An Introduction to MUSH

TinyFugue: why and how

TinyFugue is a MUD/MUSH/MOO client designed to make interfacing to an MU* simpler and a little friendlier. Friendlier, you say? Sign me on, right? Well, let's make the stakes a little sweeter. Here are a few of the things you can do:

• automate logins and logouts for MU*s
• prevent text from screaming past before you can read it
• keep your commands separate from the rest of the text
• edit your command lines thoroughly
• recall lines of text that you missed or would like to refer to
• log sessions or portions of sessions

Each of these little benefits is explained in the TinyFugue section, below, including how to use it. For those who prefer a Windows or Macintosh interface, other, similar clients exist, and you can use these just as easily. However, since I can't make these all available to everyone, I'll neglect mention. You may wish to check out Yahoo's section on this, however, or perhaps www.shareware.com's searching facilities may suit your fancy more.

MUSH: how to be who you are

The MUSH interface, as I'm sure you've noticed, is a little peculiar. It does require a little patience to get used to it, and often, a little experience to remove the initial overwhelming experience.

To ease this initial disorientation, I've assembled a couple 'general rules' for getting acquainted with the MUSH. The following items are not to be taken as defacto truth, or even the right way to do things, but should make life a little simpler.

• Use the look command. It's your friend. Most special instructions, like sitting at the table in the classroom, hide inside item descriptions.
• Movement is accomplished by using the name of the exit. For example, to enter a hallway, if the exit is named Hallway, you type hallway. Occassionally, even that won't work, and you'll need to type Hallway. Furthermore, some MUSHes will stick in one or two letter names you can use as abbreviations, allowing h to as well. Try any or all of these, but be aware that the alternatives exist.
• The say command can be abbreviated " (a double-quote), which is usually a pretty good mnemonic. The pose (for MUSH) or emote (for MOO) command is usually abbreviated : (a colon), which is less mnemonic, but saves a lot of typing.
• As you grow familiar with the MUSH, check out the help. That will attune you to some of the more involved features of the MUSH, even if the help facility itself kinda stinks.

Some of the features are helpful to use right away. These features make your life a little simpler, and make the environment a little more flexible. Some of these include:

• The @name command: to use this, simply enter @name me="New Name" password, substituting the new name you want to use for New Name, and your password for password. This can be especially helpful if you want to use a name other than the one you logged in with, or if (as some of us have) your name conflicts with the instructor's. ;)
  On a MOO, this is a little different. MOOs use @rename me to NewName, Alias and I can't gurantee that they'll actually work like expected, since (as an unregistered character) I couldn't actually test them.
• The @alias command: this command is usually good to use in conjunction with a longer name. Several of the more advanced commands, such as whisper, page, etc., require another user's name as a parameter. By setting your alias, you can prevent people from needing to spell out the whole name. To do this, just type @alias me=nickname, where nickname is the short form you'd like to use. For example, I set mine to geoffg, so that people wouldn't have to type my whole name.
  This is different on a MOO, too. You can add an alias when you rename yourself, as explained above. But you can also use the command @addalias alias to me if you want to add an additional alias later.

WARNING:
If you change your name and alias, you will need to use one or the other to log back into the MUSH. So if I change my name to Geoff Gerrietts and my alias to geoffg, then I will need to use connect "Geoff Gerrietts" password or connect geoffg password to get back in.

• The @desc commmand: to use this, type @desc some text that describes me. On an entertainment-centered MUSH, this item has a high status; in an academic setting, it's less important, but still, it gets really dull to look at other players and see 'You see nothing special.' That's what you look like if you don't set a description, and, well, we all know we're pretty special, right? Just a couple sentences will help give your "virtual self" some substance; the elaborately minded should see help substitutions for ways to stick carriage returns, tabs, and other interesting tidbits into their descriptions.
  Not surprisingly, this is also a little different in the MOO. On a MOO, you use @describe me as "Whatever you look like" to set your description. Again, I couldn't really test it, so your mileage may vary.

That's about it for the quick hints on MUSH in general...the remainder of this document centers on TinyFugue. If you plan to use another client, or (shiver) will be trying raw telnet again, you can skip the last part of this.

TinyFugue: the essentials

TinyFugue is a cute little program that packs an awful lot of power. To use it, you don't have to figure out how all this power works. Just log on, and away you go. This brief description centers around making TinyFugue work for you, and it begins with 'most wanted' features, moving into the more unusual things as the document progresses.

Starting TinyFugue

To start TinyFugue on Alexia, type /usr/people/student/gerriett/bin/tf at a Unix prompt. If you can get to the MUSH, you can get to this. Just go into Alexia like you would to read email, choose the Unix prompt option, and start it up. I know the command is awfully long, but it hasn't been installed in the system's default list of programs. System administrators generally consider it a toy.

The .tfrc file:

This file contains a list of startup commands for you to use when you run TinyFugue. You don't have to have one, but I mention it here because everything else we talk about below can be made to start up every time you start, thus eliminating most of the tedious typing that goes into setting it up.

I usually use Unix from the command line, so I'm not sure what the menu command is, but it's probably something like 'edit a file'. Type in the stuff that you want to start up each time, one entry per line. Then save it as .tfrc in your home directory (the one with your user name).

Keeping your commands separate from everyone else's stuff

By using the command /visual on, your screen should split into two nicely sized segments. You'll type stuff in the bottom window, and stuff that the MUSH sends you will appear in the top window.

This has the fringe benefit of allowing you to edit your commands at your leisure. By default, TinyFugue should recognize your delete key and your arrow keys, and you should be able to use ^P (control-P) to retrieve your previous command if you want to redo it.

Scrolling by pages

To prevent stuff from running off the top of the screen before you can read it, use the /more on command. This will stop your screen if you haven't typed anything since the line that's about to disappear first appeared. In other words, it assumes that you'll read stuff as it comes along, but it won't let anything go by if you've just been sitting there doing nothing.

If you get done with a screen and want to see more, hit your TAB key, and it will scroll another screenful of lines, or it will scroll to the point that the most recent line is at the bottom of the screen. This can be especially nice if you have a call of nature.

Saving what people say

To build yourself a log (a record of everything that happens), you can use the /log file command, providing a filename for file. You can do this at any time, though many prefer to do it right from the start.

To stop this, simply type /log off and it will stop sending stuff to the file.

Automating your connections

You can set up aliases for your connections, if you're so inclined. To do this, use the /addworld name userid password hostname port command. The userid and password options are optional: they refer to the name and password you use to log in to the MUSH. The name parameter is a simple one-word name for the world. I used 370 for last night's session.

The hostname and port parameters are the address you use when you telnet. As an example, if I were building one of these for the MUSH we used last night, I would use /addworld 370 geoffg smiley gaia.lis.uiuc.edu 4210 as my command.

Once that's done, simply using /world 370 will log me in and set me down in the first room. No more pesky login sequence.

A quick word of warning: if you stick this command in your .tfrc file, TinyFugue will automatically try to connect to the first world you list there every time you start it up. If you plan on using TinyFugue for more than one MUSH, you might want to stick a dummy world in there, just so that it loads that up, and you don't find yourself standing in the middle of somebody else's class.

Conclusion

Well, that about does it. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. Your best bet for that is email, but I guess you already knew that. You can reach me at [email protected]. Otherwise, hope this helps!