Help

How to install WinMUD
Using WinMUD
Playing
Skinning
Creating your own skin
Share your skin
Contact
Register
About

How to install WinMUD

WinMUD is distributed as a zip file(.zip) and as a self extracting zip(.exe). If you've got the .zip file unzip it with an zip program like WinZIP to a directory of your choice. If you've got the .exe file just run it for self extraction.

Using WinMUD

Start c:\winmud\winmud.exe (the path may be different if you have chosen so in the installation).
WinMUD has (currently) three buttons. They function indepently from the selected skin.

The topmost button is the options button
The button below is the exit button.
The lowest button is the about button.

Playing

Pressing the options button you'll get a dialog with a list of MUD entrys(this list doesn't contain any entry when you've just installed WinMUD). These consist of a

MUD Name
Server
Port
Skin

To add a new Entry you have to click the add button below the list. A new dialog will pop up, requesting you to fill out the different parts of a list entry. You have to supply the server and port for the MUD. Without these it's not possible to connect to your desired MUD.(For a listing of more than 1000 MUDs go to The Mud Connector) If you have supplied the necessary information click the OK button. Now the entered MUD will be listed. To start you journey just doubleclick on the MUD's Name. Much fun!

Skinning

WinMUD supports skins. These means you can give WinMUD a whole different look by using a skin from the Skin page or one you made yourself! To install a skin you have to extract the downloaded skin, e.g. fantasy.zip in its own folder below the c:\winmud\skins folder. In our example this would be c:\winmud\skins\fantasy. Now you can use the skin. Do so by clicking WinMUD's option button. Either add a mud or edit an existing entry and choose for the skin name the folder name in which you extracted your skin.

Creating your own skin

... is actually quite easy (and fun). You have to create one large background image and for every of the three buttons three state images. (All in all 10 files). The file format in which you have to create (or at least in the end convert to) the pictures is the Windows BMP format (supported by most image programs). The transparent color(the color which lets you see the background) is Red=255 Green=0 Blue=255 (HTML notation is #FF00FF). Choose this color for parts of the button image which shouldn't be part of the button itself. The color depth for the button images has to be 24bit. If you save the images with less bit(8 or 16) the colors don't stay exactly the same. Thus the transparency color will be changed and WinMUD will be unable to recognize it. The color depth of the background may vary(It's in most cases sensible to choose just 8bit because of the much smaller file size.). The background has to be the size of 800*600. The following image illustrates where the text window of WinMUD is positioned on the background: left:135, right, bottom, top: 25 pixel

The sizes of the button images may differ but for a single button itself the images should have the same size.
For every button you have to create three different images:

one image for the normal state (mouse is not over the button)
one image for the hover state (mouse is over the button)
one image for the click state (this is a hard one!)

Having done this (puh!) you have to name the files WinMUD conform. Here's how it works: the background image must be named (fanfare!) background.bmp. The button images file name formula is like this:

First comes the button name, i. e. options, exit or about
Next comes and underline "_"
Then hang on the state name, i. e. normal, hover or click
Finally add the obligatory .bmp

So if you would name the hover state image of the exit button you would come up with exit_hover.bmp. You can use the standard skin (used when no skin is specified) as an example. But be careful: If this standard skin is destroyed or moved WinMUD will no longer work. However, you can put any other skin in the standard folder.
If you reached this point still breathing put all your images in one folder below the skin folder, e.g. c:\winmud\skin\myskin. Start up WinMUD, choose your Skin and see what it looks like... If you get an error message there are three possibilities why:

You didn't created all necessary images.
You didn't name the images as necessary.
You didn't choose the same name for the skin in WinMUD as you have for the folder where you put the skin.

Share you skin

If you think your skin is a good one and other people could like it, share it. Just send me the skin as a .zip file in an email attachment. I'll post it in the skins section.

Contact

The WinMUD homepage is here: winmud.virtualave.net
Send skins to: skins@winmud.virtualave.net
Send suggestions for improvement to: suggestions@winmud.virtualave.net
Please report bugs to: bugs@winmud.virtualave.net

Register

WinMUD is is distributed as shareware. Registering WinMUD is easy! Click here to register.