[MUD-Dev] A new MUD-standard

[Kevin Littlejohn]

>>> "Kwon Ekstrom" wrote

> I've decided to write up a list of things that I'd like to see a new
> standard to do, more detailed than the summary I posted earlier
> after J C Lawrence's suggestion of a detailed report.  This won't be
> as detailed as is likely to be needed, but it'll give a fair
> approximation of what I think should be necessary.
 
> The transport layer must be a 2 way connection which may or may not
> support compression.  The protocol should allow multiple ways for
> data to be passed between the server and client.  A client-side
> presentation layer must support precise control over how input is
> displayed.  It should allow, but not require multible areas to post
> data to.  It should support at least 16bit color, 16 color ansi is
> getting rather outdated.  It should allow data to be grouped in the
> form of tables or lists.  The protocol should be easy to learn, and
> use.  Bandwidth should be kept to minimum usage.

  http://www.bofh.net.au/mud/doc/zwiki/MoebiusXML

I offer this up in full humility, knowing it will be torn to shreds ;)
However, we've implemented this in Moebius as a first-step after
wandering through some of these discussions, basically because a) it's
easy to handle for any client builder, b) it gives us a base from
which to start working on the bigger question of what do you want
client and server to be able to do, without worrying about how do you
want to define the protocol over which it'll be done.

We sorta decided that tying ourselves down any more than this could
potentially cause problems down the track - the set of potential
features for the mud is large, including such things as distributed
whiteboarding and so forth, so this is as generic as possible.  Also,
if it was decided that something like CSS was a good way to carry
presentation info, that can easily be supported on top of this.
Basically, this is a bootstrap layer that allows you to tinker, when
you find something you like you can then tune heavily (potentially
with new BXXP channels or whatever, at least with hand-made functions
for particular tags/data).

I'd really be interested in commentary on this system, if people can
stomach looking at YAhand-rolled system ;)

KevinL

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