programming/tads2/library/worldclass/History.txt

 *
 * Modification History
 *
 * Where a contibutor's code has been included, the contributor's
 * name appears in an accompanying comment.
 *
 * When someone reports a bug and I fix it, I now label the explanation
 * of the fix in the modification history with the bug reporter's name.
 *
 * If you have contributed and I have left your name off, send me
 * mail and I'll add you.  I do not intened to slight anyone, but
 * I do make mistakes.
 *
 * Initials:
 *	dmb	David M. Baggett
 *	djh	David Haire
 *
 *-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *
 *  9-Nov-93	dmb	Started.
 * 16-Feb-94	dmb	Deemed worthy of "version 1.0" monnicker.
 * 28-Feb-94	dmb	Got rid of vocabulary in classes.  Having them
 *			there confuses the disambiguator, thereby
 *			causing "Which button do you mean, the launch button,
 *			or the launch button?" type problems.
 * 13-Mar-94	dmb	Extended verb requirements to include prep.
 *  1-Jun-94	dmb	Changed listcontentsX -- added "alwaysname" method
 *			to listable sounds, etc. so that things that
 *			don't appear in visual listings can still be
 *			named (instead of being referred to as "something").
 * 22-Aug-94	dmb	A few minor bugs fixed.
 *  5-Sep-94	dmb	Added 'inside' and 'outside' to inPrep and outPrep.
 *			Added doEnter and doExit to Chair and Ledge.
 *			Added _here_ parameter to listcontentsX to fix
 *			bug with Nestedroom.
 *  6-Sep-94	dmb	Changed the definition of doDefault and ioDefault
 *			in Verb to handle Nestedrooms better.
 *			Updated some verb's vocabulary to extend the set of
 *			prepositions allowed.  (E.g.: lookinVerb)
 *  7-Sep-94	dmb	Added global.searchisexamine.
 * 13-Sep-94	dmb	Revised Chair and Stool again.
 * 18-Sep-94	dmb	Moved some code from init to userinit. This code
 *			handles the standard game start tasks, like 
 *			printing the room description for the player's
 *			initial location.  The old code didn't work with
 *			initial locations that were Nestedrooms -- the
 *			new code does.
 *
 *			As a result, the procedure now is to *replace*
 *			userpreinit and userinit -- before they weren't
 *			provided at all.  Second, there is no requirement
 *			that the starting location be called "startroom";
 *			the default userinit routine just looks at the
 *			location, locationtype, and position fields of
 *			Me to figure out where the player starts out.
 *			[v1.1]
 * 24-Sep-94	dmb	Added doAction = 'Lock' to lockVerb.
 *			Added doAction = 'Unlock' to unlockVerb.
 *			Changed "I can't imagine what you're referring to."
 *			in Verb.cantReach to "You don't know what that is."
 *			Changed Thing.isknownto slightly.
 *			Changed Player.passgen to better handle "actor, take
 *			item from me" and related commands.
 *			Added allowedverbs to Distant.
 *			Added roomdescprop to Ground, Walls, and Ceiling.
 *			Fixed bugs in Attachpoint that prevented plugable
 *			and tieable from working properly.
 *			Put commas in lists where necessary to disambiguate
 *			& operator, for TADS 2.2.
 *			[v1.1.1]
 * 28-Sep-94	dmb	Removed no-longer-needed XOuthide function.
 *			Debugverbs are now disabled unless global.playtesting
 *			is set to true.	 Cleaned up the standard Debugverbs
 *			a bit.
 *			Updated maxinlist and mininlist to return nil when
 *			given an empty list or nil.
 *			Improved comments in the first third of the file.
 *			[v1.1.2]
 *  1-Oct-94	dmb	Added code to print "(trying to ___ the ___ first)"
 *			when a verb requirement fails.	E.g.,:
 *
 *				>eat key
 *				(trying to take the key first)
 *
 *				The key is stuck in the lock.
 *
 *			[v1.1.3]
 * 11-Oct-94	dmb	Separated out most of the code in die and moved
 *			it to end, which is useful for demos, where you
 *			have to end the game, but not because of player 
 *			death.
 * 12-Oct-94	dmb	Spell-checked all double quoted text and fixed
 *			the typos.
 *
 *			Added a check for global.silentincscore to incscore.
 *			By setting global.silentincscore to true, you can
 *			disable the WorldClass default behavior, which is
 *			to tell the player when his score has gone up.
 *
 *			Made changes to allow footnotes with predefined
 *			numbers (i.e., hardcoded footnum values) to
 *			coexist peacefully with footnotes numbered at
 *			run-time.  (Previously, the run-time footnote 
 *			number could assign a number that was already used
 *			by a "hand-numbered" footnote.)
 *
 *			Added methods smellaround, listenaround and
 *			feelaround to Room.  Nestedroom overrides these.
 *			These are called when the player types "smell"
 *			"listen" and "feel" (or "feel around") without
 *			a direct object.  This change fixes a bug, where
 *			listable sounds etc. would not get listed if
 *			the player "listen"'ed while in/on a Nestedroom.
 *
 *			Added new class Floor, for use when you want
 *			to do something fancy with the floor that Ground
 *			can't handle.  Ground now inherits from Floor.
 *			Added roomdescprop to Everywhere.
 *
 *			Nestedroom now passes ground, ceiling, and walls
 *			methods to its parent location.  I.e., Nestedrooms
 *			have the same ground, ceiling, and walls as their
 *			containing Rooms.
 *			[v1.1.4]
 * 16-Oct-94	dmb	Fixed a bug where "if (isclass(obj, Floor))"
 *			was run in verDoTakeX even if obj was nil.
 *			Corrected bogus reference to global.turnsofar.
 *			Changed note function to return the empty
 *			string so it can be used in <<...>> expressions
 *			within double quotes.
 *			[v1.1.5]
 * 25-Oct-94	dmb	Added verDoBreak to Thing.  Fixed a typo in
 *			Thing.verIoCleanwith. [Tom Koelman]
 *			[v1.1.6]
 *  2-Nov-94	dmb	Fixed a typo in Ledge.doEnter. [Duncan Anker]
 *  5-Nov-94	dmb	Added eatdesc to Edible.
 *			Added pullable and moveable to Switch.
 *			Added &cantouch to global.senses -- this is
 *			the list of senses used when an action fails,
 *			so that WorldClass can say "(trying to X the Y)"
 *			to let the player know which "atomic" action
 *			failed.
 *			Added a clause to Item.doTake to allow the 
 *			command "take X" or "take X <prep> Y" when the
 *			actor already has the Item, but the Item is not
 *			in the player's top level contents (i.e., not
 *			merely in a container the actor's carrying).
 *
 *			*** Last version for TADS 2.1 ***
 *
 *			[v1.1.7]
 *  6-Nov-94	dmb	Changed Room.statusLine to elide status lines
 *			that are longer than global.statuslinewidth
 *			with an ellipsis.
 *			Added [ver]DoClose [ver]DoOpen to Desk.
 *			[v1.1.8]
 *  7-Nov-94	dmb	Added check for obj = nil in Thing.blocksreach.
 *			Added actor parameter to Edible.eatdesc.
 *			Further revised Edible, and similarly revised
 *			Drinkable.
 *			Added multisdesc to Thing -- this just prints
 *			the sdesc text highlighted.
 *			Added #pragma C- at top of file.
 *			Added any = either to specialWords.
 *			Added Thing.construct and Thing.destruct to
 *			support dynamic objects.
 *  9-Nov-94	dmb	Removed actor parameter from message printed
 *			by Thing.verDoLookon to eliminate incorrect
 *			reflexives.
 *			Added to comment preceding Desk.
 *			Cleaned up Verb.checkCommon a bit.
 *			Corrected capitalization error in
 *			swVerb. [Paul Gilbert]
 * 11-Nov-94	dmb	Created CASE_INSENSITIVE flag.  (But you can't
 *			actually compile this file in case insensitive
 *			mode yet.)
 *
 *			Added support for indistinguishable objects:
 *			- Thing.listprops ........ created
 *			- Thing.listdesc ......... modified
 *			- Thing.listpluraldesc ... created
 *			- Thing.pluraldesc ....... created
 *			- listcontentsX .......... modified
 *			- indistinguishable ...... created
 *			- saynum ................. created
 *
 *			NOTE: Users must override pluraldesc for
 *			words like "box", "watch", etc. whose plurals
 *			are not formed by appending an "s".
 *			
 *			Two Things are indistinguishable (and will hence
 *			be listed as a unit with prepended number) if
 *			both have the same immediate superclass and
 *			both have isequivalent set to true.  (Actually,
 *			it's not quite this simple -- look at the
 *			indistinguishable function for details.)
 *
 *			NOTE: There seems to be a bug in TADS that prevents
 *			the new code from being very useful.  So don't 
 *			expect it to work right just yet.
 *
 * 			Removed old listcontents code.  (This code is now
 *			archived in the 1.1.7 freeze code.)
 *			Added a comment explaining Thing.seecontX and related
 *			methods.
 *			[v1.2.0]
 * 12-Nov-94	dmb	Added nondeterministic = true to global to make 
 *			the random number functions really random by
 *			default.
 *
 *			New feature: You can now use Thing.movingout and
 *			Thing.movingin to monitor movement of objects
 *			in and out of containers.  This makes it
 *			easy to define, for example, a magic box that
 *			curses every item moved into it (by any means),
 *			or a pedestal that triggers a trap when enough
 *			weight is taken off of it.
 *
 *			Note also that Thing.moveinto now returns a
 *			boolean indicating whether or not it succeeded.
 *			This is just for robustness; you should not
 *			have moveinto fail for any reason but an error.
 *
 *			Implementing this feature involved the following
 *			changes:
 *
 *			- Thing.movingin ............ created
 *			- Thing.movingout ........... created
 *			- Thing.moveinto ............ modifie
 *			- Thing.notifycontainers .... created
 *			- Holder.ioPutX ............. modified
 *			- Attachable.moveinto ....... modified
 *			- Attachable.doAttachto ..... modified
 *			- Clothing.moveinto ......... modified
 *			- Clothing.doWear ........... modified
 *			- Actor.moveinto ............ modified
 *			- Chair, Ledge, Stool:
 *			     doEnter, doGeton ....... modified
 *
 *			Added verDoLock and verDoUnlock to Thing.
 *			Changed the Lockable class to support these
 *			new methods.  IMPORTANT:  Previously, setting
 *			key = nil in Lockable meant that the Lockable
 *			could not be unlocked or locked.  Now this
 *			means that the Lockable *can* be locked and
 *			unlocked, and without any key.
 *			[v1.3.0]
 * 13-Nov-94	dmb	Fixed a bug in Thing.construct. [Mike Roberts]
 * 15-Nov-94	dmb	Fixed verSouthwest -> verGoSouthwest and
 *			verDown -> verGoDown.
 * 19-Nov-94	dmb	Fixed a typo in Actor.speech_handler. 
 *			[Adam Thornton]
 * 21-Nov-94	dmb	Fixed a serious bug in Thing.moveinto.
 *			[v1.3.1]
 *  7-Jan-95	dmb	Moved meat of preparse into WorldClassPreparse.
 *			[v1.3.2]
 * 10-Feb-95	dmb	Added call to upper() in indistinguishable
 *			to make the comparison ignore case.
 *			[Carl Muckenhoupt].  [v1.3.3]
 *  2-May-95	dmb	Trivial change to warnsave for better formatting.
 *			[v1.3.4]
 * 25-Apr-96	dmb	Typo in Door fixed. [v1.3.5]
 * 15-Nov-96	dmb	Fixed a bug in Clothing.doWear. [Patrick Kellum]
 *  			[v1.3.6]
 *  7-Apr-97	dmb   Fixed a typo affected doors that can be locked with
 *                no key.  [Shay Caron]
 * 21-Jul-98	djh	Unofficially took over maintenance from dmb.
 *			Fixed a bug in listcontentsX that listed more than 
 *			one indistinguishable item with 'is here.' if nothing 
 *			else was listed in the room.
 * 25-Jul-98	djh	It's now official.
 *			Fixed another bug in listcontentsX. If there were more 
 *			than one set of indistinguishable items to be listed, 
 *			they were being listed with the wrong quantities.
 *			[v1.3.7]
 *  2-Aug-98	djh	Replaced all occurrences of 'Me' with the TADS 
 *			2.2.4 function parserGetMe().
 * 			Added new functions initRestore() and initCommon(). Any 
 *			game-specific initialisation should be placed in 
 *			initCommon() rather than in userinit(). Note that 
 *			contrary to the TADS release notes, initRestore() is 
 *			called AFTER init() rather than instead of it, unless the 
 *			game is compiled with the '-ds' option.
 *			Moved code from userinit() into gameinit(). All 
 *			userinit() does now is call gameinit(). If you replace 
 *			userinit(), you should ensure that your replacement 
 *			either calls gameinit() or provides the same 
 *			functionality.
 *			Moved code from restoreVerb.soloaction into 
 *			mainRestore(). This function is called both by the 
 *			restore command and when a save game is specified on the 
 *			command line.
 *			Added HTML enabling hook to init().
 *			Modified Room.statusLine for HTML compatibility.
 *  7-Aug-98	djh	Added version tracking information to the library. 
 *			[Jeff Laing]
 *			All WorldClass extension modules should contain an entry 
 *			called xxxVersion, where xxx is a unique identifier for 
 *			the extension module. This should have a class of 
 *			versionTag, and should contain three properties:
 *				id: A double-quoted string giving the module's 
 *				version and date.
 *				author: The name of the person who created the 
 *				module.
 *				func: A short description or title of the module.
 *			The versionTag for the version tracking routines has been 
 *			included in WorldClass, so you can use that as a 
 *			template.
 *			Added direction lists to global to enable modules such as 
 *			'actors' and 'goto' to access them without having to 
 *			ensure that they are defined. Useful if you want to 
 *			include both of these modules.
 *			Added global.justTesting. Functions that call verGoX and 
 *			goX direction methods in order to determine if travel is 
 *			possible in a certain direction should set this flag to 
 *			'true', and reset it to 'nil' when finished. Direction 
 *			methods (goX) should check the value of
 *			global.justTesting before modifying the game state in any 
 *			other manner than moving the actor to a new location.
 *			Added the autosave function that was written by Paul
 *			Gilbert. This routine replaces the warnsave function.
 *			By default, autosave will be off. It can be turned on/off 
 *			with the command 'autosave on' or 'autosave off', and the 
 *			time between saves can be set with 'autosave xx', where 
 *			xx is the number of WorldClass ticks between saves. It 
 *			will ask for a filename the first time, and then use that 
 *			continually.
 *			Added 'look out of' and 'look out' to the verb list for 
 *			lookthroughVerb.
 * 11-Aug-98	djh	Added HTML hook to change the display colors when 
 *			the player enters a particular room. The property 
 *			'bgcolor' controls the background color in each room, and 
 *			the property 'textcolor' controls the foreground color. 
 *			If one of these properties is not defined, the relevant 
 *			default color will be used.
 *			Fixed bug in Item.verDoPutX that returned an "object 
 *			required" error if the player entered "put" with no 
 *			direct or indirect objects. [Shay Caron]
 *			Fixed bug in Ledge that prevented you from lying on the 
 *			ledge if you were already sitting on it, and vice versa. 
 *			[Shay Caron]
 *			Fixed bug in Floor that told the player "You can't get 
 *			off of (the player's location)." when he or she was 
 *			standing and tried to get on the ground. [Shay Caron]
 *			Corrected typo in verDoAskFor that printed the indirect 
 *			object in "You can't ask (x) for anything." (Should be 
 *			the direct object). [Shay Caron]
 *			Fixed bug in 'give x to y' which produced the message 
 *			"You can't do that, because you can't put anything the 
 *			(y)." (Missing preposition)
 * 13-Aug-98	djh	Added code to prevent the room description from 
 *			being displayed by actor.travelto(room) unless the actor 
 *			doing the travelling is the player (parserGetMe()). 
 *			[Jason Noble]
 *			Added commandPrompt() and commandAfterRead() functions. 
 *			All the former does at present is turn emboldening on and 
 *			display the '>' prompt before the command is entered, and 
 *			the latter turns emboldening off again after the command 
 *			has been entered. Replace these functions with your own 
 *			as required.
 *			Rewrote the initRestore() routine so that it will not 
 *			duplicate work performed by init() if it is called after 
 *			init(). The property global.initcalled is used to check 
 *			whether the init() function has been called. When the 
 *			runtime is fixed so that initRestore() is called instead 
 *			of init() when a saved game is specified on the command 
 *			line, this property may be used to determine whether a 
 *			saved game was restored at startup, if required 
 *			(initcalled will be nil).
 * 19-Aug-98	djh	Added preparseCmd function. This function simply 
 *			calls another function (WorldClassPreparseCmd), which 
 *			will convert commands in the form "tell <actor> to 
 *			<command>" and "ask <actor> to <command>" to the standard 
 *			format "<actor>,<command>". To include your own code in 
 *			preparseCmd, simply replace it and call 
 *			WorldClassPreparseCmd after your code.
 * 20-Aug-98	djh	Fixed minor typo in 'maxinlist' and 'mininlist'.
 *			Minor alteration to listcontentsX to list fixtures and 
 *			actors separately. The listing of actors is now no longer 
 *			dependent on the listing of fixtures.
 *			Various cosmetic changes to 'Thing', primarily to shorten 
 *			the listing.
 *			Added class 'Qopenable' for an Openable that does not 
 *			list its contents in a room description.
 *			Corrected typo in Player.sleepmessage.
 *			Added 'get outfromunderneath' as a synonym of 
 *			getoutfromunderVerb.
 *			Added more synonyms to climbVerb.
 *			Added 'desc' property to verbs that have a plural that 
 *			isn't simply a case of adding an 's'.
 *			Added 'Openwith' action to openVerb to allow "open <x> 
 *			with <y>".
 *			[v1.4.0]
 * 
 * 18-Jan-99	djh	It's been a while. I've been kinda busy.
 * 			Moved versioninfo() from init() into gameinit(), so that 
 *			it is displayed after the introduction. As gameinit() is 
 *			only called when a new game is started, versioninfo() is 
 *			also called from initRestore().
 *			Version 2.2.6 of the interpreter has fixed the 
 *			initRestore() bug that caused init() to be called as 
 *			well. It now works as stated in the release notes.
 * 			Modified Room.enter(actor) to set the text and background 
 *			colours only if they are stated in the room attributes. 
 *			[Shay Caron]
 * 			Corrected verification routine names in outVerb, 
 *			downstreamVerb and jumpVerb. [Shay Caron]
 *			Added code to Actor.travelto to make the actor and 
 *			everything the actor is carrying known to the player when 
 *			the actor is moved into the player's location.
 *  1-Apr-99	djh	Added new version of verifyinsertion() to the 
 *			holder class to provide a more realistic handling of 
 *			maximum bulks and weights for containers. The function 
 *			recurses through the hierarchy of containers to ensure 
 *			that none of the maximums are exceeded.
 *			Added the property 'fullscore' to global.
 *			Added a new score routine that lists the percentage of 
 *			rooms and items that the player has seen. This is 
 *			conditioned on the new 'fullscore' property. To override 
 *			the basic score routine, replace or modify 
 *			old_score_and_rank() rather than score_and_rank().
 *			Added 'look through' methods to the Transparent class to 
 *			allow objects defined with this property to be looked 
 *			through.
 *			Added the moveinto() function to the Part class to sever 
 *			the connection between the part and its parent if the 
 *			part is moved.
 *			Added 'lift' and 'raise' as synonyms for moveVerb.
 *			Corrected a couple of grammatical errors in 
 *			Lockable.doLock. [Shay Caron]
 *			Added code to commandPrompt and commandAfterRead to 
 *			switch to the TADS-Input font for the player's input then 
 *			revert to the original font for output.
 *			Added new prompt parameters to the askfile() function. 
 *			These let you specify what type of prompt to show and 
 *			what type of file to request.  These new arguments are 
 *			hints to the system-specific code that displays the "open 
 *			file" dialog; by specifying this new information, you 
 *			help the system code show the correct type of dialog.
 *  			Added new global properties 'datedisp', 'timedisp', 
 *			and 'scoredisp' to determine whether the current date, 
 *			current time, and score information are displayed in the 
 *			status line. Any combination is allowed, the default is 
 *			to display just the score and turns.
 *			[v1.5.0]