Manual:Event Engine

Event System

Events in Mudlet allow a paradigm of system-building that is easy to maintain (because if you’d like to restructure something, you’d have to do less work), enables interoperability (making a collection of scripts that work with each other is easier) and enables an event-based way of programming.

The essentials of it are as such: you use Scripts to define which events a function should listen to, and when the event is raised, the said function(s) will be called. Events can also have function parameters with them, which’ll be passed onto the receiving functions.

Registering an event handler via UI

Registering an event handler means that you’ll be telling Mudlet what function it should call for you when an event is raised, so it’s a two step process - you need to tell it both what function you’d like to have called, and on what event it should be called.

To tell it what function should be called, create a new script, and give the script the name of the function you’d like to be called. This is the only time where an items name matters in Mudlet. You can define the function right inside the script as well, if you’d like.

Next, we tell it what event or events this function should be called on - you can add multiple entries. To do that, enter the events name in the Add User Defined Event Handler: field, press enter, and it’ll go into the list - and that is all.

Registering an event from a script

You can also register your event with the registerAnonymousEventHandler(event name, function reference, [one shot]) function inside your scripts:

-- example taken from the God Wars 2 (http://godwars2.org) Mudlet UI - forces the window to keep to a certain size
function keepStaticSize()
  setMainWindowSize(1280,720)
end -- keepStaticSize

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysWindowResizeEvent", keepStaticSize, false)

Note: : registerNamedEventHandler can also be used. Doing so causes Mudlet to handle saving of the IDs for you.

Note: Mudlet also uses the event system in-game protocols (like ATCP, GMCP and others).

Raising a custom event

To raise an event, you'd use the raiseEvent() function:

raiseEvent(name, [arguments...])

It takes an event name as the first argument, and then any amount of arguments after it which will be passed onto the receiving functions.

Example of registering and raising an event

Add a script to each profile you need the event.

-- This is the function that will be called when the event is raised.
-- "event" is set to the event name.
-- "arg" is the argument(s) provided with raiseEvent/raiseGlobalEvent.
-- "profile" - Is the profile name from where the raiseGlobalEvent was triggered from
--             It is 'nil' if raiseEvent() was used.
function onMyEvent(event, arg, profile)
  echo("Event: " .. event .. "\n")
  echo("Arg  : " .. arg .. "\n")
  -- If the event is not raised with raiseGlobalEvent() profile will be 'nil'
  echo("Profile: " .. (profile or "Local") .. "\n")
end

-- Register the event handler.
registerAnonymousEventHandler("my_event", onMyEvent)

To raise the event you can call:

-- Trigger only in the current profile:
raiseEvent("my_event", "Hello world!")

-- Trigger the event in all OTHER profiles:
raiseGlobalEvent("my_event", "Hello World!")

To review, count and extract from an unknown number of arguments received by an event:

function eventArgs(...)
  local args = {...}
  local amount = #args
  local first = args[1]
  echo("Number of arguments: " .. amount)
  echo("\nTable of all arguments: ")
  display(args)
  echo("First argument: " .. first)
  echo("\n\n")
end

Gamepad functionality

Note: will be removed in 4.18 as this is blocking Mudlet updates and is not used by players.

Gamepad functions are not fully supported with all operating systems and hardware. Windows supports XInput devices like Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers. DirectInput controllers like a PlayStation 4 controller can be translated to XInput with third party software. Mudlet on Linux can support gamepads but only if you compile it yourself. The automated builds are made using the oldest supported version of Ubuntu, and the Qt5 gamepad module was not available on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Mudlet-raised events

Mudlet itself also creates events for your scripts to hook on. The following events are generated currently:

AdjustableContainerReposition

Raised while a adjustable container is re-positioned.

function repositioningContainer(eventName, containerName, width, height, x, y, mouseAction)
  print(f"{containerName}: {x}x, {y}y, {width}x{height}, using mouse? {mouseAction}")
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("AdjustableContainerReposition", repositioningContainer)

AdjustableContainerRepositionFinish

Raised when an adjustable container done being re-positioned.

function finishedRepositioning(eventName, containerName, width, height, x, y)
  print(f"{containerName}: {x}x, {y}y, {width}x{height}")
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("AdjustableContainerRepositionFinish", finishedRepositioning)

channel102Message

Raised when a telnet sub-option 102 message is received (which comprises of two numbers passed in the event). This is of particular use with the Aardwolf MUD who originated this protocol. See this forum topic for more about the Mudlet Aardwolf GUI that makes use of this.

mapModeChangeEvent

Raised when the mapper is switching between "view-only" and "editing" mode of the Visual Map Editor. A value of "editing" or "viewing" will be given as argument to indicate which mode was entered.

mapOpenEvent

Raised when the mapper is opened - either the floating dock or the in-Mudlet widget.

sysAppStyleSheetChange

Raised when setAppStyleSheet is called and a new stylesheet applied to Mudlet.

-- This will respond to a future (as yet unpublished) addition to the Mudlet code that will allow some
-- of a default application style sheet to be supplied with Mudlet to compensate for some text colors
-- that do not show up equally well in both light and dark desktop themes. That, perhaps, might finally
-- allow different colored texts to be uses again for the trigger item types!
function appStyleSheetChangeEvent( event, tag, source )
  if source == "system" then
    colorTable = colorTable or {}
    if tag == "mudlet-dark-theme" then
      colorTable.blue = {64, 64, 255}
      colorTable.green = {0, 255, 0}
    elseif tag == "mudlet-light-theme" then
      colorTable.blue = {0, 0, 255}
      colorTable.green = {64, 255, 64}
    end
  end
end

Available in Mudlet3.19+

sysBufferShrinkEvent

Raised when the oldest lines are removed from the back of any console or buffer belonging to a profile because it has reached the limit (either the default or that set by setConsoleBufferSize). The two additional arguments within the event are: the name of the console or buffer and the number of lines removed from the beginning of the buffer. This information will be useful for any situation where a line number is being stored as it will need to be decremented by that number of lines in order to continue to refer to the same line (assuming that it is still present - indicated by the number remaining positive) after the oldest ones have been removed.

Available in Mudlet4.17+

sysConnectionEvent

Raised when the profile becomes connected to a MUD.

sysCustomHttpDone

Raised whenever a customHTTP() request completes successfully. Arguments with the event are the URL that the request was sent to and the response body (if it's less than 10k characters) and HTTP method.

See also sysCustomHttpError.

sysCustomHttpError

Raised whenever a customHTTP() request fails. Arguments are the error message and the URL that the request was sent to and HTTP method.

See also sysCustomHttpDone.

sysDataSendRequest

Raised right before a command from the send(), sendAll() functions or the command line is sent to the game - useful for keeping track of what your last command was, manipulating input or even denying the command to be sent if necessary with denyCurrentSend().

sysDataSendRequest will send the event name and the command sent (in string form) to the functions registered to it. IE: commandSent in the example below will be "eat hambuger" if the user entered only that into command line and pressed enter, send("eat hamburger"), sendAll("eat humburger", "eat fish") or sendAll("eat fish", "eat humburger")

Note: if you'll be making use of denyCurrentSend(), you really should notify the user that you denied their command - unexperienced ones might conclude that your script or Mudlet is buggy if they don't see visual feedback. Do not mis-use this and use it as keylogger either.

-- cancels all "eat hambuger" commands
function cancelEatHamburger(eventName, commandSent)
  if commandSent == "eat hamburger" then
    denyCurrentSend() --cancels the command sent.
    cecho("<red>Denied! You can't do "..commandSent.." right now.\n")
  end --if commandSent == eat hamburger
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDataSendRequest", cancelEatHamburger)

If you wanted to control input you could set a bool after a trigger. This is useful if you want alias like control, do not know what text will be entered, but do know a trigger that WILL occur just before the user enters the command.

function controlInput(_, command) 
  if changeCMDInput then
    changeCMDInput = false --set this if check to false to it doesn't occur every input
    --Also set the bool check BEFORE any send() functions within a sysDataSendRequest function
    sendAll(command .. "some target", command .. "some other target", true) --Duplicate and unknown command
    denyCurrentSend() --Deny the original command, not the commands sent with sendAll.
  end
end
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDataSendRequest", controlInput)

Take note that functions registered under sysDataSendRequest WILL trigger with ALL commands that are sent.

sysDeleteHttpDone

Raised whenever a deleteHTTP() request completes successfully. Arguments with the event are the URL that the request was sent to and the response body (if it's less than 10k characters).

See also sysDeleteHttpError.

sysDeleteHttpError

Raised whenever a deleteHTTP() request fails. Arguments are the error message and the URL that the request was sent to.

See also sysDeleteHttpDone.

sysDisconnectionEvent

Raised when the profile becomes disconnected, either manually or by the game.

If you'd like to automatically reconnect when you get disconnected, make a new Script and add this inside:

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDisconnectionEvent", reconnect)

sysDownloadDone

Raised when Mudlet is finished downloading a file successfully - the location of the downloaded file is passed as a second argument.

Example - put it into a new script and save it to run:

-- create a function to parse the downloaded webpage and display a result
function downloaded_file(_, filename)
  -- is the file that downloaded ours?
  if not filename:find("achaea-who-count.html", 1, true) then return end

  -- read the contents of the webpage in
  local f, s, webpage = io.open(filename)
  if f then webpage = f:read("*a"); io.close(f) end
  -- delete the file on disk, don't clutter
  os.remove(filename)

  -- parse our downloaded file for the player count
  local pc = webpage:match([[Total: (%d+) players online]])
  display("Achaea has "..tostring(pc).." players on right now.")
end

-- register our function to run on the event that something was downloaded
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDownloadDone", downloaded_file)

-- download a list of fake users for a demo
downloadFile(getMudletHomeDir().."/achaea-who-count.html", "https://www.achaea.com/game/who")

You should see a result like this:

sysDownloadError

Raised when downloading a file failed - the second argument contains the error message, the third the local filename that was to be used and the actual URL used (might not be the same as what was given if redirection took place).

Example

--if a download fails notify the player.
function downloadErrorEventHandler(event, errorFound, localFilename, usedUrl)
    cecho("fuction downloadErrorEventHandler, "..errorFound)
    debugc("fuction downloadErrorEventHandler, "..errorFound) --display to error screen in editor
end --function downloadErrorEventHandler
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDownloadError", downloadErrorEventHandler)

sysDownloadFileProgress

Raised while file is being downloaded to indicate progess of download.

The arguments passed areː: event name, url of download, bytes downloaded, total bytes (if available).

Example

-- will show progress bar while download file and hide it after file download is complete
local progressBar = Geyser.Gauge:new({
  name="downloadProgressBar",
  x="25%", y="10%",
  width="50%", height="5%",
})
progressBar:setFontSize(13)
progressBar:setAlignment("center")
progressBar:hide()


local fileUrl = "https://www.mudlet.org/download/Mudlet-4.10.1-linux-x64.AppImage.tar"
local targetFile = getMudletHomeDir() .. "/Mudlet.tar"
function handleProgress(_, url, bytesDownloaded, totalBytes)
  if url ~= fileUrl then
    return
  end
  
  progressBar:show()
  
  if not totalBytes then
    bytesDownloaded = 0
    totalBytes = 1
  end
  
  progressBar:setValue(bytesDownloaded, totalBytes, math.floor((bytesDownloaded / totalBytes) * 100) .. "%")
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDownloadFileProgress", handleProgress)

function hideProgressBar()
  tempTimer(3, function() progressBar:hide() end)
end 

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDownloadDone", hideProgressBar)
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDownloadError", hideProgressBar)

downloadFile(targetFile, fileUrl)

Available in Mudlet4.11+

sysDropEvent

Raised when a file is dropped on the Mudlet main window or a userwindow. The arguments passed areː filepath, suffix, xpos, ypos, and consolename - "main" for the main window and otherwise of the userwindow/miniconsole name.

Available in Mudlet4.8+

function onDragAndDrop(_, filepath, suffix, xpos, ypos, consolename)
  print(string.format("Dropped new file into %s: %s (suffix: %s)", consolename, filepath, suffix))
end
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDropEvent", onDragAndDrop)

sysDropUrlEvent

Raised when a url is dropped on the Mudlet main window or a userwindow. As an url at the moment Mudlet understands The arguments passed areː url, schema, xpos, ypos, and consolename - "main" for the main window and otherwise of the userwindow/miniconsole name.

Available in Mudlet4.11+

function onDragAndDropUrl(_, url, schema, xpos, ypos, consolename)
  print(string.format("Dropped new url into %s: %s (suffix: %s)", consolename, filepath, suffix))
  if schema == "http" or schema == "https" then
    print("\nOh boy... this might be a link to some website")
  end
end
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysDropUrlEvent", onDragAndDropUrl)

sysExitEvent

Raised when Mudlet is shutting down the profile - a good event to hook onto for saving all of your data.

sysGetHttpDone

Raised whenever a getHTTP() request completes successfully. Arguments with the event are the URL that the request was sent to and the response body (if it's less than 10k characters).

This event is also raised when a post/put/delete request redirects to a GET.

See also sysGetHttpError.

Available in Mudlet4.10+

sysGetHttpError

Raised whenever a getHTTP() request fails. Arguments are the error message and the URL that the request was sent to.

See also sysGetHttpDone.

Available in Mudlet4.10+

sysInstall

Raised right after a module or package is installed by any means. This can be used to display post-installation information or setup things.

Event handlers receive the name of the installed package or module as additional argument.

Note: Installed modules will raise this event handler each time the synced profile is opened. sysInstallModule and sysInstallPackage are not raised by opening profiles.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

function myScriptInstalled(_, name)
  -- stop if what got installed isn't my thing
  if name ~= "my script name here" then return end

  print("Hey, thanks for installing my thing!")
end
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysInstallPackage", myScriptInstalled)

sysInstallModule

Raised right after a module is installed through the module dialog. This can be used to display post-installation information or setup things.

See also sysLuaInstallModule for when a module is installed via Lua.

Event handlers receive the name of the installed module as well as the file name as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysInstallPackage

Raised right after a package is installed by any means. This can be used to display post-installation information or setup things.

Event handlers receive the name of the installed package as well as the file name as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysIrcMessage

Raised when the IRC client receives an IRC message. The sender's name, channel name, and their message are passed as arguments to this event.

Starting with Mudlet 3.3, this event changes slightly to provide more information from IRC network messages. Data such as status codes, command responses, or error messages sent by the IRC Server may be formatted as plain text by the client and posted to lua via this event.

• sender: may be the nick name of an IRC user or the name of the IRC server host, as retrievable by getIrcConnectedHost()
• channel: may not always contain a channel name, but will be the name of the target/recipient of a message or action. In some networks the name may be that of a service (like "Auth" for example)

Example

function onIrcMessage(_, sender, target, message)
  echo(string.format('(%s) %s says, "%s"\n', target, sender, message))
end

registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysIrcMessage", onIrcMessage)

To send a message, see sendIrc().

sysLabelDeleted

Raised after a label is deleted, with the former label's name as an argument.

sysLoadEvent

Raised after Mudlet is done loading the profile, after all of the scripts, packages, and modules are installed. Note that when it does so, it also compiles and runs all scripts - which could be a good idea to initialize everything at once, but beware - scripts are also run when saved. Hence, hooking only on the sysLoadEvent would prevent multiple re-loads as you’re editing the script.

sysLuaInstallModule

Raised right after a module is installed through the Lua installModule() command. This can be used to display post-installation information or setup things.

Event handlers receive the name of the installed module as well as the file name as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysLuaUninstallModule

Raised right before a module is removed through the lua uninstallModule command. This can be used to display post-removal information or for cleanup.

Event handlers receive the name of the removed module as additional argument.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysManualLocationSetEvent

Raised whenever the "set location" command (on the 2D mapper context menu) is used to reposition the current "player room". It provides the room ID of the new room ID that the player has been moved to.

Available in Mudlet3.0+

sysMapAreaChanged

Raised whenever the area being viewed in the mapper changes, it returns two additional arguments being the areaID numbers being changed to and the previously viewed area.

Available in Mudlet4.17.0+

sysMapDownloadEvent

Raised whenever an MMP map is downloaded and loaded in.

sysMediaFinished

Raised when media finishes playing. This can be used in a music player for example to start the next song.

Event handlers receive the media file name and the file path as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet4.15+

sysPathChanged

Raised whenever file or directory added through addFileWatch() is modified.

For directories this event is emitted when the directory at a specified path is modified (e.g., when a file is added or deleted) or removed from disk. Note that if there are several changes during a short period of time, some of the changes might not emit this signal. However, the last change in the sequence of changes will always generate this signal.

For files this event is emitted when the file at the specified path is modified, renamed or removed from disk.

Available in Mudlet4.12+

Example

herbs = {}
local herbsPath = getMudletHomeDir() .. "/herbs.lua"
function herbsChangedHandler(_, path)
  if path == herbsPath then
    table.load(herbsPath, herbs)
    removeFileWatch(herbsPath)
  end
end

addFileWatch(herbsPath)
registerAnonymousEventHandler("sysPathChanged", herbsChangedHandler)

sysPostHttpDone

Raised whenever a postHTTP() request completes successfully. Arguments with the event are the URL that the request was sent to and the response body (if it's less than 10k characters).

See also sysPostHttpError.

sysPostHttpError

Raised whenever a postHTTP() request fails. Arguments are the error message and the URL that the request was sent to.

See also sysPostHttpDone.

sysProfileFocusChangeEvent

Raised whenever a profile becomes or stops being the foreground one when multi-playing, whether multi-view (show all profiles side-by-side) is active or not. The event comes with a second boolean argument which is true if the profile is now the one that has the focus, i.e. will receive keystrokes entered from the keyboard, or false if the focus has just switched from it to another profile.

Available in Mudlet4.17.0+

sysProtocolDisabled

Raised whenever a communications protocol is disabled, with the protocol name passed as an argument. Current values Mudlet will use for this are: GMCP, MDSP, ATCP, MXP, and channel102.

sysProtocolEnabled

Raised whenever a communications protocol is enabled, with the protocol name passed as an argument. Current values Mudlet will use for this are: GMCP, MDSP, ATCP, MXP, and channel102.

function onProtocolEnabled(_, protocol)
  if protocol == "GMCP" then
    print("GMCP enabled! Now we can use GMCP data.")
  end
end

sysPutHttpDone

Raised whenever a putHTTP() request completes successfully. Arguments with the event are the URL that the request was sent to and the response body (if it's less than 10k characters).

See also sysPutHttpError.

sysPutHttpError

Raised whenever a putHTTP() request fails. Arguments are the error message and the URL that the request was sent to.

See also sysPutHttpDone.

sysSoundFinished

This event is obsolete in Mudlet 4.15. Please replace this with sysMediaFinished()

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysSpeedwalkFinished

Raised when a speedwalk finishes, either one started by speedwalk() or the generic mapping script

sysSpeedwalkPaused

Raised when a speedwalk is paused, either via pauseSpeedwalk() or the generic mapping script.

sysSpeedwalkResumed

Raised when a speedwalk is resumed after pausing, whether it's the generic mapping script or the resumeSpeedwalk() function

sysSpeedwalkStarted

Raised when a speedwalk is started, either by the speedwalk() function or the generic mapping script

sysSpeedwalkStopped

Raised when a speedwalk is stopped prematurely by stopSpeedwalk() or the generic mapping script

sysSyncInstallModule

Raised right after a module is installed through the "sync" mechanism. This can be used to display post-installation information or setup things.

Event handlers receive the name of the installed module as well as the file name as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysSyncUninstallModule

Raised right before a module is removed through the "sync" mechanism. This can be used to display post-removal information or for cleanup.

Event handlers receive the name of the removed module as additional argument.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysTelnetEvent

Raised whenever an unsupported telnet option is encountered, allowing you to handle it yourself. The arguments that get passed with the event are type, telnet option, and the message.

sysUninstall

Raised right before a module or package is uninstalled by any means. This can be used to display post-removal information or for cleanup.

Event handlers receive the name of the removed package or module as additional argument.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysUninstallModule

Raised right before a module is removed through the module dialog. This can be used to display post-removal information or for cleanup.

Event handlers receive the name of the removed module as additional argument.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysUninstallPackage

Raised right before a package is removed by any means. This can be used to display post-removal information or for cleanup.

Event handlers receive the name of the removed package as additional argument.

Available in Mudlet3.1+

sysUnzipDone

Raised when a zip file is successfully unzipped using unzipAsync()

Event handlers receive the zip file name and the unzip path as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet4.6+

sysUnzipError

Raised when a zip file fails to unzip using unzipAsync()

Event handlers receive the zip file name and the unzip path as additional arguments.

Available in Mudlet4.6+

sysUserWindowResizeEvent

Raised when a userwindow is resized, with the new height and width coordinates and the windowname passed to the event. A common usecase for this event is to move/resize your UI elements according to the new dimensions.

See alsoː sysWindowResizeEvent

Example

This sample code will echo whenever a resize happened with the new dimensions:

function resizeEvent( event, x, y, windowname )
  echo("RESIZE EVENT: event="..event.." x="..x.." y="..y.." windowname="..windowname.."\n")
end

sysWindowMousePressEvent

Raised when a mouse button is pressed down anywhere on the main window (note that a click is composed of a mouse press and mouse release). The button number, the x,y coordinates of the click and the windowname are reported.

Note: Windowname reported in Mudlet 4.9+

See alsoː sysWindowMouseReleaseEvent

Example

function onClickHandler( event, button, x, y, windowname )
  echo("CLICK event:"..event.." button="..button.." x="..x.." y="..y.." windowname="..windowname.."\n")
end

sysWindowMouseReleaseEvent

Raised when a mouse button is released after being pressed down anywhere on the main window (note that a click is composed of a mouse press and mouse release).

See sysWindowMousePressEvent for example use.

sysWindowResizeEvent

Raised when the main window is resized, or when one of the borders is resized, with the new height and width coordinates passed to the event. A common usecase for this event is to move/resize your UI elements according to the new dimensions.

See alsoː sysUserWindowResizeEvent

Example

This sample code will echo whenever a resize happened with the new dimensions:

function resizeEvent( event, x, y )
  echo("RESIZE EVENT: event="..event.." x="..x.." y="..y.."\n")
end

ttsPitchChanged

Raised when text-to-speech function ttsSetPitch(...) has been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsRateChanged

Raised when text-to-speech function ttsSetRate(...) has been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsSpeechError

Raised when a text-to-speech function encountered an error while changing states (eg. from stopped to playing to pausing). Usually indicated when the operating system TTS engine is not working correctly.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsSpeechPaused

Raised when text-to-speech function ttsPause(...) has been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsSpeechQueued

Raised when text-to-speech function ttsQueue(...) has been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsSpeechReady

Raised when the text-to-speech engine is ready to beginning processing text.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsSpeechStarted

Raised when text-to-speech functions ttsSpeak(...) or ttsResume(...) have been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsVoiceChanged

Raised when text-to-speech functions ttsSetVoiceByIndex(...) or ttsSetVoiceByName(...) have been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech

ttsVolumeChanged

Raised when text-to-speech function ttsSetVolume(...) has been called.

See also: Manual:Text-to-Speech