[MUD-Dev] Re: Output Classification Notes, version 061098

[Chris Gray]

[Mike L Kesl:]

 >One system I have been considering is to just use special prefixes before
 >output to distinguish it and all the client to do the work, parsing the
 >output's prefix and deciding where it goes from there. This option still
 >requires a list of the output types however, and that is the main function
 >of this document. Using this system the dumb telnet connection would
 >simply have the prefixes stripped. Not sure about this implementation.

To support simple telnet, you pretty much have to go that way. You didn't
mention it, but I presume you would have the server not send types of
information that the particular client can't use, or doesn't want? E.g.
a simple telnet client wouldn't get any information about updating a
tile map view, playing sounds, etc. This isn't hard to do, and will cut
down a lot on the bandwidth, and the work needed, both in the server
and in the client. (Making the decision to not send something is likely
far cheaper than sending it.)

I use a custom client with my system, and the types of things that can
be enabled/disabled are:

    - sound effects output
    - music output (OK, so I never implemented it in the client)
    - synthesized voice output
    - graphics updating
    - simple text output
    - the ability for the client to edit documents (e.g. code, letters)
    - the ability for the client to pop up a requester for string input
    - the ability for the client to go into "wizard" mode (it has the
	parser, etc. for the MUD programming language)
    - the ability for the client to search for files on the client
	machine (so that the scenario code in the server can better
	determine how to present things to the user)

All except simple text output are optional. The user can disable the
three sound-related things and graphics output whenever they want, and
the server is told about that choice. "builtin" functions are available
in MUD-code to check the status of the various abilites.

This is a slightly different axis of types than I think you were talking
about, however. The other axis being that of "senses", such as your
Aural, Visual, etc. If you want text output for those things to be
separable I suggest you allow the user the option of not having them
separated, i.e. all being in one output window. I think that's what
I, as a user, would prefer.

--
Chris Gray     cg at ami-cg.GraySage.Edmonton.AB.CA