-Xana

EDIT: It looks like madSimon has fixed the leak issue for sure. Now let's start cleaning up that godawful output! ;)

wikiexits

 #VA wikiprogress 1 #VA wikiobject %comcreate("InternetExplorer.Application") #VA wikiurl "http://retrowiki.wikidot.com/world-exits" #CALL @wikiobject.Navigate(@wikiurl) #ECHO Looking for Wiki exits... wikicheck 0 

wikicheck

 #VA wikitimeout 25 #IF (!@wikiobject || %1 > @wikitimeout) { #ECHO Timed out! #VA wikiprogress 0 #VA wikiobject 0 } { #IF (@wikiobject.ReadyState == 4) { #VA wikiprogress 0 #ECHO {%copy(@wikiobject.document.body.innertext, %match(@wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "collected data"), %eval(%match(@wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "dates are in utc") - %match(@wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "collected data")))} #CALL @wikiobject.Quit #ALARM {+2} {#VA wikiobject 0} } { #ALARM {+1} {wikicheck %eval(%1 + 1)} } } 

The world exits interface discussion page didn't seem appropriate, so I made this new thread to talk about more general scripting stuff.

In a similar theme to the world exits I posted before, I also have almost the same script to check the time on Sosel.
It will tell you the time in Sosel hours, and also how long (in real life Earth minutes) till the next sunrise or sunset.
From what I have observed it is reasonably accurate. Again, it's a terrible hack and comments are welcome.

#ALIAS soseltime {timeprogress = 1
#VARIABLE timeobject %comcreate( "InternetExplorer.Application")
timeurl="http://70.86.15.74:3003/cgi/calendar?=fire"
#CALL @timeobject.Navigate(@timeurl)
#ECHO Looking for Sosel time…
timecheck 0}

#ALIAS timecheck {timeout=15
#IF {!@timeobject || %1 > @timeout} {#ECHO Timed out!
timeprogress=0
timeobject=0} {#IF {@timeobject.ReadyState==4} {timeprogress=0
#ECHO It is %copy( @timeobject.document.body.innertext, 24, 5) on Sosel.
soselminutes = %eval( %copy( @timeobject.document.body.innertext, 24, 2)*88+%copy( @timeobject.document.body.innertext, 27, 2))
#IF (@soselminutes < 235) {#ECHO It is %round( (235-@soselminutes)/12) minutes till sunrise.} {#IF (@soselminutes<620) {#ECHO It is %round( (620-@soselminutes)/12) minutes till sunset.} {#ECHO It is %round( (1035-@soselminutes)/12) minutes till sunrise.}}
timeobject=0} {#ALARM {+1} {timecheck %eval( %1+1)}}}}

The only part I'm still not happy with is using almost the same %match command 3 times to find the right piece of text. If anyone knows a shorter way to do that, let me know. I think maybe the regex command, but not sure how it works.

Since the output is not very pretty with this method of capturing the web page as text, I don't think it's worth writing a more friendly script right now.

Also, no, I don't know any other way than using comcreate. I'm not a programmer, I'm not even sure why any of this works. I'm just good at hacking up what other people have done.

Also yeah, you'll need to clean up that syntax or it'll be confusing :P

EDIT: Also, what about us crazies who don't want to comcreate ie (comcreate ie creates a memory leak that eventually makes zmud unable to function - that's the biggest beef I had with froggy's db macros)

I changed the brackets to parenthesis and it worked like a charm. Formatting could use some love, but it works.

Output:

Looking for Wiki exits…
Collected data
PlanetShaftStatueShip
Cryptgydlag
Perdow6keytoh
Raji9bioesh
Sosel0tembar
Welstar7,SPInep
Wysoom8alt
DateJun-24Jun-24Jun-24

Looking for Wiki exits…
Timed out!

Going to play with it a bit and see if I can figure out what the issue is. It's obviously not timing out, so it appears to be having trouble instantiating the wikiobject variable.

I just made a hack Zmud script to read the world exits on the web page.
It works for me is all I can say. If someone else tries it, let me know how it goes.
It is based on (is almost a direct copy of) the eq database script from Froggy.

#ALIAS wikiexits {wikiprogress = 1
#VARIABLE wikiobject %comcreate( "InternetExplorer.Application")
wikiurl="http://retrowiki.wikidot.com/world-exits"
#CALL @wikiobject.Navigate(@wikiurl)
#ECHO Looking for Wiki exits…
wikicheck 0}

#ALIAS wikicheck {wikitimeout=25
#IF {!@wikiobject || %1 > @wikitimeout} {#ECHO Timed out!
wikiprogress=0
wikiobject=0} {#IF {@wikiobject.ReadyState==4} {wikiprogress=0
#ECHO {%copy( @wikiobject.document.body.innertext, %match( @wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "collected data"), %eval( %match( @wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "dates are in utc") - %match( @wikiobject.document.body.innertext, "collected data")))}
wikiobject=0} {#ALARM {+1} {wikicheck %eval( %1+1)}}}}

I don’t know zMUD at all; my opinion in the following is based on browsing its language reference. I see three options:

1. You could, of course, attempt to write a parser in zMUD’s language. Maybe I just don’t get the language yet, but it looks like this would be painful.
2. You could use the existing XSLT file and call Microsoft’s XML library via zMUD’s #SCRIPT call. There is an example of applying a stylesheet in what looks like JScript in the MSDN; VBScript should look similar modulo the syntax. Assuming that there is an easy way to fetch the page and load the stylesheet in the first place (I don’t know Microsoft’s scripting API, but I suppose there should be), this’ll be an optimal solution as it requires a minimum of external components.
3. You could install wget and libxslt and use a script via #SCRIPT to do the equivalent of Hai-Etlik’s shell script (maybe just call a batch file and read its output?). That’s messy in terms of mixing lots of rather different software, though.

By the way, I had another look at grabbing the page’s source code (rather more easily parsed than the XHTML). It’s feasible, but it would require making at least two HTTP requests and since I’m on a flaky connection right now, I’ve begun liking the XSLT approach. ^^

P.S. When you’ve got the code for zMUD, be sure to put it on the page. ;)

What does everyone else think about making a much simpler page for world exits?

So, I’m going to switch it to something more appropriate to reflect the ownership of that content. That will not be a copyleft licence. If there are objections or alternative suggestions to that, please comment here within the next few days or MUD mail me, send me a tell, etc.

P.S. Such matters can also be clarified on individual pages, when there is a need for that.

I’ve written a script that lets you convert the output of help skill foo in RetroMUD to the wikidot syntax and formats it like the existing pages. It’s a sed script, so if you have a Unix system (e. g. some Linux distro), you can run it. How to use: download retrowikify.sed below (click on ‘Files’ for the link) and

1. Do help skill foo in RetroMUD.
2. Copy the output, beginning with the first non-empty line after 'Help for skill:' and until the last line of the description.
3. Run sed -f retrowikify.sed | dd ibs=8192 in a terminal.
4. Paste what you copied, in the terminal. Hit enter if you didn’t copy the last linebreak. Hit ctrl-D after pasting.
5. Copy the output of the script, paste it into the edit box on the wiki and adjust as needed.

It’s faster than the description makes it sound, really, and saves a lot of typing. I’m using GNU sed, no idea if this works with others, too.

The creation of a better script is left as an exercise for the enthusiastic reader.

we’re currently using tags to connect spells and skills to guilds. Some skills are provided in a lot of guilds, which means we need to put many tags on the page, but the tag entry box has a length limit of 70 characters. For example, this is already insufficient for the bludgeon skill.

There doesn’t seem to be a server-side limit (or I haven’t noticed one yet, at least), so I’ve made a script that temporarily disables the limit. You need Firefox and the Greasemonkey extension. (I hear there’s something for Opera that does the same thing, though.)

Once you have the extension, download the attached script (click on ‘files’ below, the file is wikidotutils.user.js), drag and drop it in a Firefox window and confirm you want to install it. It’ll add an ‘unlimit tags’ button to the right of the ‘tags’ button. When you click on tags and run out of space in the text box, click the new button to disable the limit. Please use this with caution.