mud-web-client

What is this?

Webapp to connect to a MUD / MUSH / MOO game server, supporting all major data interchange and interactive text protocols. The connection is done through a secure websocket (wss:// protocol), so you will need a proxy in the server that translates the wss sessions to telnet. You can use the mud-web-proxy project to achieve that.

You can see this project working in the maldorne.org web page.

History

This project is a fork of MUDPortal-Web-App, made by @plamzi, creator of mudportal.com. The original project had the code of both the client and proxy-server apps, and was outdated and did not support secure connections (wss:// instead of ws://), so I decided to fork it in 2020, separate in different projects and update them. But kudos to @plamzi, who is the original author.

In 2025, I've ported the project to use ES modules, and the build system is now based on Vite. The project is now using the latest version of the libraries, and the code is cleaner and easier to maintain.

Motivation

In modern browsers, web-pages served through https:// are not allowed to open connections to non-secure locations, so an https://-served web could not include a web client which opens a connection using ws://. Modifications were needed to allow secure connections.

Features

• Window-based web UI with draggable and resizable windows, window toolbar.
• MCCP compression support (zlib)
• MXP protocol support built into the client
• MSDP protocol support
• GMCP / ATCP protocol support (JSON) with sample uses in multiple existing plugins
• 256-color support, including background colors
• Unicode font support and UTF-8 negotiation
• Vector-based world mapper with flexible edit mode to allow for mapping any MUD world via exploration
• Triggers / macros / command memory with typeahead

Configuration

git clone https://github.com/maldorne/mud-web-client
npm install

MUD Configuration Files

The client now supports JSON configuration files for different MUDs. Create a file in the muds/ directory for each MUD you want to configure:

{
  "name": "Example MUD",
  "host": "muds.example.org",
  "port": "5010",
  "proxy": "wss://play.example.org:6200/",

  "other configuration options, see muds/example.json or muds/ciudad-capital.json for more examples"
}

Key configuration options:

• name: Display name of the MUD.
• host: MUD server hostname.
• port: MUD server port, The mud, not the proxy.
• proxy: WebSocket proxy URL. The wss url where the proxy is running.

To use a specific MUD configuration, add the mud parameter to the URL:

http://localhost:5173/?mud=example-mud

URL parameters will override values from the JSON config file. For example:

http://localhost:5173/?mud=example-mud&debug=1&chatterbox=1

After changing configuration values, you can rebuild the project with npm run build and copy the files in the /dist directory to your web server, as it is explained below.

Default Configuration

The values in src/config.js are now used as fallbacks when:

• No MUD is specified in the URL
• A specified MUD configuration file is not found
• Specific fields are missing in the MUD configuration

Usage

In your local environment

• Run npm run dev to start a local web server. The web client will be available at http://localhost:5173/.

For deployment on a web server

• If you make changes (even only in a JSON configuration file), you can run npm run build to generate the new files in the /dist directory.
• Copy all files inside the /dist directory to a web-accessible directory on your web server. Files must be served by a web server, it won't work if you just open the index.html file in your browser. Most code editors have plugins to run a local web server to test these kind of things.
• Point a browser at the root of that directory to load the included index.html file.

Changelog

• v1 (@plamzi): Original version MUDPortal-Web-App.
• v2 (@neverbot): Added support for wss:// connections. Separated the client and proxy-server code.
• v3 (@neverbot): Ported to ES modules and Vite. Updated all dependencies.

Note about integration modules

The legacy integration modules (havoc, juju mapper, etc.) from the src-old directory have been migrated to use ES modules syntax and can now be found in the main src directory. While the core functionality should remain intact, these modules have not been thoroughly tested with the new architecture. These features were primarily used in the play area of mudportal.com. If you need to use those features, maybe you will have to fix them yourself. If you're interested in using or improving those integration modules, you're welcome to test them, report issues, or submit pull requests. Set them up in you own JSON configuration file, and see if they work.

All basic functionalities of the client have been thoroughly tested and should be working properly. Only the integration modules might need additional work.