inform7/resources/Changes/Change Logs/3R85.txt

3R85 (26 June 2006, a rapid replacement for a mis-uploaded 3R84)

(Mac OS X only) Direct "Install Extension..." option added to the File menu.
(Mac OS X only) Extension documentation auto-updated when any file added to
	the extensions area, even if dragged by hand in the Finder.
(Mac OS X only) Bug fixed that was causing Inform projects sometimes to appear
	as directories, and to fail to open on double-clicking.
(Windows only) Differences between the game's current text and the blessed
	text in the transcript tab are now underlined.
(Windows only) The transcript is now saved in the same format as the OS X
	application. (This means that any blessed transcript text saved from an
	earlier version will have to be recreated.)
(Windows only) The source tab now correctly colours nested comments.
(Windows only) Entering a carriage return with the shift key held down no
	longer results in text that the compiler rejects.
(Windows only) Setting the focus on the game tab by clicking in it with the
	mouse now keeps the input cursor on the input line being edited.
(Windows only) Added a warning dialog to the "Bless All" button on the
	transcript tab.
(Windows only) The bless buttons on the transcript tab are now disabled if
	there is nothing to do.
(Windows only) If the registry DWORD value
	"HKCU\Software\David Kinder\Inform\Start\Open Last Project"
	exists and is not set to zero, then when starting the application just
	opens the last project, rather than displaying the splash screen. If the
	registry DWORD value
	"HKCU\Software\David Kinder\Inform\Window\Clean Up Indexes"
	exists and is set to zero, then when closing a project the index files are
	not deleted. (Based on patches by Dan Shiovitz.)
Documentation on newly installed extensions, not yet used, is now much
	fuller. This breaks the impasse of "can't use this until I read the
	documentation, can't read the documentation until I use this".
Examples:
	"Abolition of love": removed comment that shouldn't have been there
	"Bruneseau's Journey" slightly modified for tidiness
	Minor errors exposed by the improved type-checker fixed in "Prague",
		"Glass", "Crusoe", and "Underlying"
	Extra commentary and new material added to "Laura" to explain parsing of
		complex phrases better
	"Would you...?" added to demonstrate checking for the existence of a
		property
	"First Name Basis" added to demonstrate how to assign synonyms to objects
	"Tiny Garden" added to demonstrate a very simple implementation of
		continuous space
	"Equipment List" added to demonstrate and explain variant inventory styles
	"Tense Boxing" added to demonstrate past and present tense rules more
		completely
	"Grilling" added to demonstrate a supporter from which the player cannot
		take things
	"Removal" added to demonstrate a revised taking report
	"Nameless" added to demonstrate an ASK verb that works on objects, like
		SHOW
	"Stone" added to demonstrate rules used as properties of things
Extensions:
	"Basic Screen Effects": minor errors exposed by the new type-checker fixed 
	"Locksmith": added yet more rule names; substantially updated to provide
		better defaulting and add a "keychain" kind; advanced to Version 2.
	"Rideable Vehicles": added rules to prevent mounting when already mounted,
		and to convert the exiting action to dismounting; added example.
Two new adjectives, "on-stage" and "off-stage", have been added to the stock
	of those built in to Inform. See 7.9 in the documentation, "Removing
	things from play", for more on this; in particular, note that the
	previous reference in 7.9 to testing whether a thing is "somewhere"
	has been withdrawn. (This led to numerous difficulties with ambiguity,
	and in any case was not very explanatory.) We now test whether a thing
	is "on-stage" or "off-stage".
Type-checking for conditions has been substantially rewritten. This mainly
	affects "if", "when" and "now", but other phrases too, and generally
	makes Inform stricter: for instance, "if the time since Escalating Danger
	began is greater than 1" used to work - but now I7 points out that a
	time cannot be compared with a number, and insists on "1 minute"
	rather than "1". This picked up minor errors in "Glass", "Reliques of
	Tolti-Aph" and the examples "Underlying" and "The Prague Job".
The check removing rules have been rewritten. Previously, these duplicated
	the check taking rules, almost right down the line: in effect the two
	actions did the same thing, though being reported slightly differently.
	In the new version, a new rule called the "convert remove to take rule"
	actually converts the action from removing into taking at an early
	stage: the practical effect of this is that any before or instead
	rules written to cover taking now also cover removing. This is good
	because it means one no longer needs to remember to cover both these
	actions to be sure of handling the case of an actor picking something up.
The scope of the "removing" action is changed so that if something is part
	of X, then it is in scope for "remove -- from X": previously, only
	the things inside X qualified. Being in scope for the action does not
	mean that the attempt to remove the part will succeed, of course, and
	it will normally fail the "can't take component parts rule": but being
	in scope does mean that the designer can write rules to allow removal
	after all.
Problem messages improved for mysterious problems arising from trying to
	use local "let" variables in substituted text which turns up elsewhere
	in the source, i.e., in places where those variables do not exist.
Problem message added if two rules are being added with the same name.
Fixed bug which caused negated conditions in the past and perfect tenses to
	fail: I7 would read, e.g., "if the box had not been open" as "if the box
	had been not open", which would generally be true much more easily.
Fixed bug whereby actions declared without any mention of what they applied
	to (e.g., "Requesting help is an action out of world." rather than
	"Requesting help is an action out of world applying to nothing.")
	would sometimes lead to spurious incompatibility Problem messages when
	grammar is defined for the action. To clarify: from now on, an action
	which does not say what it applies to, applies to nothing. (This is
	tacitly assumed by some of the extensions source text already.)
Fixed bug in which I7 allowed names with double-quoted text in, only to
	crash at the I6 stage; when the cause was actually a misunderstanding of
	the punctuation rules by the user.
Fixed bug to do with names beginning with the word "kind", such as "kind
	gentleman".
Fixed bug which caused properties declared by the "(called ...)" text in a
	new relation to have not quite the right type, causing odd type-checking
	problems elsewhere.
Fixed bug in which negatively phrased implications would sometimes be read
	as if positive (e.g., "Scenery is never cold" is an implication not an
	inference because it concerns all things which have a given property
	at the start of play, not all things of a known kind; and it was being
	misread as if "Scenery is always cold").
Fixed bug to do with initialising variables whose kind of value is
	"miscellaneous-value" or "string-of-text" (though the author of Inform
	wishes people wouldn't use hacky internal kinds of value with hyphens
	in the name, really).
Fixed bug in which spurious problem messages occasionally occur when
	giving grammar which specifies only one of two required things to
	which an action will apply; and generally improved the previously
	uninformative "not compatible" grammar Problem message.
Fixed bug in which "now" does not always set properties correctly.
Fixed bug whereby Problems in the final chunk of a text with substitutions
	used explicitly as a value were not always reported.
Fixed bug to do with relative clauses in property values (which are not
	allowed, but used to cause an internal error rather than a proper problem.)
Fixed bug in which errors on grammar verbs were sometimes reported quoting
	the previous Understand... sentence in the source, not the one in which
	the error occurred.
Fixed bug in sentence-breaking, whereby text ending with sentence-closing
	punctuation, immediately followed by a single word sentence in which the
	word was capitalised, would cause that single word to be ignored.
Fixed bug whereby "else" was not always equivalent to "otherwise".
Fixed bug to do with permissions for the "initially carried" property.