HTML5 Updates!

Tecton

For those of you who haven't seen the latest ANNOUNCE news, I'm pleased to announce a new version of the HTML5 client! We've been super-excited to put this build in for the past couple of weeks, mainly so we can show off our new variable-width font system! No more staring at plain old Courier new's blocky-ness, instead, look at those sleek clean lines of Verdana, or any of a range of new fonts.

A heap of other cool new features were put in as well, here's the highlights:

•  A new, refined character creation system has been implemented.
• The settings windows have been overhauled, making things more streamlined.
• Overall padding between the screen elements has been reduced, allowing more real estate for the important stuff.
• We've reworked the gauges, including a new experience bar, and the option to turn them off completely.
• Opening a channel in the sidebar will automatically turn the channel on in-game, should it be off.
• The precision (amount of decimals) of the timestamps is now configurable.
• Forgotten your password? There's now a link for that when you attempt to log in!
• Various other tweaks to visual elements, tool-tips, and overall performance.

Log in over at client.achaea.com to check it out! Got feedback? Want to have its babies? Feel free to post your thoughts in here or use the feedback form in the client!

Alyana

when choosing races, the info for the races in the middle column get pushed off the left side of the screen.

Cromm

Thanks for the feedback on that -- we're still tweaking the styling on those very issues.

- Cromm

Aktillum

Great additions to the html5 client. I hope it gets a scrollback bar soon!

Tecton

You can use your mousewheel/pageup/pagedown/double-click to bring up the scrollback buffer!

Arithorn

For the sake of my curiousty only, what percentage of players actually use web based clients?  I remember Clementius posted this ages ago, but it's probably changed since then.

Cheers,

Ari.

Tecton

At this very second, about 10% of the players are using a web-based client.

Iocun

That's far less than I expected. I'd have guessed that a great number of the long term players are using other clients, but I'd have thought that all the people who haven't played for long would turn this much more in favour of the web clients.

Mannimar

I would have expected closer to 20%

Alyssea

@Iocun With all the people advocating for other, better clients? People ask things about Html5/Nexus/Flash on the Sentinel combat clan and other ooc clans and the only response they get is silence or "I don't know, get Mudlet." One of the first things houses do is have people set up (unneeded) antitheft, and with that always comes questions about how to set it up. And when the new player can't find anyone able to help, they switch to a better client that has people who can help.

Sarapis

The HTML5 client has trigger packages being added to it now so that we can help newbies do that kind of thing more easily. 

Cromm

I'll also see about adding some quick how-to guides for common triggers and functions that should help clarify some of those issues.  Any suggestions/requests for guides to include?

Iocun

Alyssea said:

@Iocun With all the people advocating for other, better clients? People ask things about Html5/Nexus/Flash on the Sentinel combat clan and other ooc clans and the only response they get is silence or "I don't know, get Mudlet." One of the first things houses do is have people set up (unneeded) antitheft, and with that always comes questions about how to set it up. And when the new player can't find anyone able to help, they switch to a better client that has people who can help.

I'd have thought that many people, especially new players, aren't in any machanics related ooc clans and might not frequent the forums. And people with no mudding background won't even know what a mud client is and be more familiar with browser-based gaming.

But I guess that if many orgs in Achaea have OOC combat clans, that helps to explain it.

Alyssea

Even the ones that aren't in ooc combat clans will have to ask someone (typically their mentor) about it if they aren't used to MUDs or coding. One of my proteges was on HTML5 and asking me how to create some antitheft trigger, and I actually got on HTML5 and figured it out for them, but it certainly would have been easier to just say, "Sorry, I don't use that. Download Mudlet and there will be plenty of people that can help you." I'd imagine that most people would tend toward that, especially since even if you tell them how to create that one thing, there will most likely be more questions, and it's simpler to just have them make the switch than continually having to figure out how to help them with things on a client that few people use.

Garuksi

I'm a brand-new player and signed up and did the newbie quest all on the HTML5 client in Safari on my iPad last night. Was very smooth for the most part. My only complaint was that I couldn't scroll back up through past text. Tried swiping with one finger, two fingers, but couldn't get it to scroll. Would love to see this adapted into a full-screen, dedicated iPad app. I tried some of the paid iPad mud clients but there's no mapping and they feel a little clunky since they're designed to accomodate a variety of MUDs. I plan to do the bulk of mudding in bed, on my iPad, so anything to enhance that experience would be greatly apprecated!

Sarapis

Glad you liked it Garuksi! We'll look into the scrolling issue.

Tecton

We're going to bring up a "double-tap to bring up the scrollback window" in the next revision, which should solve these issues for you @Garuksi - stay tuned over the next few days!

Tecton

Due to interference with some built-in android functions, we couldn't do a "double tap" but you'll notice a new button in the upper right of the output window which will bring up the full scrollback split-screen window.

Xith

I'm novice-intermediate when it comes to scripting, having only recently made important breakthroughs like knowing how tables and arrays work with Lua (Mudlet).

And having had my laptop crash recently, I've given the HTML5 client a try now. It's pretty sleek for the most part, but I had difficulty setting up some basic aliases without examples to go by. When I first found Achaea (my first MUD), I didn't know Java from Javascript, so for new people to use that client and find the game more bearable setting aliases/macros up, a short list of examples would be useful.

So because I only speak Mudlet :P these would be good points to grasp.
Mudlet equivalent
Game client equivalent

^aim (\w+)$ --(alias)
target = matches[2]
aim    --(function)
set_variable("target", args)

cecho("<pink>Target: " .. target)
    print("target: ", "pink")    
    print(get_variable("target"), "pink")
This is the main part I wasn't able to figure out in my time last night. How to separate a variable from the other printed text on the same line.

F1 (keybind)
send ("kick " .. target, false)
F1 (keybind)
kick @target

Beya

Totally agree with @Xith. HTML5 could benefit from examples. A SMILE and a SMILE <PERSON> alias would be a great start, as these are usually the first things for people to code.

Also references to variables and scripts.

Tecton

One thing that we're working hard on at the moment is improvements to the documentation. If you'd like to get a feel for scripting in the HTML5 client, there are some pre-packaged scripts (an autosipper, and a targeting system) available in the settings window that you can enable or view the source of to get an idea of how they're made.

Tromboldor

I know I'm late posting here, but I love the new client! The updates work great too! Looking forward to continued support.

Cromm

Quick update for @Xith and @Beya (and everyone else, of course) - please take a look at the latest documentation, specifically the new Examples section (I also fleshed out the original Scripting Guide section with examples of each built-in function).

The Example Reflexes section now goes from start to finish creating a few basic offensive and defensive reflexes.  Let me know what you think!

Aktillum

Love the html5 client for when I'm not on my own pc. Had mixed results with it on a Kindle. Any plans to make the client more mobile friendly? 

I realize the app exists but "responsive web design" mobile friendly sites are replacing apps in the long run.

Cromm

Thanks!

We'll certainly continue to focus on optimizing it for mobile use.  I'm sure you've noticed that it is responsive based on the screen size -- desktop looks different than a tablet looks different than a phone -- but we'll certainly be working to better optimize it for use on smaller screens/lighter processors.

Aktillum

This new music is p. badass

Rovelda

I love how it looks in my computer. But does it have a mapper, like mudlet? 

Cromm

The only map functionality right now is what you'll see on the sidebar to the right on the World tab (or in the pull down menu on smaller screens).  It works very similarly to the more basic map functions in Mudlet -- scroll your mousewheel to zoom, click and drag to pan around the map, and hover over a room to see its name, etc.

Is there a specific feature that's missing that you'd like to see?

Rovelda

I saw a map on the right, but don't understand its advantages compared with the in-game map (I don't understand Mudlet Map either). What I meant to ask is if there is a way to go from one end of Sapience to another (eg: from Ashtan to Cyrene) by using a command (Goto Cyrene).

I just came here yesterday and asked, because I truly loved the look of it, but all these things are very difficult for me and I have downloaded Mudlet again, as I was already a bit used to it. 

Chamar

I love the HTML5 client and would like to use it instead of downloading some other client but I have tried to both, load settings from my Nexus client after saving them to the server and import. Neither have worked. Can I get some help? Almost no one ingame can assist.

Tecton

I'm afraid that there's no way to import settings from nexus into the HTML5 client currently, sorry! For help getting your triggers and aliases set back up, there's been a lot of questions asked and answered over in http://forums.achaea.com/discussion/65/html5-client-questions-and-such