sockets

Associated topics:

/connect: open a socket connection to a world
/dc: close (disconnect) a socket
/fg: bring a socket into the foreground
%login: enable automatic login
/listsockets: display a list of open sockets
fg_world(): name of foreground world
idle(): idle time
nactive(): number of active sockets, or number of undisplayed lines
%background: determines when to process text from background sockets
%bg_output: determines how to display text from background sockets

A socket is an open connection to a world. TF can have multiple sockets open simultaneously. Only one of these can be displayed at a time; this is called the foreground socket. In visual mode, the name of the world on the foreground socket is displayed on the status line. Other sockets are in the background. Text from any socket is triggered and stored in history immediately, but is not displayed until that socket is brought into the foreground. Turning off the %{bg_output} flag prevents the display when the socket is foregrounded. Turning off the %{background} flag prevents all processing until the socket is foregrounded.

The current socket is the socket to which commands are sent. The current socket is almost always the same as the foreground socket, except: 1) when a macro is triggered from any socket, that socket becomes the current socket for the duration of that macro execution; 2) when a /repeat or /quote with world redirection runs (-w option), that world's socket becomes the current socket for the duration of the process execution.

Text from a socket goes through a number of checks before being displayed. If the text matches any trigger patterns, a macro may be executed, or the text may be gagged or hilited. If the text was not gagged, TF also checks to see if it should be suppressed because of %quiet, /watchdog or /watchname. Finally, the text is added to the world's history and the global history, and is queued for display.

You can open a new socket in several ways:

By giving the world name or address on the command line when starting tf.
By using a /connect or /world command.
By "bamfing" through a portal between muds (see "bamf").

You can switch between foreground sockets with the /fg command; the next socket and previous socket keys, which default to ESC-b and ESC-f, and can be modified with /bind; and, when the file world-q.tf is loaded, with the ESC-w keybinding.

If the %{quitdone} flag is on, and you disconnect from all worlds (either with /dc or because the other end of the socket closes), Fugue will exit.

If the %{sockmload} flag is on, a world's macro file will be loaded when you switch to the socket for that world (either with the next and previous socket keys or with the /world command).

TF supports several TELNET options; see telnet.

If %{proxy_host} is defined, all connections will go through a proxy server. See: proxy.