kajarainbow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kajarainbow) wrote2004-11-26 08:39 pm
kajarainbow) wrote2004-11-26 08:39 pm
Linux MU* client roundup
Just me talking (bitching a lot, hee) about MUCK/MUD clients. Note that *some* of those clients are available cross-platforms (TinyFugue, Trebuchet, Papaya), so it might be of mild interest to more than just Linux MU*ers.
As a pretext, I'll mention that I both MUD and MUCK. So I have a particularly large pool of needs. And 'my MUD' just refers to the MUD I'm on, not one I actually run.
Trebuchet (cross-platform)
First, Trebuchet because its flaws are foremost in my mind due to my having just tried it again.
First impressions: ugly look. Not an absolute killer for me (though I tend to drift away from programs that use the Motif look).
General notes: user interface is clunky in an unpleasant way. I couldn't find the help menu at first because it was set way off from the rest of the menus, on the right side of the window where the others were on the left. And, to save my preferences, I have to hit 'update' on each 'tab' before switching to another or I lose all my changes. And *then* I have to select 'save preferences' from the options menu, it's not a button in the preferences dialog. Does prompt me to ask if I want to save if I exit with unsaved preferences, though. All this stuff, though, feels SO dated. And the documentation's incomplete.
MUDer's notes: ANSI colors, Lines marked as being in a bright color are a little more white tham the normal color, resulting in little visual difference and in the 'duller' colors actually looking brighter, since the touch-of-white dilutes the 'bright' colors. Bright does not equal lighter! =P And, what's more, I can't change the colors. I looked for a trebuchetrc file so I could at least edit that. Nooope.
Kmud
First impressions: one of the ones that simply wouldn't work. Got this recommended to me on the MUD I'm on, turns out it's a dead program with ancient requirements I'm not going to bend over backward just to get. The 'with depends included' binary doesn't work, either.
crystal
First impressions: written by someone who apparent primary requirement was ability to handle a whole bunch of procotols with grace.
MUDer's notes: Apparently correct procotol support was a greater priority than implementing triggers and alias. Lack of those gave me pause, but I don't really MUD-game now that I got converted into a wizard on the one MUD I play on. Nevertheless, I've found non-MUDy uses for triggers and alias. But if the rest of the program turned out well, I'd have probably kept tabs on it.
General notes: All this was moot, though. Apparently it doesn't want to work with my version of the lua language-interpreter, or something.
TinyFugue (cross-platform)
First impressions: highly popular console-based client. Higher learning curve than GUI stuff, though.
General notes: works fairly well. Good enough user interface if you don't mind command-line based stuff. Very well-featured, very nice capabilities. Problem is, logging doesn't include an option to capture output before the starting of the log, so you have to do a /recall command to scroll that history past your window, as part of the log. I ended up writing a macro to do this. Plus side, though, the scripting seemed friendlier to learn than a lot of the clients I've used previously. Less ugly, doesn't require learning javascript/TCL/lua/perl/whatever random programming language the creator liked.
MUDer's notes: coloring is odd and often runs over into non-colored text on my MUD with the non-stable version I have The stable version does this coloring better, but the lack of some things I noted in the unstable version was enough to make me stick with the unstable one. Since I don't get similar problems with other MUDs, I suspect my MUD has slightly screwed coloring. Also, I had to experiment with different terminal programs to get the keypad to work for direction-moving on this one.
gMOO
First impressions: I know I at least tried to get this. Might have failed. I only remember feeling a fit of hatred upon seeing the website again. Pretty sure this choice failed my test in some way.
gMUDix
First impressions: Hmm, looks like a decent GUI one. Nice, easy to use.
General notes: funky interface, buttons didn't do quite what I expected. Not so horrible once I got used to it, but... weirdness. The automatic 'put last command in the entry line' thing without an option to turn it off, though, was a massive killer for me. While I was experimenting with this client, I kept accidentally sending repeat poses and such on Puzzlebox. Yuck. The funky handling of deselecting after switching windows, and such didn't help.
MUDer's notes:the scripting stuff just didn't have enough power for what I wanted to do on my MUD at the time. But I would've stuck with TinyFugue, anyway, that auto-keeping-last-command was annoying even for MUDing (I just used key-macros for repetitively typed things like casting attack and/or healing spells again and again and they're easier for switching between commands).
smm++ (presumably cross-platform, based on tcl)
First impressions: doesn't work.
kmuddy
First impressions: barely remember this at all. Didn't work, or if it worked, wasn't any good.
Crescendo
First impressions: a GUI wrapper for TinyFugue. Seems like a nice idea, but it apparently requires a whole bunch of Python modules I don't have.
Papaya
First Impressions: didn't compile. Pity.
Conclusion
TinyFugue is the only decent working MU* client I've found. And it's a console-based one.
As a pretext, I'll mention that I both MUD and MUCK. So I have a particularly large pool of needs. And 'my MUD' just refers to the MUD I'm on, not one I actually run.
Trebuchet (cross-platform)
First, Trebuchet because its flaws are foremost in my mind due to my having just tried it again.
First impressions: ugly look. Not an absolute killer for me (though I tend to drift away from programs that use the Motif look).
General notes: user interface is clunky in an unpleasant way. I couldn't find the help menu at first because it was set way off from the rest of the menus, on the right side of the window where the others were on the left. And, to save my preferences, I have to hit 'update' on each 'tab' before switching to another or I lose all my changes. And *then* I have to select 'save preferences' from the options menu, it's not a button in the preferences dialog. Does prompt me to ask if I want to save if I exit with unsaved preferences, though. All this stuff, though, feels SO dated. And the documentation's incomplete.
MUDer's notes: ANSI colors, Lines marked as being in a bright color are a little more white tham the normal color, resulting in little visual difference and in the 'duller' colors actually looking brighter, since the touch-of-white dilutes the 'bright' colors. Bright does not equal lighter! =P And, what's more, I can't change the colors. I looked for a trebuchetrc file so I could at least edit that. Nooope.
Kmud
First impressions: one of the ones that simply wouldn't work. Got this recommended to me on the MUD I'm on, turns out it's a dead program with ancient requirements I'm not going to bend over backward just to get. The 'with depends included' binary doesn't work, either.
crystal
First impressions: written by someone who apparent primary requirement was ability to handle a whole bunch of procotols with grace.
MUDer's notes: Apparently correct procotol support was a greater priority than implementing triggers and alias. Lack of those gave me pause, but I don't really MUD-game now that I got converted into a wizard on the one MUD I play on. Nevertheless, I've found non-MUDy uses for triggers and alias. But if the rest of the program turned out well, I'd have probably kept tabs on it.
General notes: All this was moot, though. Apparently it doesn't want to work with my version of the lua language-interpreter, or something.
TinyFugue (cross-platform)
First impressions: highly popular console-based client. Higher learning curve than GUI stuff, though.
General notes: works fairly well. Good enough user interface if you don't mind command-line based stuff. Very well-featured, very nice capabilities. Problem is, logging doesn't include an option to capture output before the starting of the log, so you have to do a /recall command to scroll that history past your window, as part of the log. I ended up writing a macro to do this. Plus side, though, the scripting seemed friendlier to learn than a lot of the clients I've used previously. Less ugly, doesn't require learning javascript/TCL/lua/perl/whatever random programming language the creator liked.
MUDer's notes: coloring is odd and often runs over into non-colored text on my MUD with the non-stable version I have The stable version does this coloring better, but the lack of some things I noted in the unstable version was enough to make me stick with the unstable one. Since I don't get similar problems with other MUDs, I suspect my MUD has slightly screwed coloring. Also, I had to experiment with different terminal programs to get the keypad to work for direction-moving on this one.
gMOO
First impressions: I know I at least tried to get this. Might have failed. I only remember feeling a fit of hatred upon seeing the website again. Pretty sure this choice failed my test in some way.
gMUDix
First impressions: Hmm, looks like a decent GUI one. Nice, easy to use.
General notes: funky interface, buttons didn't do quite what I expected. Not so horrible once I got used to it, but... weirdness. The automatic 'put last command in the entry line' thing without an option to turn it off, though, was a massive killer for me. While I was experimenting with this client, I kept accidentally sending repeat poses and such on Puzzlebox. Yuck. The funky handling of deselecting after switching windows, and such didn't help.
MUDer's notes:the scripting stuff just didn't have enough power for what I wanted to do on my MUD at the time. But I would've stuck with TinyFugue, anyway, that auto-keeping-last-command was annoying even for MUDing (I just used key-macros for repetitively typed things like casting attack and/or healing spells again and again and they're easier for switching between commands).
smm++ (presumably cross-platform, based on tcl)
First impressions: doesn't work.
kmuddy
First impressions: barely remember this at all. Didn't work, or if it worked, wasn't any good.
Crescendo
First impressions: a GUI wrapper for TinyFugue. Seems like a nice idea, but it apparently requires a whole bunch of Python modules I don't have.
Papaya
First Impressions: didn't compile. Pity.
Conclusion
TinyFugue is the only decent working MU* client I've found. And it's a console-based one.