[MUD-Dev] Custom Server Roll Call?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad <olag@ifi.uio.no>]

Marc Hernandez wrote:
>         You can get some pretty good emacs files for either c++ or java,
> or write your own.  I currently use microsofts Dev Studio with Sun's javac
> compiler.  The only thing it does not allow me to do is double click on
> the error and go directly to it.  With a little hacking that could be done
> but it is not too difficult.  I am moving to emacs soon, but I do not have
> it setup yet.

Why moving to emacs??? :) Are there emacs setups which give you good
class-browsers and such? What is wrong with microsofts visualstudio stuff?
I've never used it, but will consider buying if it increases my
productivity.

>         Actually I plan on using Java applications for the client.  The
> server is currently an application.  This has no security restrictions.

Ugh. Then you miss out on Java's only advantage, but it is a good one. "Come
visit my MUD, it is only a click away!"  This is an advantage I would not
like to miss out on! Even if you only can offer a limited client it would be
worth a lot. This is basically what The Palace are doing. They
encourage/entice you to download the real client by telling you about the
extras you will get. For many the Instant-Palace is enough though.

>         As far as the client is concerned, I had a friend that is a very
> good java programmer and his experimentation showed that getting good
> frame rates out of browsers is very difficult.  Additionally even if you
> get one browser to work quickly, it tended to break another.

Well, I guess. I notice that the good demos run a profile on your setup in
order to determine which renderversion they will use.  Maybe the crux is to
make the client renderer really simple, and write more than one version.

> We came to the conclusion that since:
> The user has to download everything anyway.  Why not put it in one easy to
> install zip?

Because clueless users will not know how, or even if they do, they might not
want the hassle? They don't neccessarily have to download all the graphics
initially. If I read from an URL in an applet, will that file then end up in
the browser cache?  If you use progressive JPEG then you can start using the
graphics before it is loaded as well. (Ok, the programming can be a little
messy maybe. I haven't quite got the grip on clean programming using
java-threads yet.)

I think java archive format (jar) is zip, but will it be cached in tbe
browser cache?

> Sound is finally loadable off of disk.  Java sound support is not.  I do
> not even know why they say they have an 'api'.

Isn't (nongenerated) sound loadable off disk using jar even in applets? But
the sound support is really pathetic. They should at least let me set an
amplitude/envelope for the sound, not to mention changing the pitch, or at
the very least let me generate soundfiles from raw data. :(  I don't really
think they support any compressed soundformats either.
--
Ola



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