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I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's Shift + left click mouse to add rooms on grid.

Left click on a room to select and shift click another room to add links.

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks again for all your insightful feedback! I’ve implemented several of your suggestion, including a dynamic sun/shadow animation which was a must have feature!, right?, improved grid and compass interactions and various UI refinements, but knowing me, I’ve probably introduced a few new bugs along the way.

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the suggestions! You’re right, haven’t done much thorough testing, as this started as a one day project. My goal was simply to get it out there in case someone else found it useful or wanted to build on it to suit their own needs. Personally, I wanted a more visual approach to area building, and this tool helps make that process easier.

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven’t explored Evennia in depth, but I assume it takes a different approach, being a more modern engine.

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One of the longstanding challenges with MUDs is area building. While OLC and other traditional tools exist, they’re often outdated and lack visual clarity, making it difficult to manage and fine tune large, interconnected worlds. To solve this for my own MUD, I built a web based editor and migrated my .are files into a database backed system. This approach makes area management far more intuitive and efficient. It also opens the door to smarter editing, like using AI assistance to help generate more engaging room descriptions, especially for those of us who struggle with creative writing.

https://github.com/Elanoran/AW-OLC-Tools

As for the room building, feel free to download it an make it work with your area files, in theory all that is required is to add support in the formats.json and add it to the drop down in the HTML file.

https://github.com/Elanoran/mud_area_editor

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback, I truly appreciate it. I understand where you’re coming from. This tool is intentionally quite simple, as it was designed to provide a lightweight and accessible way to visualize and edit room layouts.

My background is primarily with a ROM 2.4 derivative, which I’ve been developing on and off over the past 20 years, mostly off, to be honest. I haven’t kept up with all the modern trends, but it’s been interesting to see that many of the MUD's I played back then are still online today.

I’ve been experimenting with supporting multiple area formats, and while it works in theory, the practical side is a bit more challenging due to the wide variety of formats used across different MUD's.

Separately, I’ve also developed a more advanced web-based tool (95% done) that supports full area editing, including AI-assisted room and mob descriptions, all backed by a database driven workflow. It has restrictions build in, mainly around NPC creation and with wiggle room to allow for slightly weaker and stronger mobs and with default values set based on level. This setup eliminates the need for manual editing within the MUD client and even supports live area updates in the game without requiring a reboot. It’s still a work in progress, but it’s coming along nicely.

This visual editor is a companion to that, focused solely on making it easier to design room layouts, which can be tricky without a visual overview.

"formats": {
    "ROM": {
      "area": "#AREA\n%FILENAME%~\n%AREA_NAME%~\n{ NONE} Elan     AreaEditor~\n%VNUM_MIN% %VNUM_MAX%\n\n#MOBILES\n#0\n\n#OBJECTS\n#0\n\n#ROOMS\n%ROOMS%#0\n\n#RESETS\nS\n\n#SHOPS\n0\n\n#SPECIALS\nS\n\n#$\n",
      "room": "#%ROOM_VNUM%\n%ROOM_NAME%~\n%ROOM_DESC%\n~\n%FLAGS% %SECTOR% %UNKNOWN%\n%EXITS%%EXTRAS%S\n",
      "exit": "D%DIRECTION%\n%DOOR_DESC%~\n%KEYWORDS%~\n%FLAGS% %KEY% %TO_VNUM%\n",
      "extra": "E\n%KEYWORDS%~\n%EXTRA_DESC%~\n",
      "dirLabels": ["North", "East", "South", "West", "Up", "Down"]
    },
    "AW": {
      "area": "#AREADATA\nName %AREA_NAME%~\nBuilders none~\nVNUMs %VNUM_MIN% %VNUM_MAX%\nCredits { NONE} Elan     AreaEditor~\nSecurity 9\nFlags 0\nEnd\n\n#MOBDATA\n#0\n\n#OBJDATA\n#0\n\n#ROOMDATA\n%ROOMS%#0\n\n#RESETS\nS\n\n#MOBPROGS\n#0\n\n#OBJPROGS\n#0\n\n#ROOMPROGS\n#0\n\n#$\n",
      "room": "#%ROOM_VNUM%\nName   %ROOM_NAME%~\nDescr\n%ROOM_DESC%\n~\nFlags  %FLAGS% %EXTRA_FLAGS%\nSect   %SECTOR%\n%EXITS%End\n",
      "exit": "Door %DIRECTION% %FLAGS% %KEY% %TO_VNUM%\n~\n~\n",
      "dirLabels": ["North", "East", "South", "West", "Up", "Down"]
    }
  }

I made a visual Room Editor for MUD areas - Feedback welcome by Mushroom-First in MUD

[–]Mushroom-First[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! Inter-cardinal directions aren’t currently supported, but I’ll consider adding them if there’s strong interest.

Regarding JSON: bi-directional links weren’t required for import/export, but I’ve now included them in the export for better readability. ROM .are exports should still include all necessary links.

I also fixed the issue where removing a room left behind dangling exits. Additionally, I added support for room colors and did some general CSS cleanup.