[1201] in Coldmud discussion meeting

Re: [COLD] $motd ideas...

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Wed Jan 1 14:52:11 1997 )

Date: Wed, 1 Jan 1997 12:47:14 -0700 (MST)
From: Brandon Gillespie <brandon@glacier.cold.org>
To: Charles Shepherd <cshepher@cs.indiana.edu>
cc: coldstuff@cold.org
In-Reply-To: <199612292227.RAA01550@death.cs.indiana.edu>

On Sun, 29 Dec 1996, Charles Shepherd wrote:
> I've been looking at the $motd code, trying to find a
> simple way to customize it.
> 
> One way would be to take $motd.build, and instead
> of passing $motd.build('default) as the logon screen,
> construct a custom message. My first thought was
> to do:
> 
> $motd.build('title, 'driver, "", "A brief explanation 1", "more 
>    explanation2, "");
> 
> However, this didn't work as all strings are translated to
> "" when used as output. This means that either we need to
> change the code to allow non-null strings, or program 
> in additional cases (such as 'disclaimer, and 'introduction)
> to add to the case statement.

Actually, this looks like a bug that crept into the code over time, it
should include the literal strings.  Line 11 of $motd.build() should read:

        output += [args[1], ""];

> One addition that might be helpful would be the presence
> of a default_motd property. That is, when 'default is passed
> as the argument to $motd.build, it takes the list from default_motd
> as the args. That way, it's easier to customize to the needs of
> a particular world.

This is a good idea.  Also, I started but never finished--I want the
configurable parts of $motd setable through @set..

-Brandon