Look Ma, no morphs!

How it's done

You got it - Foxie doesn't morph. The "standard" morphing program is really made for bigger changes - it overwrites the whole description, smell, speak verbs, species and gender. Using it to change your shirt is a bit of overkill, don't you think?
So here is what I have come up with. The description you saw on the previous page really looks like this:

The vixen winks at you as you catch her eye.
Standing at about 5', this little vixen is colored with deep cinnamon
fur over her back. Atop her head it becomes slightly lighter as it
reaches her deep, black eyes. White fur graces down over her stomach
and accentuates her foxy curves. She has the typical black socks and
gloves.
{list:wardrobe/{prop:wear}}
She pads about, her large tail swaying happily.

That little bit of code - {list:wardrobe/{prop:wear}} - tells the look program to insert the contents of a list found in the wardrobe directory, the name of the list found in the property wear. Change that property, and as long as the value is the name of an existing list (there is for the time being no error checking), the correct text is substituted whenever someone looks at the description.
In case this sounds too theoretical, here is a a command file you can send to your favorite character to create a fox plushie with a variable description. Take a look at it, then @set plushie=wear:bikini and look again. See? (The other possible values are "night" and "nude")

But using @set all the time is a bit inconvenient, so I came up with a little action called "wear" that displays a couple of messages and changes the property. If you executed the command file just now you have already created the action on the plushie, so just type wear night and see what happens...

Later note: The problem with the "wear" action is that it will happily put anything into the wear prop, making a total mess of the description if the referenced list is not found. I am sure there is a way to check a parameter for validity, but I found a simpler solution: Just give the action one name for each outfit, and modify it to store the name it's called by rather than the parameter. It saves typing too - to change into my nightgown I only have to type night instead of wear night...

The particularly daring among you ;) may want to experiment with your own character rather than a plushie. This file is for you! First thing to do is use the first file to create a plushie. Then if you want the vixen as one of your morphs, make sure all your old identities are already stored. If you want this as your only identity don't bother. Then just send this file to your character, and it will move the action and data to you, set your gender and species, and recycle the plushie. Now you just have to set your smell and store a morph if that is what you want. Note: The action is locked so that it will only work when you are using a morph called "vixen". (This is the short description showed under "morphs you to" when you type morph #list) If you call the morph something different, change the lock. (And make sure this is the only morph with that name!) If this will be your only identity just avoid setting the lock in the first place by deleting the second and third line from the file before using it.
Just one more thing: Please don't use this as a primary identity on FurryMuck or FoxMuck - I am that vixen there! (Okay, it's not my primary identity on Furry, but...)

Whether you keep the plushie (maybe make it a zombie?) or "wear" it you'll probably want to add some outfits or edit the existing ones. Just lsedit me=wardrobe/name where "name" is the name of the list to edit/add. (Note: lists created with lsedit show up as name# when you ex or @arc. Do not include the # sign when lsediting. Add as many as you like, and if you come up with some good ones feel free to share them with me! ;)
You may want to write your own descriptions from scratch and just use the code and action to change clothes. Well, that's OK too! (Hint: If you keep the clothing descriptions generic you can let all your morphs wear all your clothes, just write the main descriptions the same way (with the clothes in the middle or at the end) and include the "magic" code. Imagine ten morphs with ten outfits, you'd need a hundred morphs to do that the traditional way! ;))

A final technical note: On the previous page I gave a very brief description of how to export an identity to another character. You probably know by now that @archive does not quite work that way - you can only archive yourself, a room, an object or an action. "Emigrating" your character is actually done like this:

With your "source" character,
1. store the identity as a morph,
2. @create a new object,
3. use the cp command to copy the _morph directory and the _regmorphs prop to the object (You can do both in one go by copying *morph*),
4. turn on the log and @archive the object.
With your "target" character,
1. load the file you just created, which should recreate the object,
2. use cp or mv to copy the props from the object (Note: This will overwrite any morph list you already have so it's best used with new characters only),
3. morph into the new identity.

Both characters can now recycle the object (unless you want to share the morph with others) and delete any morphs they don't intend to use again.

You can go back to the descriptions,
further back to the pictures,
or all the way back to the main page!