Proposed Outline for an NMC Manual NMC Project Logo

One of the things that everyone acknowledges that NMC needs more of is good documentation. A proper manual would go a long way towards fixing this problem. This documentation effort will likely be an open process - I believe Otter's currently working out how best to handle that, but last I heard, he was considering some sort of BBS-like software for submitting and commenting on sections of documentation.

While we wait for that to be implimented, here's a quick outline of what I think should go in the manual. Its a bit rough in places, and (as can be seen in the notes) there are a number of things that'll probably wind up being added, removed, or shuffled around. In the meantime, look this over and see what you might want to write, and feel free to offer suggestions about this outline in the NMC discussion list at nmc@members.limitless.org.

Preliminary NMC Documentation Outline:

  1. What is NMC?
    2. This would be a quick introduction to the manual, describing what the different parts of NMC are, what we're trying to do with each part, and the differences between NMC and other similar software.
    1. NMC Server
    2. NMC MUF
    3. Differences from FBMUCK, TinyMUCK, and other MU*s.
  2. NMC MUCKs for Beginners
    3. Just what the title says. A basic introduction to NMC and MUCKs for total and complete beginners. This is the section I'm most unsure about - if there's something you'd love to have known while you were learning MUCKing, suggest that we add it in here somewhere.
    1. The basics - movement, communication, and sight.
    2. Customizing your character - messages, @descs, clothing, etc.
    3. Building 101 - A basic intro to building a home.
    4. Zombies and Vehicles
  3. Building on NMC MUCKs
    4. Documentation on things useful to builders. Not so much "how to build" (there's places in the previous section for that), but more "how to use NMC's advanced building tools and make the most out of them".
    1. Regions
    2. Regnaming
    3. Locking.
    4. Commands useful to builders
    5. Scripting.
    6. Region administration commands.
  4. Programming on NMC MUCKs
    5. This section's still quite fuzzy... I'm not sure whether MPI should go in here or in the builder's section. And while we DO need a manual for both in here, how simple or in-detailed should we make things? We definitely want documentation for libraries, though, especially the Locks library and the new ones, like StringTable.
    1. MUF 101
    2. NMC Libraries
    3. MUF primitives index. (More in-detail than man pages?) (Code examples?) (Appendix?)
    4. MPI 101 (Linked to from builder section?)
    5. NMC MPI extensions. (+dispatch)
    6. MPI primitives index. (More in-detail than mpi pages?) (Examples?) (Appendix?)
  5. Administering an NMC MUCK
    6. A section on things useful to wizards.
    1. Downloading, installing, and starting up an NMC MUCK.
    2. @tunes and Admin-locks.
    3. Wizardly commands.
    4. Security issues.
    5. How To Get a MUCK started (Administration suggestions?)
    6. For New Wizards: Suggested rules and policies (?)
  6. Appendixes(?)
    7. Do we really need these in here? Having them would probably be a good thing, but they're also available in the online help of every NMC MUCK. Maybe providing tutorials for some of the more complicated commands, but those should be covered in sections 3-5.