[MUD-Dev] [TECH] Mozilla as cross OS client for MUD/MMG ?

[Par Winzell]

Chris Jones writes:

> Check out Mudzilla, http://mudzilla.mozdev.org/, for a working
> Mozilla MUD client.  It also has a branched client (MOOzilla)
> customized for some MOOs, developed by the same people.

I spent a few evenings looking at the this possibility in general --
learning some XUL in the meantime and finding to my pleasant
surprise that JavaScript is not an -entirely- nasty language these
days.

I didn't find Mudzilla until the end of my investigation; before
that I was using ChatZilla, the IRC client, as example code. I must
say, I was very impressed with how well it works. The glue code that
allows higher levels to use the networking code and such at lower
layers has that cut-and-pasted snippets of black magic feel to it --
it's a bit arcane -- but the stuff looks fundamentally
well-designed.

My approval centered on two points -- first, of course, the whole
XUL business, the ease with which GUI layouts are constructed and
edited.  Secondly, however, this was the first time I've seen
scrolling output look really good while being rendered straight from
HTML. That output window is a straight table, and every row of IRC
chat in it is a row in that table.

I had a bare-bones client running (before I looked at Mudzilla) with
maybe 4 hours of work where I had all the power of their rendering
engine at my disposal for tailoring my output.

Quite honestly, Mudzilla looks like not much more than those 4 hours
of work, but it could become something much greater. Somebody ought
to pour a lot of effort into this project, or one like it. I wish I
had time enough that that somebody could be me. :-)

Zell
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