Best posts made by Ninjakitten

There've been a number of times people have expressed regret over the loss of the previous board incarnations and the information that was on them. Also I'm a bit of a hoarder/archiver when it comes to these things, so personally I'm not huge on the 'switch over and then let it die after a while' version of things.

Switching DB servers or migrating to another platform that has a way to preserve existing content (in either case) would be my ideal for things.

...also if it did search better that'd be nice.

@kestrel I mean, that's fine, but the fact that my friend moved 1000 miles away doesn't make them any less my friend. My parents and sibling aren't close enough to bring me soup either, and it doesn't make them less my family. The fact that person X has never as yet lived close enough to bring soup does not mean they're not a real friend.

No one asked 'do you want to know people close by enough to do things like bring soup who are also inclined to if you need it'. The question was 'are online friends real friends'.

The answer is yes.

An unexpected bug showed up with the change of month! There's already a fixed github version; the store one's been submitted but not processed on their end yet. In the meantime, timestamps will be kind of broken. I'll post again when the developer says the store version's been approved and is available.

@faraday said in General MSB announcements:

@silverfox said in General MSB announcements:

I don't like it either. CHANGE IS HARD.

I don't mind change, generally, but that line is absurdly distracting for some reason.

Also not a fan. At a quick prod, if people use something like Stylebot they should be able to remove it with:

.topic .posts.timeline .timeline-event, .topic .posts.timeline>[component=post] {
    border-left: 0;
}


.topic .posts.timeline [component=post]:last-child:after {
    width: 0;
}

If they want a little clearer division between posts they might also add something like

.topic .posts.timeline .timeline-event:not(:first-child), .topic .posts.timeline>[component=post]:not(:first-child) {
    border-top: 1px solid #375a7f;
}

...might want a different colour if they use a different skin than I do, though.

If you want modern/recent, I'm not going to be any use to you...

My high school was one of the first in my state to have internet, and I was nerdy enough to be The Girl Who Was Interested In It. I somehow found talkers (maybe they were mentioned in one of the earlyish how to internet books?) and then one day doing a 'w' on our server I noticed a guy I knew was telnetting to (iirc) trekmuse.org 1701. Which looked potentially interesting (see: nerdy), so I logged in. And it was. And I've basically been MU*ing ever since.

I'm pretty sure my story's gonna get optioned as a movie any day now.

Well, I've been pretty remiss here. Since my last post, we've been through .297, .298, and .299, and here we are at 4.00.300!

If you haven't been keeping up otherwise, here's what you've missed out on:

4.00.297 (2020-7-4)

• Added Donate link on About screen, plus Help->Donate... menu item (So for those of you asking about making donations, here you go!)
• Merged About and Welcome windows to just the About window
• Added 'all' parameter to disconnect and reconnect to make things consistent and flexible
• Fixed a bug in Pueblo tag parsing where relative font sizes were treated as absolute (so <font size=+2> was size=2). They're ignored now.
• Fixed a maps bug where 'Set Text Color...' didn't work on labels
• Fixed a glitch where zero sizing a docked pane makes it lose its title bar
• Fixed a crash if docking a zero height window

4.00.298 (2020-7-28)

• Added GMCP protocol support
• Added subset of MCSP protocol support (Mud Client * Sound Protocol) -- just the basic load/play/stop commands.
• Added WebP image link detection for the image viewer
• Fixed potential race condition in async downloads (Might explain some image viewer glitches/crashes)
• Fixed bug with puppets on startup, where puppets might not link with their character and will not function
• Fixed crash in maps when trying to undo/redo an operation that is not on the map that is currently visible

4.00.299 (2020-8-11)

• Fixed a small annoyance with spawn captures, by killing any active ones on disconnect and after a restore log replay
• Fixed store issue where the configuration can't be saved if the app is installed on a different drive (thank you Dranyth!)
• Fixed a bug where MCSP sounds can hang when disconnecting
• Fixed a bug where // to bypass command processing both sends and processes the command (which doesn't recognize it, so you get an error)

AND NOW

4.00.300 (2020-9-24)

• Added Important Activity notification in trigger actions (number in red box on the tab) (So you can set things up to be told which activity you really care about)
• Added screen reader support for the output window (one big step towards visually impaired usability)
• Added 'beip.stats' GMCP package (see documentation)
• Added '/repeat' command to easily repeat something multiple times
• Added '/naws' command to send a telnet NAWS (Negotiate About Window Size)
• Added repeating timer support to '/delay' plus ability to kill individual timers
• Added imgur link handling to the image preview window (it's a hack but it works)
• Tweaked hash trigger coloring to be on the text being replaced, not just the first subexpression matched (Now if you're looking for the same word in different contexts in one regex, it will come out in the same colour in each! Bug introduced with using it with the 'whole line' recolouring, which will be working properly again in 301.)
• Changed tab control to have a modern flat look (mostly visible with tabbed spawn windows) (Better matching the rest of the previous design adjustments!)
• Changed tabbed spawn windows to have no outer padding (Saves space!)
• Changed Pueblo links to show what will be sent, and to add it to the input history when sent
• Fixed bug with restore log repair: when deleting unused restore log entries it would change the order of existing entries
• Fixed a bug copying a server in the connection dialog: it would copy the restore log entries and cause a repair leading to the previous bug
• Fixed a bug in ansi code parsing with ansi reverse: any color changes within the reversed block had foreground/background swapped
• Fixed a crash when closing a window with splitters in the text windows

Due to several requests over time, as well as the ability to donate via subscription in the program itself, there now is a Patreon! If you can't or aren't inclined toward that, one can always feel free to express appreciation by dropping by the Discord to tell the dev 'thanks'. Or to ask for new/adjusted features. Tomayto, tomahto...

As always, if you don't have it or it hasn't updated itself yet, you can grab the current version from the Microsoft Store (preferred), or alternatively from the github.

Enjoy!

Mrm. I don't like that names seem to have disappeared from the unread page... I don't have everyone's avatars memorized and I don't want to.

@Shayd
I know someone who found them IN 2010, I believe. She was 21 at the time and we were all amazed there was someone that young around. Slight change from when I started...

@skew said:

Why's it the best? Easy. It has two input windows. That means when you're in the middle of Hot TS and get paged a dank meme, you don't have to ctrl+a ctrl+x to save your half-written pose while you respond to @tragedyjones about how dank his memes are.

...just in case anyone using SimpleMU is unaware, you don't have to ctrl-a ctrl-x in it, either. Hit ESC, write and send your new thing, then ctrl-p twice and you have the thing you escaped right there again. Keeps you from accidentally losing it by copying something else.

On Potato, can you switch between your two input windows without using the mouse? I didn't really explore that feature a lot back when I was trying it out, but it wouldn't really work for me if you have to click.

Also, I seem to recall a friend of mine went back to SimpleMU because logging the main window for a world wasn't keeping in the text from the spawn windows as well, but that was a couple-few years ago. I see 'omit from logs' is an option in that event definition screen, which suggests unless you click it you do get the stuff in your log -- but that could just be an option for things you gag, and spawn windows could still be not-logged by default, so: does it log your spawns?

I'm almost certainly going to keep using SimpleMU until I can't, but I'm hoping when/if that day comes Potato'll be a replacement I can cope with...

@Cirno
I know, but that requires me moving the mouse around, instead of just my eyes. It's considerably more effort than before.

@Gingerlily

I'd guess probably Life on the Screen, by Sherry Turkle. That's the first that leaps to mind, anyway, and I'm pretty sure the others I think of are post '97.

@surreality Glad you shared it, 'cause otherwise, I still would have. >:D ALL MUST READ.

@kumakun I go through phases of log posting. In ye olden days, I just stripped any OOC that wasn't either important to what was going on or really funny (to me), made sure there were blank lines between the poses, made sure it was dated/located, whacked it into a public directory, and that's about it.

These days I still have blank lines between each pose, but use indentation so that when there are multiple paragraphs (that never happened in ye olden days) there aren't confusing blank lines but it's clear where the paragraphs change. (To be fair, that's also how I RP now, so I'm basically setting things how I like them.) I try to have the descs of the location and the characters available in there, also. The exact format depends on if it's a wiki or my own site, but I've always intended them to be read online, so I can do things that wouldn't work right on paper or a standard ebook.

I rarely correct other players' spelling or grammar or anything, though sometimes I'll fix my own typos. And once in a while I've run into someone who didn't want their rp posted, or at least not anything one-on-one where they might have spilled secrets. It's rare, but a few people do object. It's safer on games where posting logs is known to be the culture.

At one point I wanted to make a website that was specifically for people to post and share RP logs, but I never really got around to it. I have one of my own, but I'm really slack about getting my (thousands of) logs into it, and the formatting can be a little finicky sometimes. But, one nice thing about intending it for online is that you can make followable references to other logs if you want, do next/previous, have things searchable, divide by tags, find a list of all logs with a particular character in them...

I have no idea if that answers anything you were asking, because I'm tired and sick and rambly today. But hey, have a ramble.

@Gingerlily
If it's not, poke me and I'll check my bookshelves and old files. If it references MU* and it's published before about 2006, chances are pretty decent it's in there somewhere.

@wahoo I'm so sorry. That's really hard.

@faraday This is usually true, but somehow a couple of my characters back in the day actually had regular readers who didn't play on the games, or in a couple cases didn't even MU* at all. I don't think many people would get invested through the initial portion of things without some kind of connection, though.

Well, let's see. Currently I'm on two games. One tends to use the public channel and the other uses the OOC Lounge so I'm going to refer to 'the OOC venue' to cover them both.

So, how I go about it tends to go:

1. if I have a paused scene, I check with whoever else was involved if they're around.
2. if there's something in particular my character needs/wants from someone, or something I know someone else needs/wants from mine, I check with them if they're around.
3. if one of my closest friends is online, I usually check if they're up for RP.
   3a) if so, are they up for more people or just one on one? If the former, go to step 4; otherwise just play.
4. I check +who to see if anything's going on in public.
   4a) if so, I ask someone what's up and/or if there's room for more people.
5. if there isn't or it's full/not appropriate for some other reason, I ask in the OOC venue whether anyone's up for RP.
6. if no one is, I either go do something else, put my character somewhere public IC in case someone decides to show up, or both (if it's a 'something else' that still lets me see if someone comes in or pages).

@Sparks said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

after about a minute I had devised a mental trick to let me remember the color/shape combinations so as to not miss many

Is this an ADD thing? I wasn't diagnosed until grad school, but I've always done this for all sorts of things and it never occurred to me until this moment that it might not just be 'normal'. >_>

@paris said in Seeking Accessibility Feedback:

Just making sure the colors you use make a huge difference, though, on games with ANSI and similar systems. I can't count how many games love to use dark blue on black. -.-

My personal hobbyhorse here is "never use colour as the sole indicator of anything".So many games change something from, say, red to green but leave the actual text untouched and expect that to be all that's needed. I'm sure it's been a problem for people using screenreaders, and I know it is for people who by preference or health needs (migraine triggers, eyestrain, etc.) don't use colour in their client in the way the coder expects.

It's probably not an issue with Ares, given you've already been thinking about things. But man it drives me up a wall.

@Coin said in Finding roleplay:

@Arkandel said in Finding roleplay:

Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense but because that is not true.

This sentence doesn't scan.

It actually does, but I had to read it twice. Adding a comma (and possibly emphasis) helps. "Rules aren't needed because everyone knows each other and/or can be trusted to possess common sense, but because that is not true." I.e., the reason rules are needed isn't (etc).