Manual:Miscellaneous Functions

Miscellaneous Functions

addSupportedTelnetOption

addSupportedTelnetOption(option): Adds a telnet option, which when queried by a MUD server, Mudlet will return DO (253) on. Use this to register the telnet option that you will be adding support for with Mudlet - see additional protocols section for more.

Example

<event handlers that add support for MSDP... see http://www.mudbytes.net/forum/comment/63920/#c63920 for an example>

-- register with Mudlet that it should not decline the request of MSDP support
local TN_MSDP = 69
addSupportedTelnetOption(TN_MSDP)

alert

alert(seconds): alerts the user to something happening - makes Mudlet flash in the Windows window bar, bounce in the macOS dock, or flash on Linux.

Note: Available in Mudlet 3.2+

Parameters

seconds:

(optional) number of seconds to have the alert for. If not provided, Mudlet will flash until the user opens Mudlet again.

Example

-- flash indefinitely until Mudlet is open
alert()

-- flash for just 3 seconds
alert(3)

closeMudlet

closeMudlet()

Closes Mudlet and subsequently all profiles immediately.

denyCurrentSend

denyCurrentSend()

Cancels a send() or user-entered command, but only if used within a sysDataSendRequest event.

Example

-- cancels all "eat hambuger" commands
function cancelEatHamburger(event, command)
  if command == "eat hamburger" then
    denyCurrentSend()
    cecho("<red>Denied! Didn't let the command through.\n")
  end
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDataSendRequest", "cancelEatHamburger")

expandAlias

expandAlias(command, true/false): Runs the command as if it was from the command line - so aliases are checked and if none match, it's sent to the the game. If the second argument is false, it will hide the command from being echoed back in your buffer. Defaults to true.

Example

expandAlias("t rat")

-- don't echo the command
expandAlias("t rat", false)

Note: If you want to be using the matches table after calling expandAlias, you should save it first as local oldmatches = matches before calling expandAlias, since expandAlias will overwrite it after using it again.

feedTriggers

feedTriggers(text): This function will have Mudlet parse the given text as if it came from the MUD - one great application is trigger testing. The built-in `echo alias provides this functionality as well.

Example

-- try using this on the command line
`echo This is a sample line from the game

-- You can use \n to represent a new line - you also want to use it before and after the text you’re testing, like so:
feedTriggers("\nYou sit yourself down.\n")

-- The function also accept ANSI color codes that are used in MUDs. A sample table can be found http://codeworld.wikidot.com/ansicolorcodes
feedTriggers("\nThis is \27[1;32mgreen\27[0;37m, \27[1;31mred\27[0;37m, \27[46mcyan background\27[0;37m," ..
"\27[32;47mwhite background and green foreground\27[0;37m.\n")

getIrcNick

getIrcNick(): Returns the current IRC nick, or if IRC isn't open yet, the last one used.

Example

local nick = getIrcNick()
echo(nick)

getModulePath

path = getModulePath(module name)

Returns the location of a module on the disk.

getModulePriority

priority = getModulePriority(module name)

Returns the priority of a module as an integer. This determines the order modules will be loaded in - default is 0. Useful if you have a module that depends on another module being loaded first, for example.

getMudletHomeDir

getMudletHomeDir(): Returns the current home directory of the current profile. This can be used to store data, save statistical information, or load resource files from packages.

Example

-- save a table
table.save(getMudletHomeDir().."/myinfo.dat", myinfo)

-- or access package data. The forward slash works even on Windows fine
local path = getMudletHomeDir().."/mypackagename"

getMudletLuaDefaultPath

getMudletLuaDefaultPath(): Returns the compiled in default location that this version of Mudlet tries as the last ditch attempt to find the luaGlobal.lua Lua script. luaGlobal.lua is the "loader" for all the Mudlet (and included Geyser but NOT Vyzor GUI management system packages) - failure to find this when a profile is loaded will be associated with a:

[ ERROR ] - LuaGlobal.lua compile error - please report!

message in the main console, instead of the expected:

[ OK ] - Mudlet-lua API & Geyser Layout manager loaded.

Note: This command is initially for *nix (but NOT MacOs) versions that need to support having shared, read-only copies of non-executable files used by an application in a directory that is not directly associated with that executable; for MacOs and Windows version it will not return a useful result either an empty string "" or a single slash "/". It is currently present only in the development branch of code in the GitHub repository and will not be included in the 3.0.0 release or it's previews.

getMudletVersion

getMudletVersion(style): Returns the current Mudlet version. Note that you shouldn't hardcode against a specific Mudlet version if you'd like to see if a function is present - instead, check for the functions existence itself. Otherwise, checking for the version can come in handy if you'd like to test for a broken function or so on.

Note: Available since Mudlet 3.0.0-alpha.

Parameters

style:

Optional - allows you to choose what you'd like returned. By default, if you don't specify it, a key-value table with all the values will be returned.
Values you can choose

"string":

Returns the full Mudlet version as text.

"table":

Returns the full Mudlet version as four values (multi-return)

"major":

Returns the major version number (the first one).

"minor":

Returns the minor version number (the second one).

"revision":

Returns the revision version number (the third one).

"build":

Returns the build of Mudlet (the ending suffix, if any).

Example

-- see the full Mudlet version as text:
getMudletVersion("string")

-- check that the major Mudlet version is at least 3:
if getMudletVersion("major") >= 3 then echo("You're running on Mudlet 3+!") end

-- if you'd like to see if a function is available however, test for it explicitly instead:
if setAppStyleSheet then
  -- example credit to http://qt-project.org/doc/qt-4.8/stylesheet-examples.html#customizing-qscrollbar
  setAppStyleSheet[[
  QScrollBar:vertical {
      border: 2px solid grey;
      background: #32CC99;
      width: 15px;
      margin: 22px 0 22px 0;
  }
  QScrollBar::handle:vertical {
      background: white;
      min-height: 20px;
  }
  QScrollBar::add-line:vertical {
      border: 2px solid grey;
      background: #32CC99;
      height: 20px;
      subcontrol-position: bottom;
      subcontrol-origin: margin;
  }
  QScrollBar::sub-line:vertical {
      border: 2px solid grey;
      background: #32CC99;
      height: 20px;
      subcontrol-position: top;
      subcontrol-origin: margin;
  }
  QScrollBar::up-arrow:vertical, QScrollBar::down-arrow:vertical {
      border: 2px solid grey;
      width: 3px;
      height: 3px;
      background: white;
  }
  QScrollBar::add-page:vertical, QScrollBar::sub-page:vertical {
      background: none;
  }
  ]]
end

getProfileName

name = getProfileName()

Returns the name of the profile. Useful when combined with raiseGlobalEvent() to know which profile a global event came from.

Note: Available in Mudlet 3.1+

Example

-- if connected to the Achaea profile, will print Achaea to the main console
echo(getProfileName())

getServerEncoding

getServerEncoding(): Returns the current server data encoding in use.

Example

getServerEncoding()

getServerEncodingsList

getServerEncodingsList(): Returns an indexed list of the server data encodings that Mudlet knows. This is not the list of encodings the servers knows - there's unfortunately no agreed standard for checking that. See encodings in Mudlet for the list of which encodings are available in which Mudlet version.

Example

-- check if UTF-8 is available:
if table.contains(getServerEncodingsList(), "UTF-8") then
  print("UTF-8 is available!")
end

installModule

installModule(location): Installs a Mudlet XML or zip as a module.

Parameters

location:

Exact location of the file install.

installPackage

installPackage(location): Installs a Mudlet XML or package.

Parameters

location:

Exact location of the xml or package to install.

loadWindowLayout

loadWindowLayout: Resets the layout of userwindows (floating miniconsoles) to the last saved state.

mudletOlderThan

mudletOlderThan(major, minor, patch): Returns true if Mudlet is older than the given version to check. This is useful if you'd like to use a feature that you can't check for easily, such as coroutines support. However, if you'd like to check if a certain function exists, do not use this and use if mudletfunction then - it'll be much more readable and reliable.

Parameters

major:

Mudlet major version to check. Given a Mudlet version 3.0.1, 3 is the major version, second 0 is the minor version, and third 1 is the patch version.

minor:

(optional) minor version to check.

patch:

(optional) patch version to check.

Example

-- stop doing the script of Mudlet is older than 3.2
if mudletOlderThan(3,2) then return end

-- or older than 2.1.3
if mudletOlderThan(2,3,1) then return end

-- however, if you'd like to check that a certain function is available, like getMousePosition(), do this instead:
if not getMousePosition then return end

-- if you'd like to check that coroutines are supported, do this instead:
if not mudlet.supportscoroutines then return end

openWebPage

openWebPage(URL): Opens the browser to the given webpage.

Parameters

URL:

Exact URL to open.

Example

openWebPage("http://google.com")

playSoundFile

playSoundFile(fileName): This function plays a sound file. On 2.0, it can play most sound formats and up to 4 sounds simulaneously and an there's no limit on simultaneous sounds since 3.0.

Parameters

fileName:

Exact path of the sound file.

registerAnonymousEventHandler

registerAnonymousEventHandler(event name, function name): Registers a function to an event handler, not requiring you to set one up via script.

At the moment, it's not possible to use handlers inside namespaces, or unregister them.

Example

-- example taken from the God Wars 2 (http://godwars2.org) Mudlet UI - forces the window to keep to a certain size
function keepStaticSize()
  setMainWindowSize(1280,720)
end -- keepStaticSize
 
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysWindowResizeEvent", "keepStaticSize")

reloadModule

reloadModule(module name): Reload a module (by uninstalling and reinstalling).

Example

reloadModule("3k-mapper")

resetProfile

resetProfile()

Reloads your entire Mudlet profile - as if you've just opened it. All UI elements will be cleared, so this useful when you're coding your UI. To use this function, call it and then receive input from the game - that will trigger Mudlet to do the reset.

saveProfile

saveProfile()

Saves the current Mudlet profile to disk, which is equivalent to pressing the "Save Profile" button.

Example

saveProfile()

saveWindowLayout

saveWindowLayout: Saves the layout of userwindows (floating miniconsoles), in case you'd like to load them again later.

sendSocket

sendSocket(data)

Sends given binary data as-is to the MUD. You can use this to implement support for a new telnet protocol, simultronics login or etcetera.

Example

TN_IAC = 255
TN_WILL = 251
TN_DO = 253
TN_SB = 250
TN_SE = 240
TN_MSDP = 69

MSDP_VAL = 1
MSDP_VAR = 2

sendSocket( string.char( TN_IAC, TN_DO, TN_MSDP ) ) -- sends IAC DO MSDP

--sends: IAC  SB MSDP MSDP_VAR "LIST" MSDP_VAL "COMMANDS" IAC SE
local msg = string.char( TN_IAC, TN_SB, TN_MSDP, MSDP_VAR ) .. " LIST " ..string.char( MSDP_VAL ) .. " COMMANDS " .. string.char( TN_IAC, TN_SE )
sendSocket( msg )

setServerEncoding

setServerEncoding(encoding): Makes Mudlet use the specified encoding for communicating with the game.

Parameters

encoding:

Encoding to use.

Example

-- use UTF-8 if Mudlet knows it. Unfortunately there's no way to check if the game's server knows it too.
if table.contains(getServerEncodingsList(), "UTF-8") then
  setServerEncoding("UTF-8")
end

spawn

spawn(read function, process to spawn)

Spawns a process and opens a communicatable link with it - read function is the function you'd like to use for reading output from the process, and t is a table containing functions specific to this connection - send(data), true/false = isRunning(), and close().

Example

-- simple example on a program that quits right away, but prints whatever it gets using the 'display' function
local f = spawn(display, "ls")
display(f.isRunning())
f.close()

startLogging

startLogging(state)

Control logging of the main console text as text or HTML (as specified by the "Save log files in HTML format instead of plain text" setting on the "General" tab of the "Profile preferences" or "Settings" dialog). Despite being called startLogging it can also stop the process and correctly close the file being created. The file will have an extension of type ".txt" or ".html" as appropriate and the name will be in the form of a date/time "yyyy-MM-dd#hh-mm-ss" using the time/date of when logging started. Note that this control parallels the corresponding icon in the "bottom buttons" for the profile and that button can also start and stop the same logging process and will reflect the state as well.

Parameters

state:

Required: logging state. Passed as a boolean

Returns (4 values)

successful (bool)

true if the logging state actually changed; if, for instance, logging was already active and true was supplied then no change in logging state actually occurred and nil will be returned (and logging will continue).

fileName (string)

The log will be/is being written to the path/file name returned.

message (string)

A displayable message given one of four messages depending on the current and previous logging states, this will include the file name except for the case when logging was not taking place and the supplied argument was also false.

code (number)

A value indicating the response to the system to this instruction:

 *  0 = logging has just stopped
 *  1 = logging has just started
 * -1 = logging was already in progress so no change in logging state
 * -2 = logging was already not in progress so no change in logging state

stopSounds

stopSounds()

Stops all currently playing sounds.

Note: Available in Mudlet 3.0.

uninstallModule

uninstallModule(name)

Uninstalls a Mudlet module with the given name.

uninstallPackage

uninstallPackage(name)

Uninstalls a Mudlet package with the given name.

yajl.to_string

yajl.to_string(data)

Encodes a Lua table into JSON data and returns it as a string. This function is very efficient - if you need to encode into JSON, use this.

Example

-- on IRE MUDs, you can send a GMCP request to request the skills in a particular skillset. Here's an example:
sendGMCP("Char.Skills.Get "..yajl.to_string{group = "combat"})

-- you can also use it to convert a Lua table into a string, so you can, for example, store it as room's userdata
local toserialize = yajl.to_string(continents)
setRoomUserData(1, "areaContinents", toserialize)

yajl.to_value

yajl.to_value(data)

Decodes JSON data (as a string) into a Lua table. This function is very efficient - if you need to dencode into JSON, use this.

Example

-- given the serialization example above with yajl.to_string, you can deserialize room userdata back into a table
local tmp = getRoomUserData(1, "areaContinents")
if tmp == "" then return end

local continents = yajl.to_value(tmp)
display(continents)