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Tags

Some codebases call these attributes, or properties. The idea of a Phantasmal tag is that it's a named, typed piece of information attached to an object or mobile. Basically you're adding an extra variable to every object or mobile that Phantasmal didn't add for you.

A lot of traditional MUDs have 'deeds' systems or 'quest' systems that let you mark particular players as having done one thing or another. Phantasmal tags can be used for the same purpose, and are meant to be. You'll have to tag the player's mobile, currently, not the user object, but it should still work just fine.

Since scripts can potentially get and set tag values, tags can also be used for extra variables for scripts. You have to be careful, though -- some Phantasmal-based games may not let you randomly make new tags, and it's not good to have lots of old temporary tags hanging around forever. There should be some good way to make them go away. A particular Phantasmal-based game may allow you to declare tags that disappear when an object leaves a particular room or zone. Or you could write scripts on the exits to remove those temporary tags.

Particular Phantasmal-based games will set up different script interfaces to tags, but the default wiztool has a simple one for one-word tag names. To declare a new tag type, the syntax is "@new_tag_type <scope> <tag name> <tag type>", and you can optionally add getter and setter function names after that. Normally you won't want to, though.

The 'scope' parameter is what kind of object the new tag can be applied to. The normal values are 'object' and 'mobile'. The tag name must be single-word, meaning no spaces. Scripts don't have this restriction, but the default wiztool tag commands all require single-word tag names. The tag type should specify a type like "int" or "float", or a DGD type number like 2. Not all types may be supported for tags, and tags may support non-DGD types like "mobile" or "phrase".

To see the new tag you created, type "@list_tags object" or "@list_tags mobile". That shows all existing tag types for the given scope.

To see the list of current tags on a given object or mobile, use the stat command. You should either see a list of tag names and values, or a status line such as "No Tags Set".

To set the value of a tag on a particular DGD object, use the "@set_tag" command. The syntax is "@set_tag <obj> <tag name> <value>". The object can be specified by number, like "#347", or as an object in the wiztool history, such as "$8". The tag name must be a single word, with no spaces, as for the @new_tag_type command above. And everything remaining on the line is assumed to be the new value, which is evaluated as arbitrary LPC code, and can use history values. It gets evaluated essentially just like the %code command, including storing the new tag value into the wiztool history list.

Now that you know how to manipulate tags from the command line, you should go practice. And then you should come back and read more tutorials.