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Text File | 1994-02-06 | 75.9 KB | 1,611 lines

TADS 2.1.2.2 Unix Patchlevel 1 29-Jan-94 Unix-specific changes applied to latest TADS source. Unix versions 2.1.0.0 pl2 through pl4 were never released, so please read the notes for those as well -- this is the first release version that incorporates those changes. The window-resizing code seems to have been broken. Resizing the window sends the run-time into space. I'm looking into it. For now, don't change the window size while playing. adv.t and std.t have been updated to 2.1.2.2 as well. TADS 2.1.0.0 Unix Patchlevel 4 16-Nov-93 Changed the runtime and compiler so that the heapsize is always set to the maximum. An explicit -mh setting will override this. Note that you cannot make the heap bigger than 64K, since TADS has to run under DOS in real mode, where data structures can only be 64K or smaller. TADS 2.1.0.0 Unix Patchlevel 3 25-Oct-93 The adv.t and std.t files have been updated to 2.1.0.0. The ones in the earlier archives were actually the 2.0.13 ones. (Doh!) Now tadsr tries to save the game to file "fatal#####.sav" when it gets a fatal signal, where ##### is the process ID. Sometimes this file will be unuseable; other times it'll work fine -- it depends on where the signal occurs during execution. Two environment variables now affect the behavior of the runtime: TADSSAVE: directory for save files TADSGAME: directory for game files These pathnames will be prepended to any save or game file that does not already have a slash in it. For example, if TADSGAME=~you/games and you type tadsr foo the run-time will look for the file ~you/games/foo.gam. Note that if you want to prevent this, you have to explictly put a ./ in the filename, or unset the TADSGAME environment variable. The same goes for TADSSAVE. Since some windowing systems clear the screen when the end-of-visual terminal code is sent out, tadsr now waits for a keypress before it terminates. There is no way to disable this -- the run-time now ignores the -p flag entirely. You can always see usage (and game endings) now, however, which is a plus! The Emacs-style command line editing now handles ^D (delete character after cursor) and ^K (delete to end of line). Since most Unix boxes have loads of real memory and even more virtual memory, I increased the size of the scrollback buffer eightfold. It's now 256K. This should be enough for marathon play sessions. There are some known problems with the compiler -- core dumps on at least one big game, and core dumps when dealing with precompiled headers and modify/replace in another case. I haven't been able to track these down, but they aren't restricted to one architecture. One thing that's been reported as a bug but isn't: If you have the margin bell on in your xterm you'll get lots of rings as TADS updates the screen. The solution: turn off the margin bell! TADS 2.1.0.0 Unix Patchlevel 2 Output handling has been improved again. Terminal settings are restored properly upon suspend (^Z) or resume. I improved a few other things that I don't remember now. :) TADS 2.1.0.0 Unix Patchlevel 1 The programs should now be quite stable on all supported platforms. Term handling has been vastly improved, so that the run-time should be comfortable over a 2400 baud connection. The compiler now avoids all the screen handling stuff and just uses stdio for all output. Starting with this release, Unix versions will be given patchlevel numbers in addition to the standard High Energy version number. There's one patch number of the general Unix sources, and another for the specific platform the binaries were compiled for. General Unix notes: The .GAM files are now 100% portable across platforms. You can compile a game on a PC clone or Mac and then run the resulting .GAM directly under Unix (and vice versa). Kudos to High Energy for that! There is no maketrx program for the Unix versions. Now that TADS is running on a much wider range of machines, creating binaries specific to a particular machine seems rather foolish, so I have not kept support for doing that in the this port. The TADS run-time uses termcap routines for all output. You will therefore need to run it on a terminal with window scrolling capability (i.e., most modern terminals). If you find that the programs don't work properly with your terminal, please let me know -- termcap hacking is very error-prone, so I may have made a mistake in there somewhere. Before assuming that the problem is with the TADS run-time, however, try other programs on your system that use termcap, like vi. (Emacs has its own term handling code, so it's not a good test.) There a few things special to the Unix versions: o (Limited) Emacs-style command line editing: ^F ahead one character ^B back one character ^A beginning of line ^E end of line ^P previous command in command list ^N next command in command list ^K kill to end of line ^D delete character after cursor o ESC enters scrollback mode (instead of F1). Scrollback control keys are listed on the top line. o Press ^L at any time to redraw the entire screen (if you get a burst of line noise, for example) o Press ^Z (or whatever your SIGTSTP key is) to suspend the run-time. o tadsr recognizes SIGWINCH so that you can resize your terminal window. Text above the current line won't be reformatted when you do this, but all subsequent text will be formatted to fill the screen. NOTE: Resize doesn't work in an OpenWindows cmdtool. The output handling is still not absoultely optimal, but it's probably as good as it's going to get since the machine-independent TADS source imposes certain requirements on the behavior of the windowing functions. Finally, please report bugs directly to the person listed as the maintainer for the port in the banner, not to High Energy. That person is the only one (besides, perhaps, me) who's going to be fixing any problems specific to the Unix ports. Dave Baggett dmb@ai.mit.edu *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* General TADS notes (From the DOS version) *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* This file contains a list of changes that have been made to TADS since the initial 2.0 release. Most of the changes are fixes to bugs, so they don't change the documented behavior, but a few, as explained below, add new functionality to TADS. Releases are listed with the most recent release first; each release incorporates all new features and bug fixes of each prior release unless otherwise stated. 2.1.2 11/22/93 enhancements, bug fixes - You can now detect when the player uses multiple direct objects with a verb, and reject such commands. Whenever the player uses multiple direct objects with a command (or uses "all", even if it results in a single object being used), the parser calls the verb object's rejectMultiDobj(prep) method. If you don't wish to take any special action for multiple direct objects used with a particular verb, simply return nil from this method (or don't define the method at all for the verb). If you want to prevent multiple direct objects from being used, however, you should display an appropriate message, and return true. The parser will skip the command entirely. Note that the parser doesn't display any additional message when rejectMultiDobj(prep) returns true; the method should display whatever message is desired. The "prep" parameter is the preposition object used with the command; it will be nil if no indirect object is present. An example: modify inspectVerb rejectMultiDobj(prep) = { "You can only look at one thing at a time."; return true; } The verb's rejectMultiDobj(prep) method is called immediately before the actor's actorAction method. Note that the parser will continue processing any remaining commands on the line, and will then run daemons and fuses as normal, even if rejectMultiDobj(prep) returns true; if you want to stop the current turn altogether, use abort. - The player command parser now gives you greater control over object validation error reporting. In previous versions, if an object was visible but did not pass the validIo/validDo test, the parser called the object's cantReach method to report the error (see the note below about an additional change to object.cantReach processing). Now, however, the parser will call verb.cantReach instead, if the command's deepverb object defines (or inherits) a cantReach method. If the verb does not have a cantReach method at all, the parser will use the old behavior instead. The new cantReach method should be defined as follows: myVerb: deepverb verb = 'whatever' cantReach(actor, dolist, iolist, prep) = { // your code here } ; This method doesn't return a value; it simply displays the appropriate message explaining why the object can't be used with the command. verb.cantReach is used only when the objects are visible (that is, object.isVisible(actor) returned true for each object in the list). Only one of dolist or iolist will be non-nil. If the direct object of the command refers to one or more objects that are visible but can't be used (according to validDo), dolist will be a list of all such objects, and iolist will be nil. Otherwise, iolist will be a list of such objects used for the indirect object, and dolist will be nil. adv.t has not been changed to use verb.cantReach. This change has been made to provide finer control for game authors implementing their own verbs and object validation procedures. - The player command parser had an odd quirk when ambiguous nouns were used with transparent items. If the player used a command containing a noun that referred to multiple objects that were visible but were not valid for the verb (for example: "take trophy" in a room containing a closed glass trophy case containing a bowling trophy and a tennis trophy), the parser asked the normal disambiguation question. This was not really necessary, because the parser already knew that the objects were invalid. This has been changed; the parser now simply uses the cantReach message for *each* object that is visible and matches the vocabulary, using the usual multiple-word format: bowling trophy: You'll have to open the glass case first. tennis trophy: You'll have to open the glass case first. This new behavior should have no effect on your game code. Note that it is entirely irrelevant if you use the new verb.cantReach feature described above. - The compiler sports a new case sensitivity option. By default, the compiler is case-sensitive, as it has been in past versions. However, the new toggle option allows you to change this. Specify -case- to turn off case sensitivity (the default is -case+). Note that this is a toggle option, so simply using -case will reverse the current case sensitivity (which is useful if you use a CONFIG.TC file that sets a non-default case option). When case sensitivity is turned off, the compiler will treat upper- and lower-case letters in symbols (names of objects, properties, functions, and local variables) as equivalent. Hence, foodItem = fooditem = FoodItem, and so on. If you create a pre-compiled header with -w, any compilation which reads that binary header with -l will use the same case sensitivity as was in effect when the header was pre-compiled. The -case option is ignored when a pre-compiled header is loaded. Likewise, the debugger uses the same case sensitivity that was in effect when the game being debugged was compiled. - The debugger's command set is no longer case-sensitive (hence, BP = Bp = bP = bp). - adv.t has a new darkVerb class. This is a type of deepVerb that can be used in the dark. The darkroom class has been changed to accept any verb of class darkVerb in its roomAction and roomCheck methods. The travel verbs and system verbs have all been made darkVerb objects, so darkroom only needs to check the single verb type. In a related change, turnOnVerb and dropVerb have been changed to be darkVerb objects, allowing the player to turn on an object or drop it in the dark. The verDoTurnon method in switchItem has been changed so that it checks to see if the player is in a dark room; if so, the item can only be turned on if the player is already carrying the object. This allows the player to turn on a light source that's already being carried, but doesn't allow the player to pick up a light source in a dark room. - The compiler issues a new warning message (TADS-452) if you use the same verb with two deepverb objects. The parser can only choose a single deepverb object for any verb typed by the player, so you should never define the same 'verb' vocabulary word in more than one deepverb object. In past versions, the compiler did not flag this as a warning. - Several improvements have been made for numbers in player commands. First, multiple numbers are now allowed in a single commands; for example, the player can now say "press 1, 2, 3, 4 on keypad," and the numbers are set in numObj.value, one by one. Second, the sdesc, adesc, and thedesc properties of basicNumObj have been improved to show the number's value. - Similar improvements to those for numbers have been made for strings. Multiple strings are now allowed in a single command, and the basicStrObj properties sdesc, adesc, and thedesc have been improved to show the string's value. - specialWords has been enhanced. First, in past versions, if a game contained multiple specialWords statements, the word lists were additive -- all specialWords lists were used in the game. This has been changed so that each specialWords statement replaces any previous list in effect. However, you now can explicitly add to the specialWords list, without removing any of the previously defined words, by using "modify specialWords". When you use 'modify', you can use nil in any word slot if you do not wish to add any words for that slot. Finally, you can use "replace specialWords" to make the replacement explicit; this is the default if neither 'modify' nor 'replace' is specified, but the compiler will now issue a warning (which is harmless) if you use specialWords without 'replace' or 'modify' and a previous specialWords list is already in effect. - The words "one" and "ones" (or their equivalent for your game, if you've changed them with specialWords) are no longer considered reserved words within normal commands. This allows you to use objects such as a "one dollar bill"; previous versions rejected player commands containing "one" or "ones". These words are now considered special only during the parsing of a response to a disambiguation question, when they can be used in place of a noun ("the red one" can be used in answer to "Which book do you mean..."). - The hider class has been changed so that 'it' or 'them' (as appropriate) are set to the object or objects found when searching the hider. - The verDoPutIn and verDoPutOn messages in thing and surface (respectively) have been improved for the somewhat obscure case of attempted circular containment - that is, putting an object into a container, when the container is already in the first object (either directly or by virtue of being inside another object which is inside the first object, or inside an object which is inside an object which is inside the first object, and so on). The new method thing.circularMessage(iobj) is called in these cases to display an appropriate message; the default implementation of this method displays the complete list of containers of the direct object out to the indirect object. For example, if you have a crate which contains a box, and you try to "put crate in box", the message is "You can't put the crate in the box, because the box is already in the crate." - The default doTake method has been changed to include the weight of any contents of the item being taken, in addition to the item itself, to determine if the actor's inventory is too heavy. The old doTake method only included the weight of the object being taken, not counting its contents. - The Actor class has been changed to add a travelTo method. You can now move any actor (Me included) with travelTo(destination). The default Actor.travelTo method moves the actor; it announces the departure of the actor if the actor was in the same location as Me before leaving (and the location is lit); and it announces the arrival of the actor if the actor is moving into the same location as the player (and the location is lit). The departure message is generated with a call to self.sayLeaving, and the arrival message is generated with self.sayArriving. The default versions of these methods simply display "Thedesc leaves the area" and "Thedesc enters the area", respectively; you can override these methods if a more specific message is desired. - When modifying a class object with 'modify', the modified object was not a class unless the 'class' keyword was included with the 'modify' statement ("modify class foo" rather than "modify foo"). This has been corrected; a modified class is still a class. - outhide(true) now returns a status indicator, which is a value that can be used in a subsequent call to outhide() to return output hiding to the state it was in before the outhide(true). This allows you to nest text hiding. When you use the nested form (which you do simply by using the return value of outhide(true) as the parameter - in place of nil - to the subsequent call to outhide()), the value returned by the second outhide() indicates whether any text output occurred ONLY BETWEEN THE NESTED CALLS. For example: old_stat1 := outhide(true); "This is some hidden text."; old_stat2 := outhide(true); // write no text here new_stat2 := outhide(old_stat2); new_stat1 := outhide(old_stat1); Because outhide(old_stat2) indicates whether any output occurred during the NESTED outhide(true), new_stat2 = nil. However, new_stat1 = true, since output occurred after the first outhide(true). Consider another sequence: old_stat1 := outhide(true); // write no text here old_stat2 := outhide(true); "This is some hidden text."; new_stat2 := outhide(old_stat2); new_stat1 := outhide(old_stat1); In this case, both new_stat1 and new_stat2 will be true, because hidden output occurred within both nested sections. The general form of a nested hidden output section looks like this: { local original_hide_stat; local nested_stat; hide_stat := outhide(true); // do whatever you want to do while output is hidden nested_stat := outhide(original_hide_stat); } Now nested_stat will indicate whether any output occurred during the nested outhide() - that is, between the outhide(true) and the outhide(original_hide_stat). In addition, output hiding will be returned to the same state it was in prior to the original outhide(true). - The random number generator has been improved. Many people have complained about the many undesirable properties of the old generator, especially when small upper limits were used. The interface to the new random number generator is the same as before - call rand(upper_limit), which will return a uniformly distributed random number from 1 to upper_limit, inclusive. Note that the old random number generator will still be used if you don't call randomize(). This allows test scripts (which require a fixed sequence of random numbers in order to be repeatable) that were written with older versions to continue to operate unchanged. If you want numbers from the improved generator, be sure to call randomize(). - When 'modify' was used on an object, the compiler sometimes did not correctly apply the original object's vocabulary and location to the new object. This has been corrected. - restore() and undo() have been changed so that they always cancel all pending commands on the command line. In the past, if the player typed several commands, and something happened (such as the player character dying) during one of the commands that led to an undo() or restore(), the remaining commands were still executed. This has been fixed. - If you explicitly set an object's location to nil in its object definition, and the object inherited a location from a superclass, the system incorrectly placed the object in the contents list of the object named in the location inherited from the object's superclass. This has been corrected. - "abort" can now be used within a daemon or fuse, and the expected behavior will occur. In the past, "abort" within a fuse (or daemon) merely exited from the current fuse, but the remaining fuses and daemons were still executed. Now, "abort" will cause the entire turn to end; no more fuses or daemons will be executed on the current turn. 2.1.1 09/09/93 enhancements - You can now access objwords(1) while deciding whether to use a default direct object in doDefault. This is useful mostly if you want to prevent players from being able to use "all" with certain verbs, but still want to generate a default direct object for the verbs. To do this, you can detect when objwords(1) = ['A'] ('A' is the parser's internal code for "all", which saves you the trouble of checking for "everything" and shorter abbreviations as well as "all"): doDefault(actor, prep, iobj) = { if (objwords(1) = ['A']) { global.allMessage := 'You can\'t use "all" with this verb.'; return []; /* your normal default object code goes here */ } If you wish, you can also suppress the default message that the parser will generate ("I don't see what you're referring to"). To do this, you'll have to write your own parseError() function and detect when an "all" violation has occurred (cleverly using the global.allMessage, which we set above for this purpose): parseError: function(str, num) { // if there's an allMessage waiting, use it instead of the default if (global.allMessage <> nil) { local r; r := global.allMessage; global.allMessage := nil; return r; } else return nil; } - The compiler's error message format has been changed slightly to work better with editors and workbench programs that scan error logs to go to lines with errors. The format is now: file(line): error TADS-xxxx: message For example: deep.t(1151): error TADS-300: expected colon - The parser now accepts sentences of the form VERB PREP IOBJ DOBJ, where the PREP is *not* part of the verb. For example, GIVE TO THE MAN THE BALL. This change has two benefits. First, while this type of sentence is not common in English, some other languages allow this type of phrasing, so the parser is now somewhat more adaptable to non-English languages. Second, this allows for object defaulting and command completion when specifying just the indirect object, which was not possible before. For example, if the player types ASK FOR A BEER, the parser will be able to attempt to provide a default (if one is available), or at least ask for the direct object. Previous versions would simply say "I don't understand that sentence." Note that the parser still attempts to combine the verb and preposition into a single phrase; the new action happens only when the verb and preposition don't go together (that is, they haven't been defined together as a "verb =" property of a deepverb). For example, suppose that a line like this appears in a deepverb: verb = 'pick up' In this case, PICK UP THE BOX will use THE BOX as the direct object, just as in previous versions. Only when the verb-preposition combination is not specifically defined in a verb will the new phrasing be used. - When no preposition is specified between the direct and indirect objects, the parser will now evaluate a new property, nilPrep, in the deepverb object. This property should return the preposition object that should be used as the preposition between the objects. Previous versions of TADS always looked for an object that defined the word 'to' as a "preposition =" property. While 'to' is almost always the correctly the correct preposition to substitute in English, it's obviously the wrong word in other languages; furthermore, the correct word in other languages is sometimes a function of verb. If no nilPrep property is defined for the deepverb, the parser will still use the object whose "preposition =" property matches the word 'to'. - The class transparentItem in adv.t has been modified so it works better when you define an object that inherits from both transparentItem and container or openable. First, an ldesc has been added so that the contents of a transparentItem are listed by default with the ldesc. Second, the "look in" command now works on a transparentItem. In addition, the openable class has been changed so that the "look in" command can be used when an openable is also a transparentItem, even when the openable is closed (because you should be able to see the contents of a transparentItem regardless of whether it's open or closed). Thanks to Ron Hale-Evans for pointing out this problem and finding the solution. 2.1.0 04/07/93 new features, enhancements, bug fixes - TADS finally has a way of changing objects and functions in adv.t without changing adv.t itself. The new mechanism allows you to entirely replace a previously defined object or function with one of your own, and also lets you modify a previously defined object by adding or overriding properties. Two new keywords have been added to the language to support these new features: "replace" and "modify". Using these new features, it should be possible to make most of the changes to adv.t that are necessary while writing a game without actually changing the file adv.t itself. This should make version upgrades much easier to apply, since you shouldn't need to reconcile any changes you have made to adv.t with the new version. High Energy Software requests that you advise us of any changes to adv.t that would facilitate modification and replacement of the objects defined in adv.t. Examples would include common code fragments that could be moved into a function for easy replacement, and single deepverb objects that should be split into multiple objects. You can replace a previously-defined function with a new definition simply by prefacing your new definition with the keyword "replace"; for example, to replace adv.t's new scoreStatus function, you could do this: #include <adv.t> replace scoreStatus(points, turns) { setscore(cvtstr(pts) + ' points/' + cvtstr(turns) + ' moves'); } You can do the same thing with objects. For example, to replace a verb in adv.t, you could do something like this: #include <adv.t> /* we don't want "buckle", so replace adv.t's fastenVerb */ replace fastenVerb: deepverb verb = 'fasten' sdesc = "fasten" prepDefault = toPrep ioAction(toPrep) = 'FastenTo' ; Replacing an object entirely deletes the previous definition of the object, including all inheritance information and vocabulary. The only properties of a replaced object are those defined in the replacement; the original definition is entirely discarded. You can also modify an object, which retains its original definition (including inheritance information, vocabulary, and properties), and allows you to add new properties and vocabulary. You can also override properties, simply by redefining them in the new definition. The most common addition to an object from adv.t will probably be new verb associations; for example: modify pushVerb verb = 'nudge' ioAction(withPrep) = 'PushWith' ; Note several things about this example. First, no superclass information can be specified in a "modify" statement; this is because the superclass list for the modified object is the same as for the original object. Second, note that vocabulary has been added. The additional vocabulary does NOT replace the original vocabulary, but simply adds to the previously-defined vocabulary. Further note that verb association pseudo-properties, such as doAction and ioAction, are legal in a "modify" definition. In a method that you redefine with "modify", you can use "pass" or "inherited" to refer to the REPLACED method. In essence, using "modify" renames the original object, and then creates a new object under the original name; the new object is created as a subclass of the original (now unnamed) object. There is no way to refer to the original object, except indirectly through the new replacement object. Here's an example of "modify" and "pass": class testClass: object sdesc = "testClass" ; testObj: testClass sdesc = { "testObj..."; pass sdesc; } ; modify testObj sdesc = { "modified testObj..."; pass sdesc; } ; Evaluating testObj.sdesc results in this display: modified testObj...testObj...testClass However, you can override this behavior for a property by using the replace keyword on the property. In the example above, we could do this instead: modify testObj replace sdesc = { "modified testObj..."; pass sdesc; } ; This would result in the following display for testObj.sdesc: modified testObj...testClass The "replace" keyword before the property definition tells the compiler to completely delete the previous definitions of the property. This allows you to completely replace the property, and not merely override it, meaning that "pass" and "inherited" will refer to the property actually inherited from the superclass, and not the original definition of the property. - It is now possible for the player to customize the colors used by the runtime. A small new program, TRCOLOR, is provided to set up the runtime screen colors. The program is self-explanatory; simply type TRCOLOR at the DOS prompt to invoke it. Once you've selected your color scheme, TRCOLOR will create a small file called TRCOLOR.DAT (in the current directory); the runtime will read this file in subsequent game sessions. Note that you can use multiple TRCOLOR.DAT files, in much the same way you can use two CONFIG.TC files. The runtime looks first for TRCOLOR.DAT in the current directory; if no such file is found, the runtime will then look in the directory where TR.EXE resides. So, you can set up separate color schemes for each game you're playing, and have a default color scheme for games with no specific color scheme of their own. - The user interface of the MAKETRX program has been improved. For compatibility with existing makefiles, the old command line syntax is still allowed; however, you can now omit most of the arguments, and MAKETRX will use convenient new defaults. First, you can now omit the extensions on all the arguments. The extension assumed for the TR.EXE program is .EXE; for the game file it is .GAM; and for the executable output file it is .EXE. Second, you can now omit everything except the name of the game file. If you omit the name of the TR.EXE program, MAKETRX attempts to find TR.EXE in the same directory as MAKETRX.EXE; so, if you simply keep all of your TADS executables in a single directory, you won't need to specify the location of TR.EXE when running MAKETRX. If you omit the name of the destination file, MAKETRX will use the same name as the game file, with the extension replaced by .EXE. The command line arguments to MAKETRX that are now understood are: maketrx gamefile Converts gamefile.gam into gamefile.exe, using TR.EXE from the same directory as MAKETRX.EXE. maketrx gamefile output Converts gamefile.gam into output.exe, using TR.EXE from the same directory as MAKETRX.EXE. maketrx \tads2\tr.exe gamefile output Converts gamefile.gam into output.exe, using \tads2\tr.exe. - The dobjGen and iobjGen mechanism has been changed slightly. In the original implementation, you could prevent the system from calling dobjGen/iobjGen by defining an appropriate verXoVerb property in the actual object, but NOT in a superclass. This made it impossible to define a class that had exceptions to dobjGen/iobjGen except by explicitly testing for those verbs in the xobjGen routines. The change is that the system will now skip calling xobjGen if an appropriate verXoVerb/xoVerb property is defined in such a way that it "overrides" xobjGen for the object. Here's an example: class cursedItem: item dobjGen(a, v, i, p) = { "As you touch <<self.thedesc>>, a bolt of lightning leaps from the object and sends you reeling away!"; } iobjGen(a, v, d, p) = { self.dobjGen(a, v, d, p); } verDoInspect(actor) = { pass verDoInspect; } // allow 'inspect' ; The change means that the presence of verDoInspect in the *class* prevents the system from calling dobjGen when the verb is "inspect", even for subclasses. With the old system, since the subclass objects themselves didn't define verDoInspect, dobjGen would be called even though the verDoInspect logically overrides the dobjGen. - The restore() intrinsic has been extended to allow your game program to explicitly restore the saved game specified by the user as a parameter to your stand-alone game program. This is currently only useful on the Macintosh, but the inclusion of code to test for this case will make your game work better on the Macintosh (and possibly other platforms in the future). The new functionality is invoked by calling restore(nil). If a saved game was specified by the user at start-up time, the game will be restored, and nil will be returned. If no file was specified, or an error occurred restoring the game, the function returns true. To use this new behavior, we recommend placing the following code in your init function, before your introductory messages and other startup code: // check for a file to restore specified as a startup parameter if (restore(nil) = nil) { "\b[Restoring saved game]\b"; scoreStatus(global.score, global.turnsofar); Me.location.lookAround(true); return; } Note that the run-time will still automatically restore the game provided as a parameter (on the Macintosh) after init returns if you do NOT include this code in init. The reason for including this code is that it provides your game with greater control over the sequence of events during startup. If you allow the run-time to perform the restore automatically, your entire init function will be executed; this may be undesirable, because it forces the user to view the entire introductory text even though they'll immediately restore a game after reading it. If you place the restore(nil) call before your introductory text, the user will be spared the long text display; however, you'll still have complete control over any text that you want the user to see even when restoring a game, such as your copyright message. - New built-in function: objwords(num), which provides a list of the actual words the user typed to refer to an object used in the current command. The argument (num) is a number specifying which object you're interested in: 1 for the direct object, or 2 for the indirect object. The return value is a list of strings; the strings are the words used in the command. If a special word, such as "it", "them", or "all", was used to specify the object, the list will have a single element, which is the special word used. Examples: >take all objwords(1) -> ['all'] objwords(2) -> [] >put all in red box objwords(1) -> ['all'] objwords(2) -> ['red' 'box'] >put blue box in it objwords(1) -> ['blue' 'box'] objwords(2) -> ['it'] >put blue folder and green book in red box blue folder: objwords(1) -> ['blue' 'folder'] objwords(2) -> ['red' 'box'] green book: objwords(1) -> ['green' 'book'] objwords(2) -> ['red' 'box'] This function could potentially be useful in such cases as "ask actor about object", because it allows you to determine much more precisely what the player is asking about than would otherwise be possible. - The setit() function now takes nil as a parameter; this prevents using "it" in a command until another object has been referenced. nil can be used for "him" and "her" as well, as described below. - Enhancements to the setit() built-in function: you can now directly set the 'him', 'her', and 'them' values using the setit() function. - To set 'them', simply call setit() with a list value: setit([redBook blueBook boots]); - To set 'him', add a second argument value of 1 to the call: setit(joe, 1); - To set 'her', add a second argument value of 2: setit(harriet, 2); - The restart() built-in function now takes an optional set of arguments: a pointer to a function, and a parameter value for the function (if one is provided, the other is also required, but both can be omitted). If they're provided, TADS calls the function with the provided parameter value *after* resetting the game, and before running the init() function. This allows you make the game start slightly differently after a restart than on the initial startup. adv.t uses this feature to call the function initRestart, with the parameter value global.initRestartParam, upon restart. The initRestart function defined in adv.t simply sets the flag global.restarting to true. Your game can test global.restarting (in the init function or elsewhere) to determine whether the game has been restarted, or is being run for the first time. You can also replace initRestart() with your own function if you wish to do something more complicated; in this case, if you wish to pass information to the function, you can simply store it in global.initRestartParam, and it will be passed to the function automatically by adv.t upon restarting. - New built-in function: inputkey() reads a single keystroke from the keyboard. The function takes no arguments. When called, inputkey() will flush any pending output text, then pause the game until the player hits a key. It then returns a string containing the single key hit by the player. Note that the function does NOT provide a portable mechanism for reading non-standardized keys; special keys such as cursor arrow keys and function keys will return a string specific to the type of computer being used. Your game will not be portable if you make use of any non-standardized key values returned by inputkey(). To ensure portability, use inputkey() strictly with standard ASCII keys (alphabetic, numeric, and punctuation keys). It is also fully portable if you simply ignore the return value and use the function only to pause and wait for a key. - Several changes have been made for better national language support. First, the DOS version now allows 8-bit characters (characters in the extended character set, with ASCII code from 128 to 255) in text displayed by the game, vocabulary words, and player commands. Characters in the extended character set are always considered to be alphabetic, so these characters can only be used in input as parts of words (hence, symbols from the extended character set that appear as punctuation marks can't be used as punctuation in player commands). - The debugger now has "More" mode in the command window. When a single display won't fit in the window (for example, a long stack traceback), the debugger will prompt with "[More]" each time the window fills up. Hit the space bar to scroll by a whole screen, or the Return/Enter key to scroll by a single line. - The debugger has a new "call history" feature. This feature captures information about every function and method call, including argument lists and return values (if any), and saves the information for future inspection. Several new commands have been added to the debugger to support call history: c+ Enables call history, and clears previous history. c- Disables call history capture. cc Clears all current history information. c Displays current history information. The reason that call history can be enabled and disabled is that enabling the feature slows down the debugger substantially, because it must store information every time a method is called. This feature could be useful if you're trying to figure out the sequence of method calls that occurs during the execution of a command. At the debugger command line, type c+ to turn on call history; then, type g to resume your game. Type the command that you want to debug, then type DEBUG at the game prompt to return to the debugger. Now type c- to turn off call history, and c to display the history information from the command you just executed. This will allow you to see every method and function that was called by TADS, as well as all the methods and functions called by your code. The call history display will have each function/method call indented by a number of spaces indicating the nesting depth; any method/function called by TADS will be at the left margin, any methods/functions called by the first one will be indented one space, any methods/functions called by those will be indented two spaces, and so on. The return values will be indented by the same number of spaces as the function itself was. Note that a return value may be separated from its entrypoint by several lines, because calls made by the function will appear between the function entry and the return value. - Another new national language feature is the addition of several new parser-called user functions that allow better user control over the generation of parser messages. The new functions have been added because some people have found that the parseError() function is not sufficiently flexible for some situations, because it only allows changing the text of messages on a piecewise basis; when complete messages need to be built out of several pieces, it's necessary to be able to take over the entire process of building the message. The new functions allow full control of the generation of certain messages. parseAskobj(v, ...): This function is called when the parser needs to ask the player for a direct or indirect object to complete the command. For example, if the player just types "take", and several objects are present that could be taken, the parser must ask the player what to take. If a direct object is being requested, the function will have only one argument (the verb). If an indirect object is being requested, the function will have *two* arguments; the second argument will be the preposition. Note that the preposition can be nil, in which case you can assume that "to" is to be used. The implementation below emulates the default behavior. parseAskobj: function(v, ...) { "What do you want to <<v.sdesc>>"; if (argcount = 2) { local p := getarg(2); " it << p ? p.sdesc : "to" >>"; } "?"; } parseDisambig(string, list): This function is called by the parser when objects need to be disambiguated. If this optional function is provided, it is called with the string that the player typed which is in need of disambiguation, and a list of the objects that match the string. The implementation below emulates the parser's default behavior. parseDisambig: function(str, lst) { local i, tot, cnt; "Which << str >> do you mean, "; for (i := 1, cnt := length(lst) ; i <= cnt ; ++i) { lst[i].thedesc; if (i < cnt) ", "; if (i+1 = cnt) "or "; } "?"; } parseError2(v, d, p, i): The parser calls this function to generate the default error message stating that the verb attempted isn't accepted by the objects involved; this happens when either the indirect object doesn't define an appropriate verIoXxxx method, or the direct object doesn't define an appropriate verDoXxxx method. Only one of 'd' (direct object) or 'i' (indirect object) will be non-nil. If 'i' is nil, so will 'p' (preposition). The verb, 'v', will never be nil. Note that 'p' can be nil even when 'i' is not, in which case you should assume that the preposition is "to". The implementation below behaves the same as the parser's default. parseError2: function(v, d, p, i) { "I don't know how to << v.sdesc >> "; if (d) "<< d.thedesc >>."; else "anything << p ? p.sdesc : "to" >> << i.thedesc >>."; } parseDefault(obj, prp): This function is called when the parser is assuming a default object. If a default direct object is being assumed, prp (the preposition) will be nil; otherwise, prp will have the object corresponding to the preposition preceding the indirect object. The implementation below provides the default behavior. parseDefault: function(obj, prp) { "("; if (prp) "<< prp.sdesc>> "; obj.thedesc; ")"; } Note that all three of these new functions are optional. If any is omitted, the parser uses the default behavior, so existing games will run unchanged. You can include any one without including the others; these new functions are all independent. Note also that the default parser behavior continues to use parseError the same way it has since parseError was introduced; however, when these new functions are provided, the corresponding parseError calls will obviously no longer be made. - COMPATIBILITY NOTE: By default, the .GAM files produced by the 2.1.0 compiler will NOT be compatible with previous versions of the runtime, due to several changes to the .GAM file format. However, a new compiler option has been added that allows you to specify which .GAM file format to produce: -fv a produces .GAM format compatible with 2.0.14 or earlier -fv b produces game file format requiring 2.1.0 or later -fv * (default) produces latest file format (currently b) If you want your game to be compatible with older versions of the runtime, use -fv a. The 2.1.0 runtime is compatible with .GAM files produced by ANY version of the compiler; the runtime automatically detects which file format version it is reading. Note that using -fv a will prevent you from being able to call an external function from within the init function (see the bug fix described below). In addition, even when using -fv a, since previous versions of the run-time did not provide the new built-in functions, your game will be incompatible with runtimes prior to 2.1.0 -- regardless of whether you use -fv a or not -- if you use any new built-in functions. In the future, if there is another incompatible .GAM file format change, additional -fv options will be added to the new compiler. - One of the changes to the .GAM file format makes it much more compressible with archiving tools (such as ZIP). Previous .GAM files typically compressed by only 10 to 20%; the files produced with file format B are generally compressible by 40 to 50%. - runfuses and rundaemons had a bug that reset the run-time stack, causing problems if a nested method or function called these functions. This has been corrected. - Subtracting one list from another didn't work as documented. This has been corrected. - In previous versions, external functions could not be called while the init function was running. This was an unintentional side-effect of the way external functions were loaded, and the problem has been corrected. External functions can now be called at any time. - A new warning has been added that can help you track down unterminated strings. Whenever the compiler sees a line that begins with a semicolon or close brace (';' or '}') inside a string, it will issue a warning. While this is just a guess that the string may be unterminated, it's often right, especially if you follow the general formatting style used by adv.t: always end a function with a brace in the first column of a new line, and always end an object with a semicolon in the first column of a new line. Note that we strongly recommend that you follow this formatting style in your code, both for general readability and because it may enhance your code's compatibility with future High Energy Software products that use assumptions about formatting style that are similar to that used to generate the new unterminated string warning. - Several small enhancements and bug fixes have been made to adv.t: - A new property has been added to nestedroom objects: statusPrep, which displays "on" or "in" (or whatever), as appropriate, for messages such as "Spaceship, in chair". This defaults to "in" for nestedroom, and "on" for beditem. Other nestedroom objects you define may want to customize it. - There was a bug that allowed the player to throw a fixeditem that was (indirectly) being carried (for example, a fixeditem that is part of another object that can be carried) at something. This has been fixed. - The follower class did not 'exit' at the end of its actorAction. This has been fixed. - The follower class now makes use of iobjGen and dobjGen to respond with an appropriate message ("the actor is no longer here") to any command other than "follow". - The clothingItem class has been enhanced to allow "get out of" to be used to take off the item. - All of the verbs containing the word "look" now have synonyms with "l" as well: l at, l on, l in, l under, l around, l thru, and so on. - A bug has been fixed that allowed the command "take all from foo" to remove the contents of "foo" even if it was closed. The change is to the doDefault method in takeVerb. - The vehicle class has been adjusted so that the player can't take a vehicle or otherwise manipulate it while the player is currently in the vehicle -- this is important for things such as rubber rafts which can be used both as vehicles and ordinary carryable items. dobjGen and iobjGen are used to accomplish this; the only allowed verbs on a vehicle while it's occupied by the player are inspectVerb, getOutVerb, outVerb, and putVerb with the vehicle as an indirect object (allowing objects to be put into the vehicle while it's occupied). If you want to allow additional verbs in a particular vehicle, override dobjGen or iobjGen as appropriate, and simply return if the verb matches any of the verbs you wish to add: dobjGen(a, v, i, p) = { // allow "launch" and "land" while in the magic raft if (v <> launchVerb and v <> landVerb) pass dobjGen; } - The compiler now detects usage (both explicit and implicit) of "self" in functions. This has always been illegal, but in previous versions the compiler did not notice; any uses of "self" in functions resulted in a run-time error (often a mysterious error, such as a cache manager severe error and abnormal termination due to a reference to a non-existent object). This was especially troublesome when a property name was used as a local variable when the local variable wasn't declared; since the v2 compiler assumes "self" in references to properties that don't include an object qualification, the compiler would silently turn an undefined variable usage into a reference to "self". The compiler will now flag a new error in these cases: TADS-344, "self" is not valid in this context. If you get this error without an explicit reference to "self", you probably have an implicit reference, which means you probably are using an undeclared local variable. Adding a "local" declaration for the variable should clear the error. - "Her" was not set properly, even when the isHer property was set to true for an object. This has been corrected. - A new compiler option has been added: -v, for "verbosity". This option lets you tell the compiler how much warning information you'd like to see. By default, the verbosity level is 0 (zero), which causes certain warnings to be suppressed. You can specify -v followed by a number to set a higher verbosity level. So far, only the messages listed below are affected by -v, but the verbosity level for certain warnings may be changed in the future (and new warnings may be added at high verbosity levels). Currently, the general meaning of the verbosity levels is: 0, report only serious errors and warnings; 1, report suspicious situations that may or may not indicate errors; 2, report all information, including general warning information that usually does not indicate any actual problem. - A new compiler option has been added: -e file, for "error logging". This option captures all messages generated by the the compiler to the specified file. Messages are also displayed interactively as normal. WARNING: if the file specified with -e already exists, it is overwritten with the error information. - The compiler warning messages about "object not found" for the optional objects (preinit, preparse, parseError, commandPrompt) are now suppressed if the verbosity level is less than 2. If you specify -v2 (or -v with a higher number than 2), these messages will be displayed for all optional objects not found; otherwise, no warnings will be generated. - The compiler warning messages about "#include file already included" are now suppressed if the verbosity level is less than 1. 2.0.14 02/10/93 bug fixes, minor enhancements - A new backslash code has been added to the output formatter that causes the formatter to pass the next two bytes unchanged. This has been added primarily for 16-bit character sets, to allow two-byte characters that contain a backslash ('\', ASCII 92) as one of their two bytes to be passed through the formatter without interpretation as part of a backslash sequence. The new code is "\-"; the two bytes following the \- are not interpreted by the formatter. For example: "\-\bTesting...\nDone!"; displays: \bTesting... Done! Note that the "\b" sequence is not interpreted as a blank line, as it would normally be, but is simply displayed, because the \- suppresses any interpration of the next two bytes. The "\n", however, is interpreted as a newline as normal, since it is not quoted by a \- sequence. - You can now break out of an infinite loop in your game while running under the debugger. On DOS, if your game goes into a loop, hit the Control + Break keys - the loop should immediately be aborted and control returned to the debugger command line. The Control-Break sequence also works with the runtime; it causes control to be returned to the player command line. Note that the interrupted command is automatically undone, so the interrupt sequence will not leave the game in an inconsistent state. Note also that only long loops can be interrupted; the system only checks for interruptions once every several hundred instructions for greater efficiency. - The debugger will now catch run-time errors, activating the debugger command line when an error occurs. The source will be positioned at the location of the error, as though a breakpoint had been set there, and the error message will be displayed. Local variables can be evaluated as normal to help determine the cause of the error. When you resume execution (with Trace, Step, or Go), the current command will be aborted and control will return to the player command prompt. Note that there's no way to "fix" the error once it's been caught, but you can at least see exactly where the error occurred and determine the conditions that caused it. Note also that certain types of errors, such as memory management errors, will not invoke the debugger; only errors that are directly caused by an error in your game program will trap to the debugger. - The debugger incorrectly reported files as "not found" in the list of modules produced by the "fl" command. - The runtime was inconsistent in its calls to ioDefault. Sometimes it called ioDefault(actor, prep), and other times it called it as ioDefault(actor, prep, dobj) - this made it impossible to define the method correctly if argument checking was enabled. This has been corrected so that the dobj parameter is never included. When attempting to identify a default indirect object, the parser never has a direct object available, since the indirect object must be resolved first; hence, the dobj that was occasionally being passed by the parser was always nil. The unnecessary extra parameter has been removed: the method is now always called as ioDefault(actor, prep). - The compiler generated incorrect code if the implicit "self" object was used to reference an object (that is, a property was used without an object specifier). This resulted in "invalid opcode" errors at run-time. - The compiler sometimes complained that an included file couldn't be found, even when the included file was explicitly loaded as part of a precompiled header. This happened any time the included file was not in the current directory at compilation time. - The compiler aborted with an "assertion failure" (which indicates that the compiler detected that it was in an internally inconsistent state, which should not be attainable under any circumstances) when the game program used a variable or expression on the right hand side of a dot operator and an object on the left hand side. 2.0.13 01/16/93 enhancements and bug fixes - If a vocabulary word contained a single quote character, the word could not be matched at run-time. - The run-time now allows all characters from the extended character set (ASCII codes above 127) to be displayed. The run-time previously converted some extended characters into spaces. - The compiler did not allow a label to precede the first goto that referred to the label. - The debugger will now stop at a breakpoint in a method that is inherited by an object. For example, if a breakpoint is set at room.lookAround, and startroom inherits lookAround from the class room, the debugger will stop at startroom.lookAround. It does not, however, stop on startroom.lookAround if startroom overrides lookAround. - The compiler will now flag an assignment to an undeclared symbol as an error. It previously assumed that the symbol referred to a property, with an implicit object of "self". This was almost never desirable, because this type of assignment was most often coded in error -- the game author usually meant to code an assignment to a local variable, but either misspelled the variable name or forgot to declare it. - remfuse/remdaemon/unnotify no longer signal an error if the item being removed is not active. Several game authors have indicated that this error is not helpful, since it makes it impossible to unconditionally remove a fuse -- you have to check to make sure it hasn't fired yet, which create a lot of unnecessary overhead. - NEW BUILT-IN FUNCTION: intersect(list1, list2) returns the intersection of two lists; that is, it returns the list of all of the elements of the shorter of list1 and list2 that are also in the other list. For example: [1 2 3 4 5] and [1 3 5 7] -> [1 3 5] ['abc' 'def'] and ['abc'] -> ['abc'] This new function can be used to improve performance in cases where (effectively) one list of items is being searched for the presence of another list of items. - NEW BUILT-IN FUNCTION: runfuses() runs all expired fuses, if any. Returns true if any fuses expired, nil otherwise. This function has been added to allow greater control over fuse processing. Note that fuses set with both the setfuse() and notify() built-in functions are run. This function takes no arguments. - NEW BUILT-IN FUNCTION: rundaemons() runs all daemons. This function runs daemons set with both the setdaemon() and notify() functions. rundaemons() takes no arguments and returns no value. - NEW BUILT-IN FUNCTION: getfuse allows you to determine if a fuse (set with either setfuse or notify) is active. It returns nil if the fuse is not active (i.e., it has been activated or removed), or the number of turns left. For setfuse() fuses: getfuse(fuse_func, parameter) For notify() fuses: getfuse(object, &message) - NEW BUILT-IN FUNCTION: gettime() returns the current time. The time is returned as a list of numeric values for easy processing by your game: [year month day weekday yearday hour minute second elapsed] The specific meanings of the values are: year - calendar year (e.g., 1992). month - month number (January = 1, February = 2, etc.) day - number of the day within the current month weekday - day of the week (1 = Sunday, 2 = Monday, etc.) yearday - day of the year (1 = Jan 1) hour - hour of the day on 24-hour clock (midnight = 0, noon = 12, 3 PM = 15, etc.) minute - minute within the hour (0 to 59) second - second within the minute (0 to 59) elapsed - the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT. This last value is useful for computing the difference between two points in time. - NEW FEATURE: The parser now calls an additional method in each direct and indirect object under certain circumstances. These new methods are called dobjGen (general use of an object as a direct object) and iobjGen. These methods are called immediately prior to the appropriate verXo<Verb> method. The sequence of calls depends on the command, as detailed below. The purpose of these methods is to allow you to define a catch-all routine that is called whenever an object is used in a command. It is sometimes desirable to be able to take some action whenever an object is mentioned, regardless of the verb involved. For example, you might wish to define a cursed object that damages the player (such as by taking away a treasure) whenever the object is touched or manipulated in any way; these new methods make it possible to do this without having to override every possible verb handler. When a command is issued with an indirect object, the parser checks to see if the indirect object *directly* defines the io<Verb> method. If not, the parser calls iobj.iobjGen(actor, verb, dobj, prep). The parser then checks to see if the direct object *directly* defines the verDo<Verb> method. If not, the parser calls dobj.dobjGen(actor, verb, iobj, prep). When a command is issued with only a direct object, the parser checks to see if the object *directly* defines the do<Verb> method. If not, the parser calls dobj.dobjGen(actor, verb, nil, nil). Note that an object "directly defines" a method if the method is defined in the object itself -- that is, the object does not merely inherit the method from its class. These new methods have no return value, and need not do anything. If they're undefined, the behavior is exactly the same as in previous versions. So, existing games should continue to run unchanged. The reason that these methods are not called when the object directly defines an appropriate verb handler is that these methods are intended as a generic catch-all verb handler. When a specific handler for the current verb is already defined in the object, there should be no need to call the generic handler, since the object already defines specific behavior for that verb. 2.0.12 No such release (for internal release coordination) bug fixes - Switch statements did not properly process all datatypes. - Assignment operations did not work correctly on list elements. For example: l := [1 2 3]; l[2] += 5; did not properly leave the value of l as [1 7 3]. 2.0.11 12/20/92 bug fixes - Goto statement labels were occasionally not released properly, resulting in spurious internal errors. - The 'continue' statement did not work as documented in 'for' statements. Instead of jumping to the re-initializer expression, as it now does, the 'continue' incorrectly jumped to the condition. - The run-time is slightly smaller and faster. - The compiler did not process locals correctly when multiple disjoint blocks within a function or method had locals, and a later block had fewer locals than a previous block (yes, it's a somewhat obscure bug). 2.0.10 No such release (to synchronize with Mac release levels) 2.0.9 12/12/92 MS-DOS bug fixes and new features - The file selector dialog displayed incorrect information when a directory name that used all 11 characters was displayed. - The file selector now saves and restores all default directory and disk information. The current disk, and the current directory on each disk, will be the same when TR is terminated as it was when TR was first run. (This applies to TDB as well. It's particularly important for TDB, because TDB needs to have the source files in the current working directory if an absolute path was not specified with -I.) - NEW FEATURE: the new user function commandPrompt, if provided by the user's game program, will be called prior to each player command. If the commandPrompt function is provided, the default ">" prompt is NOT displayed; if no commandPrompt function is defined, the default ">" is used. This should not affect existing games at all, unless a game defines its own function, method, or property called commandPrompt having a different purpose. The commandPrompt function returns no value. The function takes a single argument: a number, indicating the type of command that the system is prompting for: 0 - normal command 1 - command after invalid word (allowing "oops" to be used) 2 - disambiguation (after "which x do you mean..." question) 3 - command after askdo (after "what do you want to x?") 4 - command after askio Note that the default prompt in all cases is simply ">", and in all cases a new command can be entered. However, when the type code is 2, 3, or 4, a question has just been displayed by the run-time, so the commandPrompt function may want to suppress any pre-command information or prompt text. Case 1 is generally identical to case 0. NOTE: As with the other optional user-provided functions, the compiler will issue a warning message if commandPrompt is not defined by your game. If your game doesn't provide a commandPrompt function, you can ignore this warning. The warning is provided so that, if you intended to provide a commandPrompt function, you will be informed if the compiler didn't find it (which could mean that you forgot to define it, or misspelled it). - NEW FEATURE: A new built-in function has been added, which allows the game program to suppress the display of text that would normally be displayed with double-quoted strings or the say() function. The function is called outhide(), and it takes one argument: a flag, indicating whether to suppress or re-enable the display of output. If the flag is true, output is suppressed; if the flag is nil, output is re-enabled. Any output that occurs between outhide(true) and outhide(nil) is discarded. However, outhide(nil) returns a value indicating whether any output did in fact occur since the call to outhide(true); this allows you to determine if any output would have occurred, even though the output is not seen by the player. Note that this is effectively the same mechanism used by the player command parser for noun disambiguation using the verDoXxx and verIoXxx methods, as described in the TADS author's manual. There is no way to recover the text that was suppressed by outhide(); the text is simply discarded, so the only information available is whether any text was generated. 2.0.8 12/03/92 (tc/tdb 2.0.7, tr 2.0.8) MS-DOS bug fixes and minor changes - The display initialization code was incorrectly attempting to clear a zero-line region of the display. This resulted in extremely long delays on some computers (due to an incorrect BIOS call made by TADS). - NEW FEATURE: When the keyword $$ABEND is typed as the entire command, the run-time immediately terminates and returns to DOS. This emergency escape is provided so that TR can be terminated if the game somehow gets into a state where a more graceful exit is not possible. - The compiler did properly detect when an undefined object was used as the superclass of another object. This generally resulted in unpredictable behavior during execution of preinit. - NEW FEATURE: The parser now calls two new optional methods in the game program. These new methods are intended to help speed up the identification of words when many objects have the same vocabulary. If the new methods are not present, behavior is the same as before, so existing games will run unchanged. The new methods are validDoList and validIoList; they are associated with the "deepverb" object for the current command. They are called with three parameters: the actor, the prep, and the other object (indirect object for validDoList and direct object for validIoList; the value of the parameter will be nil if not applicable). These methods are called prior to the disambiguation pass (using verDoXxx/verIoXxx), and prior to testing any objects with validDo/validIo. The return value of validDoList/validIoList is a list of all of the valid objects for the verb. It is fine for these methods to return *too many* objects, since each object is still tested with validDo (or validIo) and the appropriate verDoXxx/verIoXxx methods. Generally, these methods should simply return a list of all of the accessible objects in the actor's current location (or the actor's location's location), plus a list of all of the "floating" objects (which use methods for the location properties). An appropriate definition for validDoList in the deepverb object appears below: validDoList(actor, prep, iobj) = { local ret; local loc; loc := actor.location; while (loc.location) loc := loc.location; ret := visibleList(actor) + visibleList(loc) + global.floatingList; return(ret); } This same definition (with the name changed) is appropriate for validIoList in deepverb. This returns a list of all of the objects visible in the current location, plus the global list of all floating objects; this should be a superset of the list of accessible objects in most games. The only verbs that normally requires a different value of validIoList/validDoList are verbs such as "ask" and "tell" that allow any object (whether accessible or not) to be used as indirect objects; for these, simply use this definition: validIoList = nil This takes advantage of the reverse compatibility feature: when the method returns nil, all objects with matching vocabulary are used. The one additional game change required to take advantage of this new feature is that global.floatingList must be built during initialization. This can be done easily with the following loop: global.floatingList := []; for (o := firstobj(floatingItem) ; o ; o := nextobj(o, floatingItem)) global.floatingList += o; This should be placed in the preinit or init function. Note that all objects which have location methods should be declared to be of class floatingItem: class floatingItem: object; This class doesn't do anything except serve as a flag that an object should be placed in the floatingList. 2.0.7 12/01/92 MS-DOS bug fix release - The run-time occasionally missed the \ in an escape sequence in output strings. - The run-time couldn't operate in 132 column mode. - The run-time abnormally terminated in the file selection dialog when the dialog box was exactly filled. 2.0.6 11/24/92 first general MS-DOS TADS 2.0 release