Lich & Third Party Client - Problem with Game Output?

[LivderaDeralleur]

Alright. I've successfully managed to connect Lich to my third party client for people with visual impairments (VIP MUD).

It was exciting to finally be able to enter ;go2 and actually see output!

However, I'm getting some weirdness in the output, which I'm guessing is output from the game that is expecting dialog windows and so forth that don't exist.

Snippet:
robe</right><left>heavy backpack</left><indicator id='IconBLEEDING' visible=''/><indicator id='IconPOISONED' visible=''/><indicator id='IconDISEASED' visible=''/><indicator id='IconSTANDING' visible='y'/><indicator id='IconKNEELING' visible='n'/><indicator id='IconSITTING' visible='n'/><indicator id='IconPRONE' visible='n'/><image id="back" name="Injury1"/><image id="abdomen" name="Injury1"/><image id="chest" name="Injury1"/><compass><dir value='s'/><dir value='sw'/></compass>
<dialogData id='ActiveSpells' clear='t'></dialogData><dialogData id='ActiveSpells'><label id='lblNoSpellsFound' value='No spells found.' top='0' left='0' align='center'/></dialogData>
<prompt time="1499087937">&gt;</prompt>

I tried indicating to Lich to connect via Wizard (thinking maybe the problem was the StormFront stream) but I still seem to be getting this.

Is this even fixable on my end or is this something on my client's end? Kind of sad to get this far and still not be able to use the thing.

[Tillmen]

All that stuff is used by Stormfront to update various status bars and windows, and used by Lich to make scripts work. Switching to the Wizard stream would just cause a different kind of weirdness. There would be less of it, but it would still be there. You could remove all the weirdness with a script using a DownstreamHook. That might cause conflicts with other scripts using DownstreamHooks, depending on which hook is processed first and what they're doing.

I'll look into adding support for this frontend in Lich 5, but you probably don't want to wait for that.

[hello]

All that stuff is used by Stormfront to update various status bars and windows, and used by Lich to make scripts work. Switching to the Wizard stream would just cause a different kind of weirdness. There would be less of it, but it would still be there. You could remove all the weirdness with a script using a DownstreamHook. That might cause conflicts with other scripts using DownstreamHooks, depending on which hook is processed first and what they're doing.

I'll look into adding support for this frontend in Lich 5, but you probably don't want to wait for that.

Do you recommend Stormfront or Wizard to use with your program?

[Tillmen]

No.

[Tillmen]

Maybe I should elaborate. As far as Lich is concerened, It doesn't matter what frontend you use. If you use the WizardFE, Lich pretends to be Stormfront so it gets all that nice XML, and then translates it to what the WizardFE is expecting. That way you don't have to have a Wizard version of each script.

One difference when using the WizardFE with Lich is that the game might tell you to click something, like to read news, and you'll need to type something instead. It's not always obvious what you need to type, but it's pretty rare that I'm at all interested in what it wants me to click anyway.

Another thing is if you want to use a script that creates Stormfront windows, You'll need to use Stormfront. However, most of those scripts have a second version that uses GTK windows, and will work with any frontend.

Beyond that, it's just personal preference. I don't like clicking on anything while I play, and I don't like the general sluggishness of Stormfront. Plus I like to stay connected long enough that the Stormfront memory leak is annoying. Plus I don't use Windows, so running under Wine or an emulator gets even slower. So, Stormfront would be my last resort. But Stormfront does have plenty going for it, and if you're more interested in those features than I am, go for it.

I don't use the WizardFE anymore either. I use Profanity. But that's not a resonable option for anyone using Windows.

[Donquix]

Maybe I should elaborate. As far as Lich is concerened, It doesn't matter what frontend you use. If you use the WizardFE, Lich pretends to be Stormfront so it gets all that nice XML, and then translates it to what the WizardFE is expecting. That way you don't have to have a Wizard version of each script.

One difference when using the WizardFE with Lich is that the game might tell you to click something, like to read news, and you'll need to type something instead. It's not always obvious what you need to type, but it's pretty rare that I'm at all interested in what it wants me to click anyway.

Another thing is if you want to use a script that creates Stormfront windows, You'll need to use Stormfront. However, most of those scripts have a second version that uses GTK windows, and will work with any frontend.

Beyond that, it's just personal preference. I don't like clicking on anything while I play, and I don't like the general sluggishness of Stormfront. Plus I like to stay connected long enough that the Stormfront memory leak is annoying. Plus I don't use Windows, so running under Wine or an emulator gets even slower. So, Stormfront would be my last resort. But Stormfront does have plenty going for it, and if you're more interested in those features than I am, go for it.

I don't use the WizardFE anymore either. I use Profanity. But that's not a resonable option for anyone using Windows.

Curious if anyone has messed with trying to get profanity / lich running with either Cygwin or the new Ubuntu subsystem for Win10. I just use a VM.

[Tillmen]

With Windows 10, they supposedly made the terminal support more than 16 colors, which is the only issue with using Profanity on Windows that I know about. It just looks like crap if it only has 16 colors to work with. So, it might be perfectly fine on Windows 10 without any extra work. I just don't want to encourage people to use Windows, let alone Windows 10.

[LivderaDeralleur]

All that stuff is used by Stormfront to update various status bars and windows, and used by Lich to make scripts work. Switching to the Wizard stream would just cause a different kind of weirdness. There would be less of it, but it would still be there. You could remove all the weirdness with a script using a DownstreamHook. That might cause conflicts with other scripts using DownstreamHooks, depending on which hook is processed first and what they're doing.

I'll look into adding support for this frontend in Lich 5, but you probably don't want to wait for that.

Thanks for the input Tillmen - that is pretty much what I was expecting was happening.

I don't seem to get the same weirdness when connecting directly to the StormFront or Wizard streams - not sure if it is being stripped out somehow in that way or what is happening differently.

And yeah - my thought was I could make some triggers in VIP MUD and pre-emptively gag some of that stuff, though the only issue would be some of the items where actual text I want to display is surrounded by some of the garbage. I'll have to fiddle with it a bit.

And a note if you're looking for things to update for the next version of Lich:
- The Lich GUI, as it is now, is not accessible with a screen reader (IE Freedom Scientific's JAWS, though I imagine the same for NVDA or Window-Eyes.)
- Seems to be accessible with a keyboard (I can tab to things) but the screen reader does not announce what it is tabbing to.
- Not sure if this is a case of the elements not being labelled properly or if JAWS is not getting proper access to the MSAA information behind the scenes.
- Thus, I had to have my sighted husband help me fill out the quick login form initially so I could then use the command prompt (--login <character name>).

[Khariz]

I think its sweet that VIP MUD exists at all. And that Tillmen is willing to implement adding support. I freaking love text based games and I'm so happy people continue to work to keep them viable. Thanks for all that everyone does for that. Genuinely.

[LivderaDeralleur]

Update on my progress on this.

I've managed to squelch 3-4 of the lines of game XML on my end - mainly the ones that were firing every so often in the background. (Basically a trigger and a gagline.) It has made the game output a bit less weird and a bit easier to read/listen to.

Currently the biggest issues are:
- the <a exist="#" noun="blah"></a> that surrounds anything that would be clickable in SF.
- The <popBold> for what I am assuming is monster bolded content.

I'm currently trawling through the scripting language documentation for VIP MUD to see if there is any easy way to strip these things out but keep the content it is surrounding.

If anyone has any ideas on how to do this with a Lich script that won't mess up other Lich scripts, I'm all ears.

I haven't yet tried to go hunting or anything - I've only setup my side account Cleric as a tester of sorts.

I did have a moment of glee in using ';go2 bank'. (;go2 is mainly what I wanted to set Lich up for!)

Is there a list of room numbers somewhere for different hunting grounds? I won't be able to use maps to find room numbers, so was hoping I could ;go2 <insert creature name>' and it'd take me there.