RE: [ansi (||) hotkeys ]

From: Gary Barnett (gbarnett@polarnet.com)
Date: 01/30/97


While that would work, it requires input from the player. A lot of BBS's 
(including the one I used to run years ago) can automatically detect if your
terminal can support ANSI. 

I figured out how PCBoard (a popular BBS) did it, and am currently looking
into implementing it. It appears that in telnet the process is much more difficult
that it was back in the days of a dos program owning a serial port and knowing
that the majority of your users were either using Procomm, Telix or Commo and
also running on a DOS platform .. There finding ANSI support usually always allowed
you to use the IBM Character graphics codes as well.

I'm thinking that the entire effort may not be worth doing (which would seem to me to
be the reason why I've never seen it on a MUD before).. After all, all one gains is the
ability to show an ANSI opening screen instead of an ASCII one.. Big Whoop :-)

Though from the mud's I've been around, a lot of people don't figure out they can use
color with a mud for a good while after they start.. though that is just my personal
observation...

However, another option may be possible. Creating a new terminal type that mud clients
could report.. In the negotiation of the telnet program it is possible to have the terminal
report the terminal types it supports and the server can negotiate to get the ones it
prefers first.. Though as Sammy pointed out, this takes time.. Time that might be better
spent mudding? :-)

--Mallory


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