Discussion of the emphasize feature.

[Nathvaan]

Please discuss here.  I'll be answering questions and looking into anything that sounds buggy. Thanks!

[Nathvaan]

Already having some people saying that bolding is not working for them in some cases.  Please read this to help understand how you can set your color settings to get bold working where you want it.

First, issue 'change color export'
In this list any category that isn't color number 0-7 will not be able to be bolded.
This is because of how ANSI escape codes handle bold.  They take the color and instead do the bright version of that color.  Since only 0-7 have a bright version (8-15) those are the boldable colors.

If you have chosen more specific colors (8-255) in any category it doesn't have anyway to know what the 'bright' version of the color is so it just strips out the * * and moves along.

If you have chosen no color (they are all -1) then it will not bold because it is using the defaults of your mud client.

I would suggest using the primary colors (0-7) for places you might want bolding like communications and/or combat.  Also know that italics and underline will work with any color because they aren't changing the color, just the font.

Hope that helps clarify!

[Yam]

Doesn't work on the latest stable release of MUSHclient (4.94). Does on the 5.05 release at http://www.gammon.com.au/scripts/forum.php?bbtopic_id=1

Can't get it to work yet.

Got it to work. My problem is that I had done 'change color none' to get most of the colors to my client default (which resembled color 7). I switched all of the colors to 7 and now it appears to work.

Good stuff.

[WithSprinkles]

Thank you very much for this feature! I see a lot of potential in this.

It confused me for a moment, trying to get it to work, but then reading comprehension kicked in and I realized that I didn't have my emotes highlighted in any special way, so I set them to 7 and BOOM, I got bolding and stuff.

I did put in one bug so far, but I did want to mention some things I wanted to ask about.

The announcement said:

- Text (/, *, _) will display as typed for characters with emphasis disabled.

So... If I type:

emote *bites* her lip.

Then people who don't have the emphasis enabled will see:

"So and so *bites* her lip."?

and people who do will see:

"So and so bites her lip."?

What if there is an occasion where you WANT the asterisk to be seen, like Way communication? I tried using a space:

emote * bites * her lip.

But it ended up bolding the word in the middle anyway and looking funny. Heh.


ALSO:

You said that it wasn't possible to highlight items, but it totally is possible if you leave the argument open-ended.

This can look ugly as hell if you do it to your whole sentence and I wouldn't recommend it? Because who REALLY wants their WHOLE SENTENCE bolded or whatever. But for emphasis, it can look like:

emote glances at *~dresser.

So and so glances at a heavy stone dresser.

And yeah, on my mudlet client, at least, if I do that with a big sentence, it captures all the words and objects.

And I'll bet that works on NPCs too.

[Nathvaan]

There wasn't any feature on the list to force it to show the character.  If that becomes an issue I'll look and see if there is a way to make that happen with an escape character.

I see what you mean, it is possible if it is left open ended.  This wasn't something that I tested or was on a use case but it seems like it could work in some circumstances.  Interesting find!

[Veselka]

OK -- I have yet to fiddle around with this, but in theory, would it help with emphasizing combat happening between two people that aren't you? Right now I can't figure out a way to highlight either their sdesc or the amount of damage done, it just shows up as a flat line/one color. Do I need to do the primary colors for this to work? Thanks.

[Armaddict]

- Items that bolded before including combat now once emphasizes as before if you have opted to enable 'change color emphasize' enabled.

Thank you for listening to me being a pain the ass about it.

[Nathvaan]

OK -- I have yet to fiddle around with this, but in theory, would it help with emphasizing combat happening between two people that aren't you? Right now I can't figure out a way to highlight either their sdesc or the amount of damage done, it just shows up as a flat line/one color. Do I need to do the primary colors for this to work? Thanks.

To get it to properly bold, yes you would need to have those categories (all the fg_combat ones) be one of the primary colors.  Another option would be to set it to 'change color emphasize italics' and then that text would be italicized and not require you to change colors around.

Also note that you would have to enable emphasis with 'change color emphazise bold' to make it attempt to display bold as it did before the color implementation.

[Riev]

I feel like a lot of this is over my head.

Is this just optional server-side stylizing, stored in the pfile rather than client side?

[James de Monet]

All the squee

[Veselka]

Thanks!

[Nathvaan]

There is a known bug where people who have VT100/ANSI disable get some strange text in their combat messages.  I have located the issue and it will be fixed on the next reboot which will be tomorrow morning if not sooner. 

Thanks.

[Insigne]

I'm just a biiiit disappointed we're using asterisks for bolded text. I liked asterisks for sound effects. *sploosh* But with this addition, I think I can make do with italics!

The only problem is I can't seem to get it to work for me at all. It might just be a client-side thing but it doesn't seem like it's a problem with the client not supporting formatted text, because all the symbols still show up! And entering 'change color emphasize on' over and over again hasn't done the trick yet.

[Nathvaan]

I'm just a biiiit disappointed we're using asterisks for bolded text. I liked asterisks for sound effects. *sploosh* But with this addition, I think I can make do with italics!

The only problem is I can't seem to get it to work for me at all. It might just be a client-side thing but it doesn't seem like it's a problem with the client not supporting formatted text, because all the symbols still show up! And entering 'change color emphasize on' over and over again hasn't done the trick yet.

What client are you using?  Can you provide screen shots? (feel free to email them to nathvaan@armageddon.org)  Are you able to see color/categories otherwise?

[Kankfly]

I'm just a biiiit disappointed we're using asterisks for bolded text. I liked asterisks for sound effects. *sploosh* But with this addition, I think I can make do with italics!

The only problem is I can't seem to get it to work for me at all. It might just be a client-side thing but it doesn't seem like it's a problem with the client not supporting formatted text, because all the symbols still show up! And entering 'change color emphasize on' over and over again hasn't done the trick yet.

+1 on that. I can't seem to get it to work also. But Yam mentioned that it might be a client version issue so I will try that as soon as I get home.

[Insigne]

I got it to work!

Like Yam mentioned,

My problem is that I had done 'change color none' to get most of the colors to my client default (which resembled color 7). I switched all of the colors to 7 and now it appears to work.

the feature doesn't seem to be supported at all when options are set to 'change color none'.

So with these settings, even with 'change color emphasize' enabled,

I end up seeing something like: /crick/, _cruck_, *crack*, the muscular man with muscles on his muscles cracks his muscular knuckles.

But having colors set seems to solve the issue!

So now I get something like: crick, cruck, crack, the muscular man with muscles on his muscles cracks his muscular knuckles.

[Veselka]

I still can't seem to get the emphasis stuff to work. Still tinkering around and trying things, like the colors from 0-7. I'm guessing this might be the bug though.

[Delirium]

Well, I've been meaning to update my color settings anyway... and I'll do anything to get combat bolding back

[Nathvaan]

I still can't seem to get the emphasis stuff to work. Still tinkering around and trying things, like the colors from 0-7. I'm guessing this might be the bug though.

Let me know what client and version you are using.  Also sending along a 'change color export' would be helpful as well.  Let me know how I can help.

[Nathvaan]

If there is a better default color set that better allows for all the emphasis text, please let me know.  I'll be glad to update the default color set on a near future release.  What I would need is an 'change color export' to see the specific settings.

[valeria]

To get this to work on MushClient 5.05, I've had to change the default color to 7 for all the color options I want "uncolored."

[gotdamnmiracle]

So is there set etiquette for these features yet?

[perfecto]

So is there set etiquette for these features yet?

This is my first thought after reading the update news.  Oh gawd.. people are just Going TO be throwing out retarded looking scripts because they can now.

I have faith in our community, but you KNOW its gonna happen.

[Riev]

So is there set etiquette for these features yet?

This is my first thought after reading the update news.  Oh gawd.. people are just Going TO be throwing out retarded looking scripts because they can now.

I have faith in our community, but you KNOW its gonna happen.

The bigger struggle is going to be the fact that I tend to leak emotions in the Way with * *, and emphasize spoken words with - - .

I'm going to probably have to stop that now. Or make this system work with MudPortal's client, which probably doesn't happen.