The Kmud Handbook: Usage: Auto mapper

Kmud Homepage

Next Previous Table of Contents

### 4. Usage: Auto mapper

The auto mapper is a tool that can be used to generate maps of a mud. This can either be done manually or automatically. Once a map as been create it can be use to move around and show the layout of the mud.

### 4.1 Getting started

The auto mapper runs in a separate window to the main Kmud window To activate the mapper, select Mapper from the view menu or select the mapper icon on the tool bar.

This will open the mapper window. If this is the first time the mapper has been used for the current mud then the map will be empty, ready for the user to create a new map of the mud.

When the map window is closed or the connection to the mud is closed, then the map is saved. This map will be loaded next time the mapper window is opened for the mud.

### 4.2 Menu and toolbar options explained

The auto mapper tools can be selected from the mapper toolbar or from the tools menu. These tools are used to edit a map manually. As well as editing tools there are also tools to change the way the map is viewed. These tools are described below.

#### Select tool

The select tool is used to select the different elements of the map. Once a element(s) has been selected it can be move or manipulated using the edit menu. The simples way to select an element is by clicking on it using the left mouse button. If afterwards a different element is selected then the previous one becomes unselected.

The auto mapper allows multiple elements to be selected, there are two ways of doing this. The first method is by holding down the Control key. Whilst the control key is being held down the previous element will not be unselected when a new one is selected.

The second way to select multiple elements is by using a selection box. The selection tool has two modes of operation. The first is what we have just discussed, when each element is selected one at a time. This works by pressing and then releasing the mouse button above an element. The second mode is when the mouse button is held down whilst the mouse is moved. When the mouse button is released, everything in the box will become selected.

To move a element around click on it. Then click on the appearing blue box and move the element to the new position while holding the left mouse button.

#### Create room tool

The create room tool is used to create room elements on the map. Select the tool, then click on the map where you wish the new room to be. It is possible to change several properties of a room, by right clicking on a room and selecting "Properties" from the menu that appears, the different settings of the room can be changed.

The room properties dialog has several tabbed panes. The first one is the "Description" pane. Here a short and full description can be given to the room. The short description is the most important as this appears in the speed walk list when the room is added to it. The "Appearance" pane is used to change the room colour. The "Exits" pane is used to configure the paths from the room. The "Commands" pane can be used to enter commands that should be sent to the mud when a player enters or leaves the room.

#### Create zone tool

The create zone tool is used to create new zone elements on the map. Each zone is able to contains different map elements (zones,rooms, paths etc.). The tool can be used to break down the map into more manageable areas.

To create a new zone select the zone tool from the tools toolbar. Clicking on the map with the tool selected will place a new zone on the map. To open the zone, right click on it, and select "Open zone" from the menu that appears.

It is also possible to rename zones. This is usually a good idea as the zone name will appear on the status bar and in the speed walk list. To rename the current zone, open up the zone tools menu in the tools menu and select "Edit zone properties". This will open up a dialog asking for new name.

It is possible to rename and delete a zone visible on the map. To delete the zone , right click on the zone element and select "Delete Zone" from the menu that appears. To rename the zone select properties from the menu that appears.

#### Create path tool

The create path tool is used to create path elements on the map. Select the tool, then click the mouse on the room you wish the path to start at. Now move the mouse pointer to the room where you wish the path to end and click the mouse again.

The path properties dialog will now appear asking you to set the properties for the new path. From this dialog you can make the path either a one way or two way path. The directions that the path leaves the start room and enters the destination room will need setting. If the path is a special path, select the "Special Exit" button and enter the command used to move along the path into the "Special Command" text field. Once the details have been set, click 'OK' to create the path.

It is also possible to add bends to paths. To create a bend in the path, right click on the path where the bend is to be placed, and select "Add bend". Similary this bend can be removed by right clicking on a path segment and selecting "Remove segment" from the menu.

The bends can be move, to change the appearance of the path. To do this select the select tool. The path must now be put into edit mode. To do this select the path (See select tool section) and then click on the path again. If the default path colours are being used (See map preferences section) the path bend should now be in edit mode and a red rectangle should be centered on the bends. This rectangle can me dragged around to change the position of the bend.

#### Create text tool

The create text tool is used to create text elements on the map. Now click the mouse button where you wish the text label to appear. The text properties dialog will now appear. In this dialog the text element style, color and text can be set. Once these details have been set, click the 'OK' button to add the new text element to the map.

#### Erase map element tool

The erase element tool is used to remove a element from the map. Select the tool, then click on the element you wish to erase. This will remove the element from the map.

#### Grid tool

The grid tool is used to hide and show the gird. The grid can be useful when editing maps as it is easier to see were to place elements such as the rooms.

#### View Current Position

This tool is used to center the map on the current location of the player.

#### Level tools

There are two tools for moving up and down levels. These are used to view the different levels of the map. It also possible to create paths between different rooms using the level up/down tools with the path tool.

When manually creating a map it is sometimes necessary to create new upper or lower level. For this reason two tools in the tools menu are provided. The new levels created with these can then be used like another level.

The last level tool that can be used is the "Delete current level" tool. This will delete all the elements on the currently visible level and then delete the level.

#### Zone Tools

There are two zone tools, the first is the "Display parent zone" tool. This is used to change the visible zone to the parent of the current zone. The second tool is the "Edit current zone properties" tool. This is used to rename the current zone. For more details on this tool see the "create zone tool" section.

### 4.3 File options

The file menu contains menu options that operate on the whole map or the map window. The first option is the delete map option. This will erase the entire map and should be used with caution.

The next two options are the "Import Map" and "Export Map" options. These can be used to save the maps to a different file. Kmud saves and loads the maps when the mapper is opened and closed so these are not normally needed. These are intended for backing up a map or for giving a copy to someone else. The maps can be exported in two formats. These are the binary , and text KConfig formats. When importing the maps, kmud will auto detect which format is used based on the filenames.

There is an options to display general information about the map being used. This is done by selecting the "Information" option in the file menu.

The last option in the file menu is the "Close window" options. This will close the map.

### 4.4 Edit options

The Kmud mapper provides the standard cut/copy and paste as well as delete editing options. These options can be used to act on selected map elements. The edit commands can be found in the edit menu or on the edit tool bar.

If the user selects copy then all the selected elements will be copied into the auto mapper's clipboard. These can then be pasted back onto the map using the paste option. This will place the elements in a slightly different place to there original place. It is not possible to have two elements like a room occupying the same position, so if there is something already in that position the element in the clipboard is not pasted.

Cut works in a similar fashion to copy except that the selected elements are also deleted from the map. Delete can be used to delete elements from the map without placing them into the clipboard.

The last option in the edit menu , the "Undo Autocreation" is used to undo steps taken by the mapper when it is used in "Follow mode". Whenever you click on the map, recording of steps is restarted. The associated hotkey will work regardless of which window is currently active.

### 4.5 Mapping Modes

There are different modes that the auto mapper can be in. This changes the way the main window of Kmud interacts with the auto mapper. Mode options can be found on the modes tool bar and the options menu.

#### Create mode

If the create room mode is on, then as a player moves around the mud, new rooms will be created. If it is off then the player will only move to rooms that already exists.

#### Follow mode

If the follow mode is enabled then the auto mapper will follow the player around the map. If it is disabled then the auto mapper will make no attempt to follow the player.

### 4.6 Preferences

There are several options that can be configured to change the way the auto mapper works. To view the preferences dialog, select the preferences menu item form the the options menu.

This will display a preferences dialog with several tab panes for changing the settings of different elements of the auto mapper. Along the bottom of the dialog are some buttons. The 'OK' button is used to accept and apply the changes made with the dialog, the 'Cancel' button is used to close the dialog without apply any changes and the default button is used to restore the default settings for the auto mapper.

#### Directions

As a player moves around the mud using directions commands entered into the main mud window, the auto mapper can follow the player (if the correct modes have been enabled). In order for this to happen the auto mapper needs to know what commands are used to move in each direction. These commands are configured in the directions tab pane.

#### Colors

The colors tab pane is used to setup the different colors for elements of the map. For example the color of things like rooms and paths can be setup here. There are also options for setting the colors used to show the level below and above the current level.

#### Speedwalk

The speedwalk tab is used to control the different elements of speedwalking using the mapper.

It is possible for the speed walk to get suck. To get around this problem it is possible to set a limit on the speed walking. If this limit (number of steps) is reached before the destination is reached then the speed walking will be aborted.

Another option that can be set in the speedwalk tab, is the option to delay each step taken by the speedwalker. The delay is entered in centi seconds and the mapper will wait for this value before moving to the next location.

#### Misc

There are several options that can be set from the misc section. It is possible to configure valid room checking from here. When enabled , the mapper parses the output from the mud to see if the move that was last entered was valid. The text displayed when a move is invalid should be entered into any of the 3 text boxes in the valid move checking section. If there is more that one string displayed when a move is invalid then this can be entered into another of the text boxes.

The last option that can be set, is the default path type. It is possible to inform the auto mapper to create two-way or one-way paths by default.

### 4.7 The view menu

The view menu is used to change the view of the auto mapper. It is possible to hide/show the toolbars and the status bar from this menu. The gird can also be hidden or displayed. The auto mapper is able to display the level below and above the current displayed level. It turn this feature on or off, use the options 'Show Lower Map' and 'Show Higher Map' in the view menu. The last feature that can be hidden or shown from the view menu is the overview panel. This is used to display a birds eye view of the map.

### 4.8 Creating a map

There are two possible ways of creating a map. These are manually and automatic. When creating a map automatically, the map will build up as a player moves around the mud. The manual creation of maps is done via the mapper interface in a similar way to most vector graphics drawing program. The method of editing the map is useful for editing automatically created maps as the auto mapper will not get it correct every time.

#### Creating a map manually

Maps can be created manually similar to vector graphics programs, or automatic maps can be adjusted. Using the tools in the tools menu or the tools toolbar, rooms, paths and text labels can be created. Each item put onto the map is know as a map element. By clicking with the right mouse button on a map element, a context menu is display that allows the map element to be changed. For example it is possible to set the players current position to a room by right clicking on the room and and selecting "set current pos".

To aid with viewing different parts of the map, it is possible to hold down the middle mouse button, and move the mouse to change the scroll the position of the map. By selecting the tool "View current position" from the tools menu, it is possible to center the view back on the player.

#### Creating a map automatically

In order to create a map automatically the directions but be setup in the mapper options dialog. The create and follow modes must be turn on. The map can then be created by moving the player around the mud using the main Kmud window.

It will be necessary to set the login room when when the room as been mapped so that Kmud knows were the character should be when the map is started. This can be done by right clicking on a room as choosing set login room.

### 4.9 Speed walking

Using the auto mapper it is possible to speed walk to a room. This means that if the user wanted to move the mud character to a room on the map, then they can right click on the room and select the speed walking menu item. This will walk the character to the room.

It is possible that this can go wrong so care should be take when using this option. It is possible to limit the number of steps take while speed walking. This can be set in the options (see misc options section).

### 4.10 Speed walking list

It is also possible to add rooms to a speed walking list. The list can be hidden/shown by the "Show Speedwalk" option in the "View" menu. It is also possible to resize the speed walk pane witch appears in the map window to the left of the map.

Rooms can be added to the speed walk list be right clicking on them and selecting the "Add to speedwalk list" option from the menu that appears. The room is then placed in the list. The appearance of the list can be changed be selecting different options from the Categorize combo box.

To walk to a room in the list, select the room and click the icon at the bottom of the list with a picture 4 feet in it. It is also possible to delete and edit rooms from the list be selecting the delete or properties buttons at the bottom of the speed walk list.

Next Previous Table of Contents