Installing and Using MUDGrinder

• What is MUDGrinder?
• Installation
• Not Your Mothers MUDGrinder
• Using MUDGrinder
• Author's Notes

What Is the MUDGrinder:

The MUDGrinder is a visual editing and administration tool. It includes the following Utilities:

• Control Panel, for changing many of the flexible settings of the engine, and includes the following:
• • Disable/enable buttons for features
  • Database health and reset
    
  • Security settings
  • Start/Death/Morgue Room settings
  • Channels definitions
  • Ability/skill/spell/etc settings
  • Clan settings
  • Combat-related settings
  • General player-related variables and settings
  • Economy and monetary settings
  • Calendar and weather settings
  • Other miscellaneous system/engine settings
• File Browser lets you browse, create, delete, upload, search, or modify text files in your CoffeeMud package.
• Files in normal Italics are only in the database (VFS).  Those in Bold Italics are both local and in the VFS.
• All file operations will target the VFS version of the file if it exists, and only the local version if that is the only one.
  The file operations are:
  
• edit the file in the text editor window
• rename the file
• download the file
• delete the file (again, targeting the preferred version of the file)
  
• Journals Browser lets you post, read, email, delete, or reply to any of the journals (message boards) in your system.
• Account Manager is where common accounts are managed, if they are enabled in your coffeemud.ini file.
• Player Manager is the place for reviewing your players and the banned names/ips list, and includes the following:
• • Player browser and editor, with the ability to delete or ban.
  • Bank account balances for all players
  • "Ban List' manager
    
• Quests Manager allows you to create, destroy, start, stop, and update Quests and quest scripts.  It also includes the Quest-Maker Wizard.
• Polls Manager allows you to create, destroy, and update your Polls.
• System Reports gives you a quick health and status check for your mud, which also includes:
• • "Tick" groups browser
    
• Server Log shows you the mud.log file, which is your main log file.
• Statistics is where you can browse the gameplay statistics after you've been running for awhile. You can also see Quest and Skill Use statistics here.
• Cache Resources is an obscure tool for flushing from memory those things that have been loaded from disk.

On the right-hand side is a series of object Editors, which include the following:

• Races - manage Generic Races, and easily convert standard Races to Generic for editing.
• Classes - manage Generic classes, and convert standard Classed to Generic for editing.
• Abilities - create and manage your Generic Abilities.
• Skill Recipes - create and manage your Common skill recipes.
• Holidays - create and tinker with all of the details of your in-game holidays, which are also managed by the Quest Manager above.
• Player Titles - create player titles, and specify who can get them and when.
• Socials - add and modify all of those fun socials stored in your socials.txt file.
• Clans - manage your players in-game Clans.
• Factions - create and manage your games Factions.
• Deities - a quick and easy way to find, modify, and create your worlds deities.
• Catalog - manage your mob/item catalog and the item auto-drop settings.  See the Archons Guide for more information on this feature.
  

Also included is a pleasant alternative to the command-line interface described in the Archon's Guide for creating and maintaining the areas, maps, rooms, monsters, and items inside your MUD. Instead of typing in commands, you can point and click to design your maps. Instead of running around with your Archon to get an idea of how things look, you can just point your eyes at the map on the screen.

Installation:

The MUDGrinder is a built in part of the Administrative Web Site of the CoffeeMud HTTP Web Server. For more information on this aspect of CoffeeMud, please refer to the Web Server Guide. So, if you have successfully installed and started up your CoffeeMud Server, and the Administrative Web Server has been successfully started as well, then MUDGrinder is already installed! Good job!

To access MUDGrinder, simply connect to your Administrative Web Site (http://localhost:27777/) and log into the MUDGrinder pages using your Archon administrative account information. If you have no idea what an Archon Administrative account is, you'll need to start back over again and read the Installation Guide.

Not Your Mothers MUDGrinder:

The MUDGrinder is easy to use, but it is not forgiving, and it is not for wussies. If you make a mistake, you will probably pay for it. If you click the wrong button, you will regret it. Be careful kiddies!

Using MUDGrinder:

If you've actually played this game before, and you've read the Archon's Guide and Game Builders Guide , and you understand it, you will have no troubles at all. The MUDGrinder is merely a visual means of accomplishing the same tasks, with the same objects and parameters as are described in the Archon's Guide.

If you have any further questions, or want to know how to undo a mistake, refer to the previous section.

Author's Notes:

Users of previous versions of the MUDGrinder know that the documentation provided for this version of the editor are twice as good as anything provided previously. However, the same caveats still apply: do not email Bo and tell him that his Java and MUD puns are not funny. He knows they are funny. He also knows you think they are funny and that any protests to the contrary are vicious lies.