Miscellaneous MUF Programs And Tutorials by Silver of A Bug's Muck

Tutorials related to MUF coding. Although written for the A Bug's Muck community, they may be useful for those in other mucks using the Tiny Muck/Fuzzball server.

MUF: Loops-- Introduction and Applications
MUF: Hyacinth's Amulet-- Arrays on Fuzzball 5.x
MUF: ChargeIt, a Device Charging Program
MUF: Random Environment Effects
MUF Debugging Solutions

Source code for a few MUF programs I've made. These programs are available for use in your muck if I'm given credit where due. They're largely here for illustrative purposes.

Containers This program provides functionality for objects that are meant to hold other objects called 'containers'. A container may be held or may be a local object. Objects need not be held to be placed in a container. Standard lock and ownership rules apply. The program supports 'keys' and 'permits', lists that allow a container to be used only if a user has a pre-defined key object or is a member of a permit list.	Containers.txt
Query Library This function library implements calls to sequenced questions. The user can move backwards and forwards through the questions, answering each in the order desired. The user can terminate the process at any time. Limited validation of questions and external default values are supported. Once you understand how the library functions work, they make it easy to do things like add installation procedures to your programs, where user's are asked a sequence of questions and must provide validated responses. See Lookto below for an example of using the query library.	lib_queries.txt
Profiles The Profile system allows players to publish information about themselves and their characters, and view the same information for others. Profile has two components, Pinfo and Cinfo. Pinfo displays personal real-world information for players. Cinfo displays IC and/or OOC character profiles for players and registered puppets. Profiles features a menu-driven editor system with both a simple and an advanced version. Administrators may pre-define character templates that can be used with the simple version, suitable for most users. For those who like to customize their profiles, the advanced editor gives the ability to add and delete categories, insert blank lines, dashed lines, and generally move things around. Profiles can be exported to other characters or even objects, allowing them to be backed-up or used as a template for defining new character profiles.	profiles.txt
Request Player This program governs the requesting and approval of new players for a muck. The requester portion walks players through the player request process, validating required fields and allowing users to quit at any point. Required fields are customizable based on a set of properties set on the program object. Character names are validated to conform to reasonable naming conventions and tested against existing player and registered puppet names. The administrator's approval tool features an easy to use menu-based system for viewing and managing requests. Online staff are immediately notified of requests. The program also includes provisions for notifying staff connecting to the muck of requests waiting for approval.	request_player.txt (needs query library)
Display Contents A replacement for an old program called by 5 Senses in ABM to display the contents of a room. This version does not crash on large content lists, allows dual-column content displays, is S-bit-aware, and allows wizards to see dark non-character objects.	Display_Contents.txt
List Characters This program returns a list of dbrefs of all player or puppet characters currently in the muck's database, with a count on top. The program is meant to be called by other programs either directly or via a macro. The player and puppet lists are maintained as reflists on the program's object. Each time the program is run, it checks a time stamp on the program's object. If more than 24 hours has past since the last timestamp, it queues up a version of the program that updates the list of puppets and players. Note that the reflist solution used by this program may not be sufficient for large mucks due to size limitations of a string stored on a property. A property list could be used as an alternative storage solution.	List_Characters.txt
List Globals This program lists all available commands/actions set on room #0 in a 4-column format. To hide a global from non-wizards, set the global action "D" or "H".	List_Globals.txt
List Players This program is meant to aid administrators in identifying and contacting players who haven't visited a muck in a while. It lists players in order of their last connection time, descending. It displays the player name, the most recent connection time, days since the last connection, and the player's listed email addrerss. If an admin doesn't want a player to show up in this list, such as featured characters or system-use pseudo-players, the player's dbref can be added to a list of hidden players set on the program.	List_Players.txt
Lookto A program for remote viewing an exit's target location. If an exit is enabled for lookto, 'lookto ' will give the user a 'look'-like view of the linked room. What is shown can be controlled by setting various properties set on the exit. Lookto is normally called by specifying an exit after the Lookto action, but it can be called without a parameter. In this case, Lookto will search for related properties on the triggering action instead of the exit specified in the usual parameter string. This is useful for setting up actions that give views on other places. The second listing is an improved version illustrating the use of the query library to give users an easy wizard-like tool for setting up an exit or action with Lookto.	Lookto.txt   Lookto.txt (needs query library)
Pfind A program for listing puppet characters. The program requires the characters to be registered on room #0, and they must be enabled as 'findable'. It can be used with a parameter (character name) to view details on individual characters. Information returned is character name, sex, species, status and location. Note that this is fairly old program and is not the 'pfind' used on A Bug's Muck written by Willow.	Pfind.txt
Profanity Check Takes a string as input and searches for words found in an enumerated property list on the program. If any word matches a word in the string, return true, otherwise return false. In standard usage this program is called from within other programs. If called directly, i.e. by link from an action, it assumes the intent is to display or edit the word list, a function restricted to administrators.	Profanity_Check.txt