# Portable source form of MOO database

Andreas Dieberger (andreas.dieberger@lcc.gatech.edu)
Tue, 28 Nov 1995 07:52:40 PST

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    >I've been tinkering with MOOs for a month or so.  I'd like to create a
    >map that could conveniently be loaded into any MOO, a kind of ASCII
    >"source" with no references to object numbers.

    That would be very useful. Probably the most obvious application for
    something like that is to have an offline 'structure editor' in which you
    can design a whole MOO area - then you log into the MOO and say "insert the
    whole stuff north of here" and it makes sure that all room exits are still
    valid and that the new area gets connected to the correct rooms that were
    in the MOO beforehand.

    I thought a lot about how to do that already but didnt come up with any
    good idea so far. One idea I had was to use metarooms so that each metaroom
    defines one such area. But that is not really a good solution either, I
    think.

    Still this alone wouldnt solve another problem I am thinking a lot about:
    How to *change* MOO areas easily. I would like to have a dynamic area in my
    MOO, one that is rearranged every now and then to experiment with various
    topologies. I certainly could keep the rooms and change the exits all the
    time but I would prefer to have such an offline structure editor and to
    replace an old area periodically with a new structure. Yes I know, MOOs
    were not really built to support something like that, but - hey - show me
    one piece of software that really is used _exactly_ as it was planned...
    :))

    Andreas

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                         Andreas Dieberger
                 Georgia Institute of Technology
         School of Literature, Communication and Culture
                    Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0165
            Tel: (404) 894-8009   Fax: (404) 853-0373

    andreas.dieberger@lcc.gatech.edu    dieberger.chi@xerox.com
     http://www.gatech.edu/lcc/idt/Faculty/andreas_dieberger/
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                 The last good thing written in C
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