Sustainability is a hot topic in 2021 for all the right reasons: We want to ensure that we can keep doing what we’re doing. It is, coincidentally, the theme of Mudlet 4.12 as well — We’d like to be sure that we can keep building Mudlet as the game client you know & like well into the future. It’s been difficult for the last little while with the conditions that we’ve faced — the certificate signing, moving off of Travis, and most recently: The challenges of working on an international, remote-only project while we’re faced with external stressors. For these reasons it’s important to take the time to charge your batteries.

What is Mudlet?

Mudlet is a platform with which you can play multiplayer, pure-text online games – called MUDs, precursors to today’s online games. There are thousands of unique worlds online – download Mudlet for free on Windows/macOS/Linux, join one and enjoy!

Brand new package manager

Edru has been busy revamping how Mudlet interacts with packages! First up, the new package manager, as seen below, allows you to see a package’s description with additional details like images, links, styling with markdown, etc.

How do these descriptions arrive in new packages? Where do they come from? Well, we’re glad you asked:

Brand new package exporter

Edru has revamped the package exporter as well, making it much easier to create, update and (re-)export packages as well as add a description and other information to them:

Want inspiration for creating your own package descriptions? Check out some of these popular extensions for Visual Studio.

Scripting news

File watches are now in Mudlet! Wilk’s work allows your scripts to get notified whenever an external file is changed. This enables some interesting possibilities, such as editing code outside of Mudlet and having it show up live. (link to 45sec video demonstration)

Another great feature for multiplayers by SlySven is an improvement to the central debug console, which will now say which profile an information came from.

Leveraging that momentum, SlySven has also improved the multiplayed profile tabs so they can now be re-arranged as you desire.

Credits

Thanks to all coders who made this release happen — Andrew Eisenberg, Andrew Waters, atari2600tim, Chris Mitchell, Damian Monogue, Gustavo Sousa, Kamil Tunkiewicz, Kebap, Manuel Wegmann, Mike Conley, mudlet-machine-account, OzlynnJeez, Piotr, Serity, Stephen Lyons, and Vadim Peretokin.

Thanks to all translators who contributed to keeping the translations up to date: Alan Sneath (alsneath), Hsin-Hsiang Peng (Hsins), Leris, Marco «M0lid3us» Tironi (wiploo), Matthieu (Jack_potta), and vingi.

Changelog

added:

• AdjustableContainerRepositionFinish event, change in AdjustableContainerReposition event
• file watch functions (addFileWatch, removeFileWatch) and event (sysPathChanged)
• getPackages and getModules functions
• brand new package manager to view your installed packages
• brand new package exporter to share your Mudlet things with others
• dreplaceLine, hreplaceLine as well as support for windows other than the main one
• getConnectionInfo() will now also say if you’re currently connected or not

improved:

• getOS() extended to include extra version (and for GNU/Linux, distribution) return values.
• new keys without a name will automatically get assigned one
• StickMUD will have the IRE mapper script installed by default for new profiles
• Discord toggle for Clessidra will work right away, without needing to connect first
• area parsing in XML files is now more resilient
• mudlet will no longer freeze when exporting really large packages
• top buttons in Mudlet are no longer monospaced
• profile tabs in multiplay mode can now be re-arranged by dragging
• debug console will now show which profile a message comes from
• clicking on the line # in the code editor will let you type in it
• mapper right-click menu will no longer hide custom items if you open it low
• saveJsonMap() can be used without a path, just like saveMap()
• you can add new variables in editor without having to click on one first
• cleaned up mapper right-click menu; it’ll only show items relevant to current selection
• unknown MSP elements will be skipped and Mudlet will do its best to play the sound anyway
• duplicate parent names won’t be included anymore when exporting/importing packages (but if you’d like to, you can right-click to do it anyway)

fixed:

• fixed crash when using MSSP with the * event handler
• clicking on a label/miniconsole in a floating userwindow will no longer steal focus from the input line
• changing tabs in multiview will no longer cause consoles to flash
• there will no longer be a line across the screen for a split moment when a new profile is opening
• searchAreaUserData() will work again when both key and value are provided for searching
• clicking on the timestamp will now visually select the whole line
• auto-complete will no longer try to complete on short words like ‘do’
• text will now longer be automatically deselected while typing with the spellchecker on
• —quiet command line explanation fixed
• cancelling a package download will now actually cancel it
• perm* functions are working well again
• getMapLabels() won’t crash when used on an area that doesn’t exist
• generic mapper update notifications will work well again
• miniconsole message if you don’t pass enough parameters fixed
• fixed nonsense message for when there’s no rooms in the map
• generic mapper will stop responding to the map opening after it’s been uninstalled
• code won’t run twice on setScript and resetProfile
• resize events won’t be emitted anymore if the size didn’t actually change
• getMapMenus() fixed
• small memory leak when JSON map export is aborted

infrastructure:

• added automation to auto-link Linux and macOS PTB to updater (#4861
• added tests for variable interface
• added support for building Mudlet in Docker on Linux
• added mpackage for testing cecho/decho/hecho and console transparency to tests
• added an automated check to verify improvements against Mudlet’s C++ style guide
• Qt 5.14.2 is now used for all official builds