TinTin++

TinTin++ Developed by Igor van den Hoven Initial release 1992 Latest release 1.99.0 / April 13, 2009 (2009-04-13) Written in C Operating system Unix-like, Windows Platform Cross-platform File size 240KB Language English Development status Active Type of software MUD client Software license GNU GPL Website tintin.sourceforge.net

TinTin++ is a MUD client primarily written for Linux like systems. It is one of the oldest MUD clients in existence and a successor of the TINTIN client whose name stands for (T)he k(I)cki(N) (T)ickin d(I)kumud clie(N)t.

About

TinTin++ is a console telnet client enhanced with features that work particularly well for playing MUDs, though it allows connecting to Linux and BBS servers as well. To enhance game play on MUDs the client allows creating a VT100 split-screen, which separates the screen into an input, output, and status area. Input handling is enhanced with readline-like input editing, macro, and alias support. Text received from the server can be highlighted or set to execute triggers written in the TINTIN scripting language which resembles the C programming language.

TinTin++ has various other features that are commonly found in modern MUD clients, such as auto mapping, MCCP, p2p chat, HTML logging, and 64 bit floating point arithmetic and expressions.

History

TINTIN originated as a single file containing 700 lines of C code, allowing triggers and aliases, that was posted on Usenet by Peter Unold on April 1, 1992. On October 6 1992 Peter Unold made his final release, TINTIN III, which was a much more matured and feature rich program.

In 1993 the development of TINTIN was continued by Bill Reiss who announced the release of TinTin++ v1.0 on July 3, 1993. On April 25, 1994 TinTin++ 1.5 was announced, which was a joint effort by Bill Reiss, David A. Wagner, Rob Ellsworth, and Jeremy C. Jack.

After the 1.5 release in 1994 active development came to a halt. TinTin++ 1.5 had gained significant popularity however, and being public domain this resulted in many derivative works like Zmud, yTin, Lyntin, Pueblo, WinTin95, and GGMud. In 1998 development was continued briefly by Rob Elsworth who incorporated several patches by Sverre Normann before handing over development to Davin Chan who re-licensed the software to GNU GPL on July 12th, 2001 in his final release of TinTin++ 1.86b.

In 2004 development was continued by Igor van den Hoven.

Distribution

TinTin++ is currently distributed under the GNU General Public License, and works on most Unix-like operating systems. A port for Microsoft Windows called WinTin++ bundles TinTin++ with the PuTTY terminal emulator. A universal binary is available for Mac OS X.

Supported Protocols

• Character Mode	Allows directly transmitting client input, required for BBSes, *NIX servers, and roguelikes.
• Go Ahead	Allows the server to indicate the end of output, allowing better client side prompt handling.
• MCCP	Allows the compression of the data transfer from the server to the client.
• MudMaster Chat	Allows instant messaging and file transfers over private P2P connections.
• NAWS	Allows sending the client's window size to the server.
• TELNET	Allows connecting to *NIX servers and BBSes using TELOPT negotiations.
• VT100	Allows the displaying of a server side text user interface.
• xterm 256 colors	Allows using 256 different colors instead of the traditional 16.

Program Features

• Actions	Match lines of text or patterns of text with wildcard characters.
• Aliases	Command shortcuts allow bundling multiple commands together.
• Class	Labels a set of triggers to belong to a given class which allows removing or saving them independently.
• Delay	Execute a script after a predefined amount of time has passed.
• Events	Execute a script when a predefined event occurs.
• Format	Format text using a printf like syntax.
• Gags	Prevent lines of text from being displayed.
• Grep	Searches and displays matching lines in the scrollback buffer.
• Highlights	Change the color of incoming text.
• History Buffer	Stores the last commands you typed. Press UP to scroll through the list, or ctrl-r to find matches.
• If Checks	Handles both numeric boolean checks and string comparisons.
• Input editing	Input editing and handling that work much like the Unix Shell.
• Lists	Store information in an unsorted or sorted manner and recall it when needed.
• Log	Log incoming data as HTML, VT100, or plain text.
• Macros	Assign text or commands to specific key combinations.
• Map	Allows one to create an interactive map to help navigate the game world.
• Math	64 bit floating point mathematical expressions.
• Multiple Sessions	Open Multiple session windows to use more than one character or connect to more than one server.
• Read	Read in script files which can be indented and spaced out over several lines if braces are used.
• Regular expressions	Triggers use PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions).
• Run	Runs a given application, such as ssh, with access to all of tintin's scripting capabilities.
• Scan	Reads in an ANSI or plain text log file so you can view it in the scrollback buffer.
• Script	Runs the given script written in python, ruby, perl, php, etc, processing the output as a client command.
• Scrollback	Store the last 5000 (default) lines of text which can be viewed using page-up/down.
• Splitscreen	Splits the screens in an input, output, and status area.
• Status Bar	The user definable status bar lets you display information between the input and output area.
• Substitutions	Changes text to display as different text. Match simple text or patterns and replace them with a substitute text.
• Tab Completion	Recall hard to spell words by typing the first couple of letters and pressing tab.

External links

• TinTin++ MUD client home page