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Author Topic: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX  (Read 6151 times)

Allaya

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Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« on: February 21, 2016, 08:32:09 am »
Okay, so.  A bit more than a year ago, I realized that I'd developed a strong aversion to using the MUX. I miss chatting with people, but the actual experience of dealing with telnet was so much of a pain in the ass that I gave up.

But I miss chatting with my fellow Cauldronites enough that I'm going to try to hate the experience less. So I'm going to list some specific aspects that I need help to hate less.

Issue #1: I'm an IRC girl. I use assorted flavors of xChat. They strike a nice balance between being visually uncluttered and still having easy-to-get-to-and-understand settings and options. I've tried an assortment of MU* clients and they are...decidedly meh. I think I ended up with PotatoClient. Is there a client that is possibly better than the one I've selected? I mean, FFS...I had to learn the basics of regular expressions in order to just highlight peoples' names. WAT.

Issue #2: I like to have audio cues that someone has said something. A taskbar flash is just about useless to me. Is there a setting or option that I have missed in PotatoClient or other clients that allows for a post chime or am I shit out of luck?

Issue #3: The thing that ultimately drove me away was the complete lack of disconnect notification. The only clue that my connection might have dropped was that the chat got quiet and I could not find any way of finding out other than A: asking "Did everyone stop talking or did I drop AGAIN" or B: Disconnecting and Reconnecting. This would happen multiple times an hour. This to me is abso-fucking-lutely unacceptable and it seems to be intrinsic to telnet because it happened across multiple clients. Is there a setting or option or plug-in that can provide connection loss notifications? This is more or less a deal-breaker for me.

Halp? Anyone?
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 08:34:26 am by Allaya »
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

RandallS

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2016, 10:54:39 am »
Quote from: Allaya;187048
Issue #1: I'm an IRC girl. I use assorted flavors of xChat. They strike a nice balance between being visually uncluttered and still having easy-to-get-to-and-understand settings and options.

Unfortunately, running a local irc server is a large sercurity/legal risk. It would be too easy for people (including non-members) to use the server for file trading and the like -- especially since it would be empty of staff most of the time.

Quote
I've tried an assortment of MU* clients and they are...decidedly meh. I think I ended up with PotatoClient. Is there a client that is possibly better than the one I've selected?
I've never even heard of PotatoClient. I generally use tinyfugue on linux (as that's what I started on in the mid-1990s) and Mushclient on Windows. tinyfugue is definitely not for you (or most people these days). I don't think Mushclient does the three things you want either. However, I'm not an expert as it has been years since I really did anything on a MU*, so I'm not an expert on current clients.
« Last Edit: February 21, 2016, 10:55:11 am by RandallS »
Randall
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Darkhawk

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #2 on: February 21, 2016, 10:56:36 am »
Quote from: Allaya;187048
Is there a client that is possibly better than the one I've selected? I mean, FFS...I had to learn the basics of regular expressions in order to just highlight peoples' names. WAT.


There are many many clients, most of which I'm not familiar with (and if you're on a Windows box I can't really help you with that); I suspect there exists some that will do more of what you want, but I don't know what they are.

Quote
Issue #3: The thing that ultimately drove me away was the complete lack of disconnect notification. The only clue that my connection might have dropped was that the chat got quiet and I could not find any way of finding out other than A: asking "Did everyone stop talking or did I drop AGAIN" or B: Disconnecting and Reconnecting. This would happen multiple times an hour. This to me is abso-fucking-lutely unacceptable and it seems to be intrinsic to telnet because it happened across multiple clients. Is there a setting or option or plug-in that can provide connection loss notifications? This is more or less a deal-breaker for me.

 
The client I use has an option for 'use silent telnet keepalives'.  This appears to be a thing where a completely idle connection will silently close off.  I don't know what about the modern net does this - disconnects were certainly not silent when I was routinely MUSHing in the 1990s unless there was some sort of internet error.  When I was having this issue it was a problem with my firewall/router, and that's why the monkey was coded - any activity would help - but some people need a client that will send an automatic something from their side to keep things going.  Honestly, this is getting into internet architecture that is beyond me.

But the short answer is you probably want something with a "telnet keepalives" option in its settings.  The client I use - Atlantis, which is a Mac program - has this.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #3 on: February 21, 2016, 10:57:32 am »
Quote from: RandallS;187049
tinyfugue is definitely not for you (or most people these days).

 
I miss tf. :}
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

RandallS

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #4 on: February 21, 2016, 11:07:09 am »
Quote from: Darkhawk;187051
I miss tf. :}

It's still there. 5.0beta8 for linux/unix and 4.1 stable 1 for windows and mac. There is probably a 5.0beta8 version for Mac under homebrew (or whatever lets mac use unix software -- as I'm not a mac person I may have the name wrong).

Since I run linux in a vm om my Win7 box, I just use the linux version.
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Microlite20: Lots of Rules Lite Tabletop RPGs -- Many Free

Allaya

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #5 on: February 21, 2016, 11:57:36 am »
Quote from: RandallS;187049
Unfortunately, running a local irc server is a large sercurity/legal risk. It would be too easy for people (including non-members) to use the server for file trading and the like -- especially since it would be empty of staff most of the time.


I keep hearing this. But it does not match up at all with my experiences. I've Op'd on private servers running InspIRCd and UnrealIRC and both are quite lockdown-able. You don't need heavy reliance on staff so much when channel services/bots are keeping an eye on things.
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

Allaya

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2016, 12:01:06 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;187050
There are many many clients, most of which I'm not familiar with (and if you're on a Windows box I can't really help you with that); I suspect there exists some that will do more of what you want, but I don't know what they are.


Yeah, I should have specified that I'm running Win7. Whoops.

 
Quote
The client I use has an option for 'use silent telnet keepalives'.  This appears to be a thing where a completely idle connection will silently close off.  I don't know what about the modern net does this - disconnects were certainly not silent when I was routinely MUSHing in the 1990s unless there was some sort of internet error.  When I was having this issue it was a problem with my firewall/router, and that's why the monkey was coded - any activity would help - but some people need a client that will send an automatic something from their side to keep things going.  Honestly, this is getting into internet architecture that is beyond me.

But the short answer is you probably want something with a "telnet keepalives" option in its settings.  The client I use - Atlantis, which is a Mac program - has this.

 
I'll go documentation diving. I'm going to be hella-pissed if I have to resort to regular expression trial and error.

Thank you very much, Randall and Darkhawk for getting back to me on this.  :)
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

Jack

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2016, 10:52:50 pm »
Quote from: Allaya;187057
Yeah, I should have specified that I'm running Win7. Whoops.

I use MUSHclient and I was able to make it do both noise-on-message and it tells me when it disconnects, plus I was able to set up a trigger to keep me from disconnecting.
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savveir

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2016, 04:39:01 pm »
Quote from: Jack;187085
I use MUSHclient and I was able to make it do both noise-on-message and it tells me when it disconnects, plus I was able to set up a trigger to keep me from disconnecting.

 
I use Mudlet and it does similar things. Also I love the name.
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Allaya

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Re: Need a crash course on not hating the MUX
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2016, 01:26:45 pm »
Quote from: Allaya;187057
I'll go documentation diving. I'm going to be hella-pissed if I have to resort to regular expression trial and error.

Thank you very much, Randall and Darkhawk for getting back to me on this.  :)

 
Silent keepalives have not solved the issue. I am still invisibly disconnecting. :mad:
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.  — Shirley Chisholm
No doubt the truth can be unpleasant, but I am not sure that unpleasantness is the same as the truth.  — Roger Ebert
It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their livelihood depends upon them not understanding it. — Upton Sinclair (adapted)
People cannot be reasoned out of an opinion that they have not reasoned themselves into. — Fisher Ames (adapted)

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