Undocumented Stuff:
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The only undocumented features, I'm willing to document at this point are the Command Recall depth adjustment, and how and why stay alive works.

Command Recall Depth

When GrMud is installed, by default the UP/Down navigation of past commands is limited to the last FIVE.  This is mainly for usability reasons.  I figured novice users might be confused by a depth of 20 or 30 command recall, whereas experienced users (you) probably want a little more.

In the GrMud registry settings there is a registry value used to configure the Command Recall objects for all worlds.  The following is the .reg file describing the change of this value to a depth of 30 (hex is 1e).

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Ostapnet\GrMud\Settings\Input]
"CommandBufferDepth"=dword:00000005

If you like, you can download this file here.  Simple save it somewhere, and double click it to merge it.  With a little reverse engineering, I'm sure you can figure out how to select other values... although I strongly recommend you keep this value below 50.


Stay Alive and Socket Error 10054

A lot of people have been complaining of late about Socket Error 10054.  Essentially this error means that either the Mu* in question, or a router somewhere along the way (including your home router), has either lost too many packets, or has randomly decided to drop the socket.  Fact is, it has nothing to do with GrMud.

To alleviate this problem, in the Worlds Dialog you can check off "Keep Alive".  Essentially what this does is send a packet to the MU*, containing a null character every 10 seconds.  There are three upsides here. 

  1. It's my theory that this small hard to screw up packet will get through reliably, and 'refresh' your path through to the MU*, thus reducing the number of 10054's. 
  2. This ought to keep all but the most fascist operators  from booting you for being idle.
  3. The null character approach doesn't fill your screen with 'un-idle' spam.

The only downside I see to this, is that the MU* server will have to process anywhere from 8 to 24 kilobytes of data per 24 hour period.  I guess it really depends on how uptight your sys admins are. 

The other downside is, a socket with no traffic draws less attention.  This sort of periodic and continuous traffic on a non-standard port may draw the attention of your firewall/internet administrators.  Personally I wouldn't worry as the operator would have to be looking pretty darn close.