The Keep-alive Time-stamp and MUSHclient
Most ISPs (we really mean all) will drop stale connections. If you've been connected to the game too long without sending or receiving anything odds are incredibly high that you'll be disconnected. The easiest way around this is to ensure that the game keeps sending you output on a regular basis. Some players choose to use their
@Atime
to do this, but what if you want to put other code in there without tripping over a keep alive? What if you don't want to bother with setting up any code on the MARE side at all?
Enter the
timestamp
channel. On a regular basis (once per minute), the current date and time are sent to this channel. If you've joined, you'll receive it too, keeping your connection nice and fresh (and nobody likes a whiffy connection, geeze, just what were you DOING with it?). The output of this channel looks something like this:
[timestamp] Sat May 20 17:23:57 2017
Of course, you don't want your screen filling up with all those time stamps (Wait, you do? Gosh you're weird). This means you need your client to hide them. This is called gagging. No, not like that, like tying a gag over a mouth. In most clients this is done with a trigger.
Getting started
First things first, you have to actually join the channel. So send this to the game:
+ch +timestamp
+ch public
and you'll see output that looks something like this:
[timestamp] * QBFreak has joined this channel.
Channel timestamp is now default.
Channel public is now default.
Now we need to create our trigger!
Trigger Acquisition Options
AKA
How to get the trigger (Our inner Ferengi made us use the word 'acquisition').
There are two ways to get the trigger.
- Download and install the handy dandy plugin
- Create the trigger yourself
Download the plugin
Download the plugin:
Gag_timestamp.xml
(Right click and choose
Save As)
Save it to your MUSHclient plugins directory (You can see/change this location from
File ->
Global Preferences ->
Plugins, the path is at the bottom of the window)
From the
File menu, choose
Plugins.
When the
Plugins
window appears, click the
Add button.
In the
Add Plugin
file dialog, select the
Gag_timestamp.xml
plugin that you just downloaded and click
Open.
When the plugin appears in the list of installed plugins, click the
Close button to close the
Plugins
window.
You should see an
Added plugin
message like this in your output window:
[timestamp] Mon May 22 08:19:56 2017
Added plugin C:\Users\Jason\Transporter\Documents\MUSHclient\worlds\plugins\Gag_timestamp.xml
All set! If you want to test it, try sending this:
@echo [timestamp] test
You shouldn't see any output back from the game. If you did, something went wrong with the installation. Check the
Plugins
window to make sure
Gag_timestamp.xml
is installed.
You can stop here, you're done!
Creating the trigger
From the
Game menu, choose
Configure and then
Triggers.
When the
Triggers
section of the
Configuration
window appears, click the
Add button.
In the
Edit trigger
window, enter the following information:
Field |
Value |
Comments |
Pattern |
^\[timestamp\] .*$ |
That's CARET, Backslash, Left brace, "timestamp", Backslash, Right brace, SPACE, DOT, Asterisk, Dollar |
Enabled |
Checked |
It wont work if it's not enabled |
Omit (gag) from log file |
Checked |
Optional but recommended, this will keep it out of your log files as well |
Omit (gag) from output |
Checked |
This is what keeps it from displaying on your screen |
Regular expression |
Checked |
The pattern type is a regular expression |
Click
OK to close the
Edit trigger
window. Click
OK to close the
Configuration
window.
All set! If you want to test it, try sending this:
@echo [timestamp] test
You shouldn't see any output back from the game. If you did, something is wrong with your trigger. Check and make sure the
Pattern
is correct.
--
SolarQBFreak - 22 May 2017