One thing I really miss when I flip from TF on my linux shell to MUSHclient is 'more'. Is there a way to implement this -- maybe someone has a script or plugin?
More takes the size of your window height and freezes the output at each 'page'. This is great for things like catching up on BBS posts or reading spammy Mu* mail that normally scrolls off the screen.
Most servers already have a pager of sorts built in to them. Have you checked to see if the server you're running implements this already? I'd be somewhat surprised if they didn't.
Server side isn't a solution as I'm connecting with TF (tinyfugue) via a linux SSH shell console in one case, and a windows box running MushClient in another -- different resolutions, screen sizes, font sizes and OSes. Also, AFAIK its not part of PennMUSH, TinyMUSH, TinyMUX or RhostMUSH and those are what I play. (I don't see such a thing in the server help, but I could be missing it.)
Having different screen sizes, OSes etc. only matters in the sense that you might have to change the number of paged lines if one screen displays much less than the other. But if the servers don't support it to begin with, then it's a moot point anyhow. :-) Perhaps it's a MUD thing, because AFAIK it's quite standard in MUDs.
I looked at doing this a while ago, and simply couldn't make it work in a way that seemed natural. Looking at MUD output is different from (say) looking at a file, as a MUD sends output in bursts. Having a pager is logical for something like:
cat somefile | less
Without the pager program (less) the output shoots past in a rather useless manner. But, this is for a text-based environment, and that is important. When using a GUI word processor there is no pager built in, you simply scroll backwards and forwards.
What I couldn't work out was how the program would know you had read something. Say for example, you had a 20-line screen, and 19 lines arrive, followed by a 30-second pause. You have plenty of time to read the 19 lines, but they haven't filled a page yet, so the pager doesn't kick in.
Then a 2-line chat appears. However now the pager freezes output after the first line, because it thinks a "page" has arrived. Do you really want this? It would be annoying. And how do you tell it you want to keep displaying? Hit <enter>? But what if you are half-way through typing a command at the time?
Right now, in MUSHclient, if a lengthy message arrives, simply hit PageUp to scroll back to read it, and the screen "auto-pauses" so you can read. Then when you page down again and catch up to the end of the output it unpauses. This is natural operation, and seems easy to use to me.
And how do you tell it you want to keep displaying? Hit <enter>?
With tinyfugue its the Tab key. But, yes. It works how you describe other than you can of course type input as its still sitting.
It looks like it might be in output.c of tinyfugue if that example helps -- http://ftp.tcp.com/pub/mud/Clients/tinyfugue/
Page up does work but it can be a pain to find where you last left off if you are doing something like catching up on 10 bboards that have 20+ unread posts on them. And I often forget to page up to force a screen pause when I dash afk (or am writing mail, or editing a desc, etc.) I guess I'm just lazy :).
You can have multiple views of the same MUD output you know - see Window menu -> New Window.
This lets you have one window paused (eg. to read mail) while you use the other to type stuff in.
Also under the Display menu you can use "Bookmark selection" to bookmark a line, and then "Go to bookmark" to go back there later. You could use this to remember where you are in the output.