’d be met with a rather unintuitive error message like this:

This has been fixed now, and the error message will include the original script where the error comes from:

Much better.

Timestamps in logging

A new option “Add timestamps at the beginning of log lines” allows you to log with timestamps:

Additionally, timestamps will also be copied if you have the timestamps view enabled in your main window and use copy or copy to HTML.

Ctrl+click selection

You can now ctrl+click on a line to select it entirely.

Ctrl+S in the trigger editor

Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on macOS) has now been enabled as a shortcut in the trigger editor – so you don’t have to hit that ‘Save Item’ button every time.

Similarly, Ctrl+Shift+S will now save your entire profile to disk.

Pink keys

Key folders have now gotten their own colour in the trigger editor: pink.

Better mapper defaults

The mapper now has anti-aliasing, better room, and exit sizes by default so new maps look a lot more like what they should:

GMCP on by default

Having been thoroughly tested on many MUDs, GMCP is now enabled by default on new profiles – if your game supports it, Mudlet will enable and make use of it.

raiseWindow() and lowerWindow()

You can now raise a label or a miniconsole above all others with raiseWindow(), or lower it below all others with lowerWindow(). This can come in pretty handy when creating your Mudlet GUIs. Remember that the default Z-order of elements is the order they are created in, with newer labels/miniconsoles coming on top.

getMousePosition() added

getMousePosition() has been added, allowing you to know the mouse position (within Mudlet only) – this’ll help enable make dragging UI elements much easier.

Try it out for yourself on Mudlet 3.1.0.

sysInstall and sysUninstall events added

These are two very useful events for script makers: sysInstall allows you to do post-install actions and sysUninstall allows you to do pre-uninstall actions.

Useful applications of this include showing a help or a welcome menu as soon as your package is installed or removing your UI and resetting the borders back to default for your GUI package.

In addition to this, more fine-grained events are also available: sysInstallPackage, sysInstallModule, sysSyncInstallModule, sysLuaInstallModule, sysUninstallPackage, sysUninstallModule, sysSyncUninstallModule, and sysLuaUninstallModule.

sysSoundFinished event added

You can now tell when a particular sound has finished playing with the sysSoundFinished event. In addition to this, the limit on playing maximum 4 sounds simultaneously has been removed.

Behind the scenes

Infrastructure

We’ve been modernising Mudlet heavily. The Linux continuous integration environment has been updated to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and we’ve introduced automated macOS installer creation – this means anyone contributing to Mudlet can get a macOS Mudlet install for done for them automatically! This makes it much easier to code up a feature, submit it for inclusion to Mudlet, and get test versions of it in return for letting your friends test it.

Communi, the IRC library included with Mudlet, has also been upgraded to the latest 3.5.0 release.

Modern C++11 and Qt

We’ve put a lot of work into modernising Mudlets C++ codebase: the project is now using C++11, Qt 5.6, and clang-format automated code styling. This enables Mudlet to make use of really nice C++11 features like the auto keyword (letting the compiler deduce the type), ranged-based for statements (far more readable than iterators), and lambda functions (using a function inline – especially nice for small Qt slots). All of the code has been upgraded to use auto and range-based foralready, and most of it has been through the automated code styling – so if you’re curious about playing with Mudlets code using modern C++, have a look!

Start of automated testing

We’ve started on automated testing of Mudlet by robots – they’ll help raise the alarms should we break anything by accident. Teaching the robots doesn’t require any programming experience, so if you’re interested in helping us out, join us on Discord.

Pure Github development

We’ve now moved issue tracking to Github and setup a PR-based workflow. In addition to this, mudlet-lua – the Lua counterpart to C++ in Mudlet – has been merged back with the main repository. All of these changes reduce the overhead of developing Mudlet and make it a more pleasant experience.

Detailed changelog

A list of all the things changed in Mudlet 3.1.0 since 3.0.1, sans API changes which are detailed down below.

• added a new option “Echo Lua errors to main console” to “Main display” preferences, enabling you to see any runtime errors with your script right in the main window
• enabled MUDLET_VERSION_BUILD environment variable to set to set the build version information
• fixed a crash if you tried to copy a map to a profile that didn’t have one before
• fixed a small memory leak that would happen when you edited the regex of a trigger/alias
• fixed hideWindow() & showWindow() to work with userwindows
• fixed logs breaking if you changed from HTML to plain text or back while it was on
• fixed main toolbar buttons getting enabled if you clicked ‘Cancel’ in the connection dialog
• fixed many ‘chose’ instead of ‘choose’ typos
• fixed memory leak when copying maps between profiles
• fixed scrpt packages typo in settings
• fixed userwindows not being openable again after you’ve closed them with X
• fixed xml import/export getting map room/exit sizes wrong sometimes
• function parameters accepting QStrings have been tightened to QString constant references
• improved a lot of commented-out code and cruft has been cleaned in core code
• improved default mapper room size is now 5, exits 10
• improved errors defined in a script that’s called by an alias/trigger/etc will now also report the scipt name
• improved log button now has an X over it when logging is enabled to disable buttons
• improved QString handling to be more efficient with introduction of QLatin1String and QStringLiteral

API changelog

• added closeMudlet() to save profiles and close Mudlet
• added getCmdLine() to return the text that’s currently in the command line
• added getMousePosition() to return the current mouse position on the main display
• added getProfileName() to return the profile’s name
• added raiseGlobalEvent() to raise an event in all other open profiles
• added raiseWindow() and lowerWindow() functions to raise a label/miniconsole above all others or lower below all others
• added saveProfile() to save the profile
• added setHexFgColor(), setHexBgColor() which allows hexadecimal equivalents of the RGB setFgColor() and setBgColor()
• added setLabelReleaseCallback() which allows you to run a function when the mouse was pressed and then released on a label
• added sysInstall and sysUninstall events for when packages or modules are installed or uninstalled. In addition to this, more fine-grained events are also available: sysInstallPackage, sysInstallModule, sysSyncInstallModule, sysLuaInstallModule, sysUninstallPackage, sysUninstallModule, sysSyncUninstallModule, and sysLuaUninstallModule
• added sysSoundFinished which is raised whenever a sound stops playing
• fixed [c|d|d]echoLink() echoing to a specific window losing the format argument
• fixed crash using centerview() while not map is open
• fixed hideWindow() to close userwindows
• fixed showColors() text luminosity being incorrect in certain cases.
• fixed sysDisconnectionEvent from getting raised twice in certain cases
• Geyser flyout labels have been improved and are now nestable
• Geyser.Label:setReleaseCallback() has been added
• improved db:create() to be more resilient – now re-opens the db connection if needed
• improved echo(), feedTriggers(), startLogging(), setLabelClickCallback(), setLabelOnEnter(), setLabelOnLeave(), deselect(), resetFormat() to explain what the bad argument is and what it should be, instead of giving an “wrong argument type” error message or none at all
• improved echo(), setLabelClickCallback(), setLabelOnEnter(), setLabelOnLeave(), deselect(), resetFormat(), to return true on success or nil+error otherwise (error message just if one is available)
• improved permGroup() to allow creating a folder within a folder
• As part of the on-going process toward Mudlet 4.0 becoming more International and supporting languages other than English: Lua commands that accept user supplied text as arguments are gradually being reworked to gain the ability to process UTF-8 text. This and related steps are only at a preliminary stage at present but form a major component of the mile-stones on the way to the next major Mudlet release version.
• improved startLogging() to return the log filename and the logging status

Credits

Big thanks to Ahmed Charles, Florian Scheel, Ian Adkins, Jor’Mox, Kae, Nyyrazzilyss, Pavol Gono, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin who collectively put in 980 commits to Mudlet’s foundations. Shoutout to all the helpers in our Discord channels and and everyone who’s helped improve our wiki!

A quick bugfix release to 3.0.0 – if you haven’t upgraded before, now’s the time!

Search visible by default

Search area is now visible by default again, similar to how it was in 2.1. The redundant ‘Search’ button was removed to save space on smaller screens and a new collapse/expand button is in place.

Experimental map formats enabled

You can now choose to save your maps in versions 17 and 18 in Preferences > Special Options. Technically speaking, you could choose to save your maps in 3.0.0 in newer formats as well, but it then wouldn’t be able to load them – now it can.

Map format 17 allows you to use map and area user data functions – similar to room userdata that was available already. See searchAreaUserData(), setAreaUserData(), clearAreaUserData(), clearAreaUserDataItem(), getAreaUserData(), getAllAreaUserData(), setMapUserData(), clearMapUserData(), clearMapUserDataItem(), getMapUserData(), getAllMapUserData().

Map format 18 will save your players location when copying maps to other profiles.

Miscellaneous

Other improvements include:

• southwest exit can now be cleared in room exits dialog
• settings are no longer stored in Mudlet and mudlet in case-sensitive filesystems
• variables ticked to be saved in the Variables view will no longer crash Mudlet for profiles that use autologin

So long 2.1, 3.0 delta!

Mudlet 3.0 is the culmination of 4 years of hard work and replaces Mudlet 2.1 as the latest version of Mudlet: it’s the recommended upgrade if you’re on 2.1 or any of the 3.0 previews (3.0.0-delta, 3.0.0-epsilon).

This release adds many new features to 2.1 and fixes a lot of the issues that have been present in preview versions of 3.0 – big thanks to everyone involved!

Big features

There has been a ton of improvements in Mudlet, so included below a quick summary of the big features.

Variables view

You can now view and edit your Lua variables from within Mudlet! No longer are they things that are just “there”.

Additionally, you can now get Mudlet to save your variables by ticking them in the list.

Windows sound fixes

Mudlet can now play sound again on Windows!

HTTPS downloads

Mudlet can now download over https:// links! This means that Mudlet packages can now be installed and/or self-updated from secure websites like Github.

As a bonus tip, if you’re a package author, check this out for an easy way to install your package.

Double-click word selection

You can now double-click in the main window or a miniconsole to select a word:

You’ve also got the option of choosing what characters will the selection stop on – in case you don’t want to select quotes and such.

Mudlet is now skinnable

You can create and apply skins to Mudlet!

Check this out for a demo you can try yourself.

Mapper API improvements

A lot of work went into the mapper. Mudlet can now perform automatic quality checks on your map, a lot of the right-click windows in the mapper have been improved, custom exit lines creation has been streamlined, and pathfinding performance across large maps and distances has been improved. For coders, a lot of new functionality has been introduced – check out the API changelog.

Script loss issues

Development preview versions of Mudlet have had issues where they’d lose your scripts – this is no more and all such problems have been ironed out in the 3.0 final.

A ton of db: fixes

Mudlet’s database interface has received a lot of attention and improvements, with a lot of functions getting fixes to work – work better, faster, stronger. If you’ve got a patched copy of the db: interface in your scripts, try running them without the local fixes so you can enjoy the new functionality.

macOS improvements

A lot of improvements have gone into the macOS version of Mudlet: the toolbar no longer goes black when you open the mapper, Mudlet no longer randomly resizes, tab completion works, and the new installer is really good-looking:

MSDP support

Mudlet now includes native support for MSDP! Protocol description available here, and as always, Mudlet allows you to add support for your own subchannel protocol.

Miscellaneous improvements

Below is a highlight of some other improvements over 2.1:

• GMCP data overflow on IRE MUDs fixed
• Mudlet now detects infinite loops in aliases between the pattern and the substitution field
• Strike-out text support has been added
• nil and boolean can now be used with raiseEvent()
• Geyser now supports flyout labels. You can build menus using them in a manner similar to insertPopup().
• Buttons creation has been fixed

See here for the list of API changes.

Work that went into 3.0

Mudlet is an open project: anyone can contribute to the community, wiki, or even Mudlet’s code. Release 3.0 was 4 years in making: 650+ commits, 18 authors, thousands of users (65,000 downloads on 2.1 alone).

Mudlet is a much different project compared to 2.1. Internally, we’ve upgraded from Qt4 to Qt5, all development is done on Github, modern C++11 is in use, and quite importantly, a very streamlined development workflow. Sounds interesting? Join us!

Looking forward

Mudlet 1.0 was about getting a super-fast, open-source and free client for Windows, macOS and Linux. Mudlet 2.0 was about getting that client an awesome 2D and 3D mapper. Mudlet 3.0 is a culmination of efforts of improvements to all around functionality of the client.

Mudlet 4.0 will be about taking on the world and making Mudlet international. We aim to make Mudlet enjoyed by MUD players all around the world  – everywhere from Spanish to Chinese MUDs.

Credits

This project would not be possible without the passion and free time contributed by many of individuals. We owe big thanks to:

Ahmed Charles
Chris Mitchell
Stephen Lyons
Christer Oscarsson
Colton Rasbury
Damian Monogue
Eric Wallace
Florian Scheel
Heiko Koehn
Ian Adkins
Jor’Mox
Michael Hupp
Nyyrazzilyss
Owen Davison
phasma
Phoenix
stratumnine
Vadim Peretokin

Discord

And, one last thing, Mudlet now has a Discord server! Join up.