--------------- MZF 0.97-a2 ROM 2.4 support --------------- MAKE.ZONES.FAST is an off-line DIKU MUD area editor for Windows. It allows you to build zones for Merc, Envy, and similar MUD types. This is a trial version of MZF 0.97. It reads and writes ROM 2.4 areas, and can convert them into Merc 2.x and Envy zones. This version is for 32 bit Windows. I have only tested it on Windows NT 3.51/Pentium, I assume it will run under Windows 95. I am sorry it took so long. To get MZF to do what I wanted I had to completely change the way #objects were handled. I hope this new system is more flexible for everyone. Next month I will fix any bugs reported, plus finish the new help file and self-extracting install. There will also be MZF 0.97 for regular Windows 3.1. NEW NOTES for Alpha-2 1) This is the second alpha test release of MZF 0.97. It is supposed to fix up the bugs in alpha 1. For the first time, it includes a full Windows help on the new features. 2) If this fixes all of the major bugs, the next release will be the beta with an installation program and a sample zone. If anyone has written a small ROM 2.4 compatible zone they want to be the sample zone, let me know and maybe I can include it. 3) Thanks to everyone who tested alpha 1. 4) If you had mob resets in your ROM 2.4 zone, this alpha might not load them, as there was a bug and MZF was considering them part of the comments. That was wrong. There should be a number at the end of ROM 2.4 mob resets which is the number of mobiles of this VNUM to pop in this room. NOTES for MZF testers 0) This version is just mzf3297a.exe. You need to install a full version of MZF to get the sample zone, etc. This is the test/preview/demo version. You will need to add MZF to your start bar/program manager by hand. 1) This version of MZF is based on 0.94, not 0.95. Due to the fact that 0.95 required Borland C++ 4.5 and I find myself only with 4.0 at the moment. When my situation improves I will put the 0.95 goodies back in. 2) The mode 'Ogham (write only)' is for a project I've been working at on and off. Please ignore it. (If you are dying of curiousity, I got ahold of an old (version 1.6) public domain Ogham mud server. (They are now up to 2.2). I converted it to C++, then I converted some Merc zones to Ogham/C++ with MZF. This allows me to run a Merc zones on a public domain server. I have been considering giving away Ogham servers for Windows instead of Merc ones.) 3) This is the first version of MZF to support ROM 2.4, thanks to permission from Alander (Russ Taylor) to use his code for loading ROM areas. 4) This is the first version with the new object customization dialog. This is supposed to allow you to add completely new object types to MZF. If this method works out for people, we can extend it to flags and other features throughout MZF. 5) This version is going to ship 32 bit only, but we will be testing with Win32s. This means if you are using Windows 3.1 or 3.11 you will be able to use this, provided you download a .DLL from Microsoft. (Same as Netscape requires, and Merc/Win32s). This means if you are using OS/2-Win or Solaris/WABI you are out of luck for now. 6) This is an ALPHA test. I just finished coding the thing today. I haven't gone through and tested everything again. There will be a new full release with help text and for the first time an install program for the truely clueless coming along after I get a "yea or nay" from the net on this version. 7) The latest MZF news is always displayed at http://www.goodnet.com/~esnible/mzf.html =============================================================================== How object customization works Object customization allows you to create new object types which MZF knows about. So if you decide to add, say, vechicles to your MUD you can teach MZF about what goes into the slot values, and define custom tables or flags for each slot. If you are using Merc or Envy, you define types by number. People have to learn the numbers. So your vechicle would be type "27". If you are using ROM 2.4, you use a word for your type. So your vechicle would be "vechicle". All of the customization is written to a file called MZF.INI. This will be in your Windows directory, not the MZF directory. =============================================================================== About ROM 2.4 compatibility I have revised the way object slots are handled. MZF now keeps a database of legal slot values instead of hard-coding them into MZF. This allows new object types to be created, with new slot values. It doesn't allow us to read objects in an area file with new values added, though. I have added support for ROM 2.4 specific bits. There are a LOT of them, especially for mobiles. These are currently on pop up dialogs in the object and mobile dialogs. I'm sure that Windows 95 'Property Sheets' would have been better, but I was too lazy to write that. I have made minor changes on the mobile and object dialogs to allow for new ROM values, like the fifth slot and the 'either' sex. New ROM exit flags have been added to the exit dialog. You might notice that MZF is taking off some of the bits on your mobiles. This is because MZF doesn't write out any bits which are redundent. MZF checks to see what bits a mobile of that race has by default, and only writes out the bits that differ from the default for the race. I started on some changes to make it easy to add new file types to MZF, but that was just too much work, mostly because MZF is very poorly designed. This shouldn't effect you unless you are trying to make your own MZF version. =============================================================================== About MUD servers for Windows In the past, I did a simple port of Merc to Windows, and added some features to match the MUD I was playing on at the time. I wrote it for my own zone testing, then released the binaries and source for people. Some people got ahold of this source and did a full ROM 2.3 port. I wasn't involved with that, and don't know what happened to that port, it isn't on the net anymore. Recently someone told me they had made my port work better on Windows 95. There is a pointer to this, and other server info, on my mud server page. I can't remember the URL right now, but go to http://www.goodnet.com/~esnible/mudinfo.html and click on "server info, locations". Slash esnible@goodnet.com http://www.goodnet.com/~esnible