4.1 Using the List Editor

Lists (introduced in Commands Overview: Lists) are the MUCK equivalent of files or documents: adjacent, related props hold lines of text, which together make up a list. Lists allow you to include formatting information such as paragraph breaks and indentation in descriptions and other text output. Lists are normally created and edited using the list editor, command lsedit..

If you have used a line editor before, such as UNIX's ex, the MUCK list editor will seem familiar and easy to use. But if your only experience with text editors has been through screen editors such as Notepad or Simpletext, or WYSIWYG word processors, the list editor will definitely take some getting used to.

With a line editor, you work with individual lines of text or with groups of lines, rather than seeing all lines at the same time, with your position in the file marked with a cursor. In order to see the contents of the list, you will need to enter a command that causes text to be displayed. Similarly, you need to enter explicit commands to move around in the list and tell the editor which line you are working with.

The following is a walk-through of using the list editor to give a room — a lounge on a high-tech world — a two-paragraph description.

The syntax for lsedit is lsedit <obj> = <list name>. <Obj> here is the object holding the props that make up the list. We do not necessarily have to store the list on the room, but since the list holds the room's desc, it makes sense to do so. The list name can be anything we like. We'll call it `desc', just to keep things simple. So, to get started we start the list editor:

====================================
> lsedit here = desc
<    Welcome to the list editor.  You can get help by entering '.h'     >
< '.end' will exit and save the list.  '.abort' will abort any changes. >
<    To save changes to the list, and continue editing, use '.save'     >
< Insert at line 1 >
====================================

At this point, we can either type in the text directly, or we can copy text from a text editor on our client computer, and paste it into our MUCK client's window (often a better choice).

Let's say that we enter the following description for the room, using either method:

====================================
  This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic: something
  -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet, perhaps the
  somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin partitions
  between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into the walls --
  something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall muted;
  conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 

  A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inhces below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
====================================

When we enter the text, nothing seems to happen. Did we successfully enter it? To see the contents of our list, we can type .l (to list the lines, without line numbers) or .p (to print the lines, with line numbers.)

====================================
> .l
  This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic: something
  -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet, perhaps the
  somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin partitions
  between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into the walls --
  something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall muted;
  conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 
  A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inhces below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
  < listed 2 lines starting at line 1 >

> .p
  1: This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic:
  something -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet,
  perhaps the somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin
  partitions between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into
  the walls -- something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall
  muted; conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 
  2: A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inhces below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
  < listed 2 lines starting at line 1 >
====================================

Hmmm... This looks more or less ok, but a couple things have happened to our text as it has been processed by the list editor. Our paragraphs are each currently in one long line, and the blank line that separated them has disappeared.

Truly blank lines get `swallowed' by your client, and never make it to the MUCK or the list editor. So, if we want to put blank lines in a list, we need to put a space or two on the line to hold its place. We decide that we do want a blank line separating our paragraphs here, so we use lsedit's .insert command (syntax .i <line to insert>), and enter a couple spaces on line 2.

====================================
> .i 2
  < Insert at line 2>
> ( ...we type a couple spaces here... )
> .p
  1: This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic:
  something -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet,
  perhaps the somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin
  partitions between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into
  the walls -- something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall
  muted; conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 
  2:
  3: A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inhces below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
  < listed 3 lines starting at line 1 >
====================================

We could leave our text in long lines, one per paragraph, but sometimes clients have trouble with line wrapping. If we leave it like this, it's possible that a few players will not be able to see all the text. Lsedit's .format command (syntax .format <start line> <end line> = <columns to format to>) will break the lines up into reasonable lengths.

====================================
> .format 1 3 = 76
  < Formatted 3 lines starting at line 1 (Now curr line) to 76 columns. >
> .p
  1: This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic: something -- 
  2: perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet, perhaps the somewhat
  3: unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin partitions between groups of 
  4: tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into the walls -- something seems to 
  5: swallow sound here. Footfalls fall muted; conversations coalesce into a 
  6: low, murmuring susurrus. 
  7:   
  8: A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room, running 
  9: along the walls eight inches below the ceiling. Its eye-thwarting hue 
 10: reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the tables, chairs, 
 11: barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations of stainless steel, 
 12: glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar, between shelves holding 
 13: ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its tortured form hilighted in 
 14: the beam of a hidden drop light.
< listed 14 lines starting at line 1 >
====================================

So, we successfully inserted a blank line, separating our paragraphs. But on second thought, this isn't how we want to format it. The blank line will break things up too much: the first paragraph will seem to `go with' the name of the room, and the second paragraph will seem to `go with' the room's contents list. The desc itself won't look like a unified whole on the screen. So, we decide instead to delete the blank line (using lsedit's .delete command, syntax .del <line to delete>), and indent the paragraphs two spaces, using lsedit's .indent command.

The syntax for .indent is .indent [<first line to indent> [<last line to indent>]] = <number of spaces to indent>. That looks somewhat complicated when expressed formally, but it's not difficult in practice.

Some examples...

This indents the current line by five spaces:

====================================
> .indent 5
  < Indenting 1 lines starting at line 2, 2 columns. >
====================================

This indents line 14 by five spaces:

====================================
> .indent 14 = 5
  < Indenting 1 lines starting at line 14, 2 columns. >
====================================

====================================
> .indent 18 20 = 5
  < Indenting 3 lines starting at line 18, 2 columns. >
====================================

So, back to our main example: in the list editor, working with our `desc' list for a room, we want to delete line 7 (the blank line) and indent the two remaining lines by two spaces.

====================================
> .del 7
  < Deleting 1 lines, starting at line 7  (Now current line) >
> .indent 1 = 2
  < Indented 1 lines starting at line 1, 2 columns >
> .indent 7 = 2
  < Indented 1 lines starting at line 7, 2 columns >
> .l
    This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic:
  something -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet,
  perhaps the somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin
  partitions between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into
  the walls -- something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall
  muted; conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 
    A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inhces below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
====================================

OK, this is looking good. But we need to make one last change. In the process of working with the list, we notice a typo in line 8 of the second paragraph: `inhces' should be `inches'. We want to fix that, and would rather not have to retype everything. The right tool for the job here is lsedit's .replace command (syntax .repl <line number> = /<old string>/<new string>)

====================================
> .repl 8 = /inhces/inches
  < Replaced.  Going to line 8 >
  8: along the walls eight inches below the ceiling. Its eye-thwarting
  hue
====================================

Now, finally, an important point, we need to get out of the list editor. (Forgetting to get out of the list editor, and typing a bunch of commands into the list you were just working on is a fairly common mishap.) To do so, type .end, on a line by itself.

====================================
> .end
  < Editor exited. >
  < list saved. >
====================================

So we're done! Or are we? We do a `look' to see the final product, and get a disappointment. The desc doesn't show up. So far, we have created the list, but we haven't told the server to display this list as the room's desc. To do so, we need to set the room's desc with a bit of MPI that will cause the newly created list to be displayed when people look at the room.

====================================
> @desc here = {list:desc}
  Description set.
> l
    This lounge, one notices immediately, is oddly anacoustic:
  something -- perhaps the walls covered in a short-nub, grey carpet,
  perhaps the somewhat unusual layout of shoulder-high, paper-thin
  partitions between groups of tables, or perhaps the alcoves set into
  the walls -- something seems to swallow sound here. Footfalls fall
  muted; conversations coalesce into a low, murmuring susurrus. 
    A seemingly continuous tube of cobalt blue neon adorns the room,
  running along the walls eight inches below the ceiling. Its
  eye-thwarting hue reflects in dabs and streaks from the furniture: the
  tables, chairs, barstools, and the bar itself... sleek amalgamations
  of stainless steel, glass, and buffed black leather. Behind the bar,
  between shelves holding ornate bottles, sits a single bonsai tree, its
  tortured form hilighted in the beam of a hidden drop light.
====================================

Voila! We're done.