MUSHclient : Bug reports : "Preload world defaults from an existing world" shouldn't ruin the chosen file

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"Preload world defaults from an existing world" shouldn't ruin the chosen file

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"Preload world defaults from an existing world" shouldn't ruin the chosen file

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Posted by

Fiendish USA (848 posts)

bio Global Moderator

Date

Mon 27 Jun 2011 08:31 PM (UTC) [ quote ]

Amended on Mon 27 Jun 2011 08:44 PM (UTC) by Fiendish

Message

This is creating all sorts of player confusion. A person gets all their miniwindows set up just the way they like, and then say "Hey, I want to make a new world file to connect to the test port". So they go to File->New World and a seemingly helpful prompt pops up asking if they want to preload world defaults from an existing world. The user of course says "Yes, I would love for that to happen!" without realizing that the world file they choose is then going to be clobbered by a new name and new id and ports and such but keep the old file name. The fallout from this is that they now end up connecting to the wrong world even though they see the right file name, and all of their state is lost to history because they don't know the old world id and aren't going to muck with editing world files manually anyway.

When a user chooses "Yes" to preload world defaults from an existing world the selected file should remain untouched. Creating a new world should not destroy their old one. Just copy settings from that file into a new file named for the world name they choose. This is what players are expecting to happen. The current behavior seems completely unhelpful and in several reported cases traumatic.

http://aardwolfclientpackage.googlecode.com/

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #1 on Mon 27 Jun 2011 11:48 PM (UTC) [ quote ]

Amended on Mon 27 Jun 2011 11:49 PM (UTC) by Nick Gammon

Message

They did what?

Preloading the defaults should just read, not write, an existing file.

Possibly what they did afterwards is save the new file, and as the suggested name would default to the existing name, overwrite the existing file (that is, after agreeing to the prompt that says "do you want to overwrite it?"). Might that have happened?

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Twisol USA (2,229 posts)

Date

Reply #2 on Tue 28 Jun 2011 02:27 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

It looks like that's what's happening. I just created a new world based on another one, and hit Ctrl+S. No dialog came up asking me what to save it as, and no new files appeared in my world directory.

'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #3 on Tue 28 Jun 2011 03:23 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Well that sounds like a bug. I'm happy to get rid of the dialog totally personally.

It was more useful in the days of "default triggers" which now are less useful now that you have plugins. And I don't think "load defaults" loads the plugins, so it won't really do what your players are expecting anyway.

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Fiendish USA (848 posts)

bio Global Moderator

Date

Reply #4 on Tue 28 Jun 2011 03:32 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Amended on Tue 28 Jun 2011 03:33 AM (UTC) by Fiendish

Message

Quote:
I'm happy to get rid of the dialog totally personally.

Sounds good. I've basically been telling people to "start over and click _No_ next time". It seems like the dialog is just asking for trouble.

http://aardwolfclientpackage.googlecode.com/

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #5 on Tue 28 Jun 2011 04:14 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Done in version 4.76.

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Twisol USA (2,229 posts)

Date

Reply #6 on Tue 28 Jun 2011 04:41 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

It was kind of nice to be able to copy my font/scripting/iac-eor/paragraph-indent settings when I created a new world, but okay. I can just copy the file if I need to I think.

'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol

Posted by

Jing Wu Australia (35 posts)

Date

Reply #7 on Wed 24 Oct 2012 10:35 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Oh no! I need this great function, why remove it?
I just upgraded from verion 4.73 to 4.85 and found there is no more "preload world".

Personally, I need it because I don't want to duplicate *.mcl files because all my ids are sharing the same triggers. I have 5 ids which means I need copy 5 same world files? If I modified a trigger, then I need to update all 5 files?

Or iss there a alternative way to load same world multiple times?

Cheers,

Kernel Development

Posted by

Twisol USA (2,229 posts)

Date

Reply #8 on Wed 24 Oct 2012 04:44 PM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

You can move the common stuff into a plugin, and load that into your worlds. Or you can add an <include> tag to each of your world files, where the included file contains all of the shared definitions.

Plugins:

Template:post=9617

Please see the forum thread: http://gammon.com.au/forum/?id=9617.

Include files (and some old information on the world XML file format) here:

Template:post=1214

Please see the forum thread: http://gammon.com.au/forum/?id=1214.

'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #9 on Wed 24 Oct 2012 08:44 PM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Wjshome said:

Oh no! I need this great function, why remove it?
I just upgraded from verion 4.73 to 4.85 and found there is no more "preload world".

All that ever did was copy the existing world anyway. It didn't have some sort of pointer to a master world.

As Twisol says, make a plugin with your triggers in it. The plugin wizard makes that very simple.

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Jing Wu Australia (35 posts)

Date

Reply #10 on Mon 29 Oct 2012 01:07 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Amended on Mon 29 Oct 2012 01:09 AM (UTC) by Jing Wu

Message

Nick Gammon said:

Wjshome said:

Oh no! I need this great function, why remove it?
I just upgraded from verion 4.73 to 4.85 and found there is no more "preload world".

All that ever did was copy the existing world anyway. It didn't have some sort of pointer to a master world.

As Twisol says, make a plugin with your triggers in it. The plugin wizard makes that very simple.

I assume that sharing trigger is very simple thing via plugin. But my point is that I don't want to duplicate world(mcl) files if I want to open multiple IDs in the same host.

It is not allowed open same world file multiple times in the same mushclient instance.

For now I have 3 options:
1. duplicate mcl file. Or...
2. open multiple mushclient instance. Or...
3. use old version of mushclient.

So I would suggest that bring this function back, or give us a menu option called "Load from existing world".

Thanks,

Kernel Development

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #11 on Mon 29 Oct 2012 03:18 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

I must be missing what the problem is here. Just open the word, do a "save as" under a different name. Both worlds now have a different world ID, and thus you can have both ones open at once.

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Jing Wu Australia (35 posts)

Date

Reply #12 on Mon 29 Oct 2012 04:51 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Nick Gammon said:

I must be missing what the problem is here. Just open the word, do a "save as" under a different name. Both worlds now have a different world ID, and thus you can have both ones open at once.

Understood. But it is the thing I am trying to avoid. I am maintaining a common "world" file for all my mud roles, which means all my mud roles are sharing the same triggers, alias and etc. I never save the world file for a particular role. If a new mud window I need, I just "load from existing world", that's it. I don't need to "save as under a different name".

If I need to update my robot, I only need to update the common world file, instead every world file for each role.

So do you understand what I said above?

Kernel Development

Posted by

Nick Gammon Australia (18,770 posts)

bio Forum Administrator

Date

Reply #13 on Mon 29 Oct 2012 06:01 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

Quote:

So do you understand what I said above?

I understood the words.

But the thing is, all "Preload world defaults from an existing world" did was make a copy of the existing world file. It didn't solve that particular problem.

Once you "preloaded the defaults" you now have two world files. That let you carry over triggers, settings etc. without having to copy/paste. But if you changed a trigger in the original file, it didn't get echoed in the new file.

An early solution to that was setting up "default triggers" which was a file which was read into each world file (see Global Preferences -> Defaults).

Then other worlds could check "use defaults". But you still had to save the wanted triggers as a separate "default triggers" file. It didn't import them from a particular existing world file.

More recently, plugins solve that in a more natural way, because you don't just have a "set of defaults" you have a "set of plugins" which some worlds might use, and some not (eg. from MUD to MUD).

The simple way to solve your problem is to use the plugin wizard to make a plugin of all the desired triggers, aliases, timers and then remove them from the original world (the wizard offers to do that). Then each world just imports that plugin. The downside is you then need to edit this plugin if you want to change these triggers. (It's not particularly hard to do).

If you want to stick with the GUI interface, use the "defaults" method. "Export" your triggers from your "main" world into the default triggers file, and then use "Override with default triggers" in your "copy" worlds.

- Nick Gammon

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

Posted by

Twisol USA (2,229 posts)

Date

Reply #14 on Mon 29 Oct 2012 07:55 AM (UTC) [ quote ]

Message

It sounds like Wjshome was preloading defaults from an existing file, but never saving the clone into its own file.

'Soludra' on Achaea

Blog: http://jonathan.com/
GitHub: http://github.com/Twisol

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