Shot in the dark, looking for some general help or feedback

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09 Aug 2015 05:19 #1 by ktiedt
I am in the process of tracking down a JS based Mud Client because I am fed up with the subpar Apps out there these days... CMUD is antiquated and fragile and support is worthless..., Mudlet is cool (and cross platform) but... scripts appear to not work consistently across platforms and releases are painfully slow...

I stumbled across your Havok + MudPortal client and thought that it might work as a stand-alone client as well? The fact that it supports all the MUD protocols that I'm currently aware of was a big draw for me... However the initial INSTALL instructions on the portal repo seem to be missing some details it only loads a black screen...

If my assumptions are correct, I am hoping that I might get some nudges in the right direction on this front?

Thanks in advance!

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09 Aug 2015 11:35 - 09 Aug 2015 21:58 #2 by plamzi
Hi,

The MUDPortal web app repo contains a sample index.html to start you off. That said, it was only tested at the time I generated it, and I don't continually test it because supporting standalone apps is not really my goal. If you feel that you really want to run your own client while still taking advantage of any updates, then you will have to know / learn some JS and the basics of browser debugging.

You will also have to learn some stuff about deploying a node.js web proxy on a fully featured web host server (could be your local machine), or add your own code for bridging from websocket to raw sockets. Otherwise, the sandboxed app inside your browser will not be able to connect to just any telnet server out there. It's quite possible that this is what you saw when you first tried.

FYI, the portal app itself was designed to be a fully usable and fully free client in the cloud. With your Portal account, you not only gain access to the Game Center macros, triggers, and game profiles, you also gain the ability to script / customize those profiles as you please. In scripting, you can take advantage of any of the existing modules / plugins. Recognized game admin accounts are permitted to load customizations in other people's apps for a given game, but any Portal app user can load any customizations for him / herself.

If you're just a player who wants to play via the client, the only possible reason I can think of to download the repo is if you're so in love with this particular client that you're afraid the site may go down one fine day. That's not going to happen for many years, though occasional outages while I'm not looking are possible, as with any website.
Last edit: 09 Aug 2015 21:58 by plamzi.

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13 Aug 2015 08:48 #3 by ktiedt

plamzi wrote: Hi,

The MUDPortal web app repo contains a sample index.html to start you off. That said, it was only tested at the time I generated it, and I don't continually test it because supporting standalone apps is not really my goal. If you feel that you really want to run your own client while still taking advantage of any updates, then you will have to know / learn some JS and the basics of browser debugging.


Yup, already got that covered. However, when a project provides install steps, I do tend to follow them at first.

plamzi wrote: You will also have to learn some stuff about deploying a node.js web proxy on a fully featured web host server (could be your local machine), or add your own code for bridging from websocket to raw sockets. Otherwise, the sandboxed app inside your browser will not be able to connect to just any telnet server out there. It's quite possible that this is what you saw when you first tried.


Yup, I have managed to get the sample index.html to connect to my usual mud however, it never actually pulls any data over telnet. And this was only feasible by manually copying the ws.open() code and sending the intiial connect vial the Javascript Console... after that though, nothing send over the socket appeared to make it to the mud and the connection basically just hung at waiting for my credentials[/quote]

plamzi wrote: FYI, the portal app itself was designed to be a fully usable and fully free client in the cloud. With your Portal account, you not only gain access to the Game Center macros, triggers, and game profiles, you also gain the ability to script / customize those profiles as you please. In scripting, you can take advantage of any of the existing modules / plugins. Recognized game admin accounts are permitted to load customizations in other people's apps for a given game, but any Portal app user can load any customizations for him / herself.


Aiming for cross-platform, portable application, I prefer to work in Javascript so that is why I am here :)

plamzi wrote: If you're just a player who wants to play via the client, the only possible reason I can think of to download the repo is if you're so in love with this particular client that you're afraid the site may go down one fine day. That's not going to happen for many years, though occasional outages while I'm not looking are possible, as with any website.


I work on muds in my free time, my goal in the long run, is to provide a better experience for more players.

ps. Apparently *every* email from here gets flagged as spam... Kind of odd.

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13 Aug 2015 12:10 - 13 Aug 2015 12:11 #4 by plamzi

ktiedt wrote: Yup, I have managed to get the sample index.html to connect to my usual mud however, it never actually pulls any data over telnet. And this was only feasible by manually copying the ws.open() code and sending the intiial connect vial the Javascript Console... after that though, nothing send over the socket appeared to make it to the mud and the connection basically just hung at waiting for my credentials


Just to be clear, the browser app normally points to the ws proxy (included in the repo), which then bridges the connection to any given regular MUD server. The behavior you're describing is normal if you try to connect from browser WS directly to a raw socket server. Unless your MUD server can "speak" Websocket, that is not going to work.

I'm still not exactly sure why you've embarked on hosting your own app. At the end of the day, you will not have a more portable solution. You will just have your own copy of the MUD Portal app.
Last edit: 13 Aug 2015 12:11 by plamzi.

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16 Aug 2015 16:49 #5 by ktiedt
Ahh, glancing through the code, it seemed like the wsproxy.js spoke telnet directly -- Ultimately I am trying to find a JS implementation that speaks the various mud protocols and does a good job converting ANSI codes so I can wrap it all into a cross platform application. If the proxy only speaks websockets (which is odd since I see it connecting to my mud, just not initiating the login prompt) then I suppose I am chasing the wrong bit of code.

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16 Aug 2015 20:16 #6 by plamzi
The proxy speaks websocket to the web app and telnet to the target servers. That is its proxying mission.

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16 Aug 2015 20:59 #7 by ktiedt
Well, then your statement was ambiguous, you made it sound as if it was only meant to talk WS to WS. I am connecting via a browser using WS to the proxy and directing the proxy to connect to the mud via telnet (and see it happen) but that is all it does, nothing happens post initial connection. Beyond the initial connection it seems nothing passed to the WS ever makes it to the mud nor does any login prompt from the mud make it back through the proxy.

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