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 Entire forum ➜ MUSHclient ➜ General ➜ MUSHclient version 4?
MUSHclient version 4?

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Posted by Linda   Sweden  (164 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #15 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 12:04 AM (UTC)
Message
However, a 'get plugins' button isn't really the solution as long as those things you'd like haven't been done as plugins. ;)

What I find a bit disheartening at times is when feature X is asked for, and the response 'it would be better as a plugin, to make it optional and avoid bloating the software' is given, but then said plugin doesn't always surface. Obviously, they take time like any coding, but to me it somehow feels like the plugin solutions are less likely to actually happen than those features who get picked to be actual core enhancements.

Just the idea that it can be done as a plugin doesn't make those of us who can't do plugins any happier, and so we keep asking for them as actual program features instead, to try to make it likelier that they'll show up. :)

And I'll still maintain that I don't think that real spawned windows or a tabbed interface are bloat features, but that they are things that ought to be part of the basic package. :)
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #16 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 12:09 AM (UTC)
Message
I have added a "plugins" item to the Help menu, so that you are guided to the plugins page, without necessarily having to know about the forums.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #17 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 02:00 AM (UTC)

Amended on Fri 17 Dec 2004 02:01 AM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message
Linda, I feel a little unmotivated to spend hours and hours adding new features, when last November 4,667 copies of MUSHclient were downloaded from this site, however 8 were paid for.

This month, 2,247 copies have been downloaded so far, however 9 have been paid for.

A few years ago I used to reckon that around 1% of people paid for shareware, now it looks more like 0.1%.

A friend of mine told me a joke a few years ago, it goes like this:

Quote:

A little boy was invited to have dinner at a friend's house.
The friend's mother asked him if he liked peas.
"Oh yes", the boy replied.
So, he was served up peas for dinner, however he didn't eat them.
"I thought you liked peas", the mother said.
"That's right", the boy replied, "but not enough to eat!".


Sometimes I think writing shareware is like that. Thousands of people like your program, enough to download it and use it, but not enough to pay for it.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #18 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 02:03 AM (UTC)
Message
It seems that it is a bit early to release version 4 anyway. A few extra bugs have been found in scripting (subtle bugs, but there nonetheless). Also I have added a few extra features regarding warning you if scripts have been disabled due to a parse error, and a couple more things like that.

So, it is probably best to test this (as version 3.60) before making it the official version.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by David Haley   USA  (3,881 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #19 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 02:58 AM (UTC)
Message
Don't forget that a great deal of the downloads are probably upgrades, not actual new users. If you wanted to track the difference you'd have to have some kind of auto-update feature in MUSHclient, but even that wouldn't always work. Still, it would help differentiate new users from upgraders.
David Haley aka Ksilyan
Head Programmer,
Legends of the Darkstone

http://david.the-haleys.org
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #20 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 04:14 AM (UTC)

Amended on Fri 17 Dec 2004 04:22 AM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message
Quote:

Don't forget that a great deal of the downloads are probably upgrades, not actual new users.


Upgrades to unregistered copies, maybe. However remember most of those are version 3.50 - not the latest one released on the forum, and that has been current for months now.

No, sorry to dash your idea there, but at the rate of 4,600 downloads per month, and if *every* registered user was downloading version 3.50, that is still only 3% of the downloads.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #21 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 04:21 AM (UTC)
Message
Quote:

... but to me it somehow feels like the plugin solutions are less likely to actually happen ...


I was hoping the plugin idea would allow for features to be added that did *exactly* what you want, rather than having to put up with what the implementor thought everyone wanted.

I know no-one has done it yet, but something like the MUSHcode formatter (an improved one on the built-in one) is an ideal problem to be solved by a plugin.

You could get the notepad text, format it how you want, and put it back again. Someone could do that in Perl, Lua, VBscript, whatever.

Sometimes people write to me and say "if only your client had feature X, you would get heaps more people using it" (whatever X is).

So at times I spend weeks adding X, and the rate of registrations (per month) is unchanged.

I do remember one time someone said that the nag screen was really annoying, and it should not take over the whole desktop. So, I made the nag screen not "stay in front" for the next version, trying to be nice to my customers.

However, far from getting more registration because of the "improvement" the number that month dropped dramatically. It seems that the nag screen is one of the instrumental features in getting the 0.1% of people (who download it) to register to be even that high.

I know it sounds great: take out the nag screens, add heaps of features, and lots of people will pay for it. Sounds good, doesn't actually happen. Try it yourself if you don't believe me.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Linda   Sweden  (164 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #22 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 09:46 AM (UTC)
Message
I completely understand that that situation wouldn't motivate anyone to add new features, regardless of whether they are done as core enhancements or plugins. I don't feel I have any right to expect anything to be added, if it sounded like that. :)

What I was trying to get at was that when feature X is discussed, and someone says 'it can probably be done as a plugin', that isn't really a positive answer for someone who can't do their own. :) Essentially, it amounts to almost no chance of feature X being added. Yes, if you could do it yourself, you could add it just the way you want, but if you can't, then that flexibility doesn't really matter.

And no, I won't say that any of the features I have suggested will bring in more registrations. I can't know that, so it would be silly of me to make that claim. But I do know first hand that the lack of spawned windows have been a deal-breaker when people (MUSHers, specifically) have chosen between MUSHclient and SimpleMU. And I do know that some of them now own registered SimpleMU copies.
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Posted by David Haley   USA  (3,881 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #23 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 02:14 PM (UTC)
Message
Well, 3% is 30 times more than 0.1%, which is some improvement at least. :) I didn't mean to say that there aren't a lot of people who don't register, merely that perhaps it's not quite as dire as you initially said (even though I fully agree that it's not that much less dire.)

It's a tricky dilemma, that of shareware. People register MUSHclient because they're nice people, not really for any other reason. The nag screen can go away or be ignored fairly easily. I think what it comes down to is that since MC is fully featured from the get-go, the only incentive is to be nice. But, I know we've been over this many times, so there's not much point in doing it again.

To get back to the subject at hand, even though I think scripting is a great idea, I can't help but feel that as Linda described for people who can't script, having it is as good as not having it. I fully agree that I don't want to move the onus on you to implement it all (as plugins or not), which is why I'd suggested to put more of an emphasis on community. I think one thing to consider is that you seem to think plugins should be exactly how the users want them, which is true ideally; but for most people plugins merely make it closer to how they want it. (Myself included, e.g. for Firefox, and I know how to script/write programs rather well!) Do you have an estimate of how many plugins are released on the forums that people might not know about if they're not forum regulars? Of course, any idea like this requires somebody to maintain the whole thing, which can again be a whole new bother... :)
David Haley aka Ksilyan
Head Programmer,
Legends of the Darkstone

http://david.the-haleys.org
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #24 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 07:44 PM (UTC)
Message
Quote:

Yes, if you could do it yourself, you could add it just the way you want, but if you can't, then that flexibility doesn't really matter.


Yes I quite understand. I have various programs here that have scripting capability (eg. the Visual Studio program that I write MUSHclient in). I virtually never use it, because I can't be bothered to learn yet another scripting language for situations that in many cases can be done another way (with core functionality <grin>).

However I think the answer "it can probably be done in scripting" is better than "I have no plans to do it". For example, I tried to get a thesaurus to work using scripting, and partly succeeded.

If something is simple then I usually do it myself and post the method here, so that it can be used immediately, without new downloads, and the mucking around that entails.

Plugins were intended to be an easy-to-use method of achieving that. Rather than saying "add 5 triggers, 3 aliases, a timer, and put this in your script file", I (or others) can just say "download and install this plugin, and it is all done for you".
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Linda   Sweden  (164 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #25 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 09:02 PM (UTC)
Message
Quote:
However I think the answer "it can probably be done in scripting" is better than "I have no plans to do it".


That is true, certainly. I guess from a user perspective, its easy to worry that "it can probably be done in scripting" really means "I could do it, but now that plugins exist, I probably won't." and that some features that potentially could make good core enhancements are relegated too quickly to the 'perhaps suitable for a plugin' pile.

All in all, even if no new features that I use are added, I still think that MUSHclient is a great program. :) I just find myself bemoaning the lack of those spawned windows and unlimited window tabs on really busy days. ;)
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #26 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 09:11 PM (UTC)
Message
I think the tabbed window idea is something that could be fairly easily added with a plugin. I know I keep saying that, but it would make a nice half-day project during the Summer months here.

I think you are envisaging a thin (horizontal) window which would list (in a sort-of tabs format) each currently-open world, and if you clicked on one, it would activate that world. Is that it?
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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Posted by Linda   Sweden  (164 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #27 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 09:40 PM (UTC)
Message
Well, what I was envisioning was to (optionally, since some people don't like it) be able to have the interface be like the tabbed interface of Firefox or Mozilla, with each world corresponding to a page.

But yes, the actual tab list would be a narrow horizontal bar, ideally with the name of each world (possibly configurable to use either the name or the number, the latter in the same fashion as the current activity toolbar) and ideally capable the same changes in colour according to status as the current activity toolbar displays.
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Posted by David Haley   USA  (3,881 posts)  Bio
Date Reply #28 on Fri 17 Dec 2004 10:48 PM (UTC)
Message
I agree that a Firefoxish tabbed interface would be brilliant.

I also agree that it's important to reiterate that with or without these new features, I as well think MC is a great program. :-)

How could you do such a thing with scripts? Do scripts have access to Windows routines? Seems that this is more than just moving around windows but also creating buttons and the like.
David Haley aka Ksilyan
Head Programmer,
Legends of the Darkstone

http://david.the-haleys.org
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Posted by Nick Gammon   Australia  (23,158 posts)  Bio   Forum Administrator
Date Reply #29 on Sat 18 Dec 2004 01:03 AM (UTC)
Message
Well, I was thinking of an external window, like the status bar window we are discussing in another thread.

However I can see one problem. The status bar window works fine, it is just a status bar for one world. However for something like a tabbed interface the tabs are global. That is, they don't belong to a particular world.

That will make scripting them somewhat clumsy. Perhaps I'll Google on how to do tabs, it mightn't be too hard. :)

Of course, this puts back version 4 a bit.
- Nick Gammon

www.gammon.com.au, www.mushclient.com
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