Before you can configure the mapper manually, you need to understand how the mapper works. The mapper first groups text received from the MUD into paragraphs. Paragraphs are lines of text separated by a blank line or a line that looks like the MUD prompt. A MUD prompt is defined as a line with several punctuation characters, more numbers than letters, or a simple text string surrounded by brackets (configurable).
Once the mapper has grouped lines into paragraphs, each paragraph is searched for exit information. Exit information is defined as lines containing keywords from the View/Directions settings, and optionally an exit keyword (which defaults to the string "exit"). Once the paragraph and line(s) containing the exit information are found, the mapper uses its configuration information to flag the room name (if present) and room description (if present). Because the mapper starts its search based upon the exit information, getting the exits identified properly is the key to configuring the mapper.
Instead of configuring the mapper using text captured from the MUD, you can provide your own text or log file by clicking the "Offline Config" button in the upper-right corner of the mapper configuration wizard window. You can then manually enter or paste text into the box on the left, or use the Log File control to read a log file into the config wizard. When you click Next, the text you supplied will be used to configure the mapper instead of the text from the MUD.
The Capture from MUD button in the lower-left corner of the window is used to capture the text from the MUD just like when using the autoconfigure mode. The same command used for autoconfigure (default of "south") will be set to the MUD and the output will be captured. You can then edit the text from the MUD as needed.
Once the text has been captured from the MUD or entered manually, you are prompted to select which type of information the wizard should scan for. Normally you want the wizard to scan for the room name, description, and exits, which is the default. However, if your MUD is in "brief" mode, you might want to turn off the detection of the room description. Turning off detection of the room exits is normally a bad idea since the room exit information is so critical in detecting a new MUD room.
To completely change the configuration manually with no interference from the auto config wizard, select Configuration Settings from the Config menu. The mapper properties dialog will be displayed, and the section for the Room Name configuration will be shown.
If the MUD displays a room name, make sure the Room Name option is checked. If the MUD does not display a room name, such as for an LPmud in full mode, uncheck the Room Name option and go to the next page.
If the MUD has a room name, you can specify the paragraph number and the line number within the paragraph. Paragraphs are numbered starting at zero for the last paragraph received, and increasing as you move back into the scroll buffer. So, the most recent paragraph is zero, the next most recent is one, and so on. Line numbers within the paragraph start at zero for the first line of the paragraph.
If you are in wizard mode on your MUD and you want zMUD to look for the room number (called vnum) in the line containing the room name, click the Parse vNUM option.
Normally when speedwalking, the mapper will use the room description to trigger a successful walking step. However, if you want to use room names to confirm walking steps instead, you can tell the mapper whether to match room names at the beginning or end of a line. Matching names at the end of the line is usually the best option since many MUDs display the MUD prompt before a room name some of the time. However, if your MUD displays the room name as part of the exit information (such as on Medievia), you do not want to match room names at the end of a line since they will match in the exit info of the previous room.
If the MUD displays a room description, make sure the Room Description option is checked. Again mark the paragraph containing the room description based upon the numbering scheme described in the previous section, and mark the starting line of the description information. If the room description covers more than one line, check the Multiline Description option.
The room exits is the most important section to configure properly. If the mapper is unable to detect room exits, then it won't be able to find the room name or description.
You should normally make sure the Room Exit option is checked. If your MUD does not display room exit information, you can turn this option off, but the mapper probably won't work. As described in the Room Name section, set the paragraph number and starting line number for the room exit information.
If Exit information spans multiple lines sometimes on your MUD, select the Multiline option. If the exit information is contained within the MUD prompt, select the Exit In Prompt option. If the exit information is displayed in the same line as the room name, select the Exit In Room Name option.
In the View/Direction settings, each direction can have multiple commands. For example, north is defined as "n|north" which means either "n" or "north" match this direction. Normally the mapper will look for any of the names listed in the View/Directions for detecting directions. However, if you select the Use Short Exit Name option, only the shortest name for the exit will be searched for. This helps the mapper ignore exits in the description (that usually use the long name) if the exit line always just contains the short version of the exit.
To help the mapper find exit information when you are in a room without exits, the mapper uses an exit keyword. This is a word or phrase that is always present in the exit line. By default, this keyword is "exit". On some MUDs you might want to make this "obvious exit" to make it more unique. To more unique this phrase is, the easier time the mapper will have at finding the exit information. The Exit Line Contains Key option tells the mapper whether to look for this keyword or not (you will usually want this on). If the exits occurs on the line immediately following the exit phrase, select the "Exits After Keyword option.
The final configuration screen allows you to set some miscellaneous options. In this screen you can specify whether lines containing a simple text string followed by a bracket (>, ], ) ) character is considered to be a prompt. This is turned off by default but is needed on some MUDs with simple prompts. In general, making your prompt more complicated will help the mapper work better.
The Prompt Char parameter is used by the mapper to detect a simple MUD prompt. Any line that begins with this character is flagged as a MUD prompt.
If the mapper still cannot be configured to work properly, there are some advanced tricks you can use that will modify your MUD output before the mapper has a chance to see it. You can do this using Triggers with the #SUBSTITUTE command. With this, you can remove any special characters that are giving the mapper trouble, or add characters that the mapper needs. You can tell the mapper to ignore lines altogether using the #NOMAP command. You can override any of the automapper detection with the #TAG command. Finally, with triggers you can insert text or blank lines to help the mapper. See the topic on Overriding the Mapper for more information. Whenever you use a trigger to change the mapper behavior, be sure to run the autoconfigure wizard after adding the trigger so that the mapper configuration gets set properly.
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