inform7/resources/Changes/Change Logs/3T38.txt

3T38 (10 July 2006)

(Windows only) Boxed quotations are now correctly displayed in the game tab.
(Windows only) Extensions can be created, opened and edited within the
	application.
(Windows only) If an error occurs in an extension, clicking on the link in the
	problem report opens that extension.
(Windows only) The file dialog for installing extensions now allows multiple
	files to be selected at once.
(Windows only) Undo and redo in the source tab now works correctly with Unicode
	characters.
(Windows only) Added a "Trim skein" button to the skein tab, which removes all
	unlocked skein knots.
The "means" and "means that" syntaxes are being withdrawn. These were always
	rather crude word-substitution devices: to quote the documentation,
	"now deprecated... may be withdrawn". In this release, the Standard Rules
	no longer use the syntaxes even internally, and this prevents a number
	of slightly odd side-effects related to the words "above" and "below".
	In the next release, the ability to use the "means" and "means that"
	syntaxes will be removed altogether.
Two new relations are built in to Inform to handle doors and locks; the
	verbal forms "to be through D" and "to unlock D" express these. This
	mimics syntax previously achieved using "means that", but works in a
	much tidier way, and is more flexible: for instance, "things which
	unlock the Great Gate" is now a legal description.
Type-checking extended further into the descriptions D used in constructions
	such as "total P of D" or "a random D", and into complicated descriptions
	given as part of the conditions for rules to apply. (For instance,
	"Instead of taking a container in 100" - clearly absurd, as how can
	a container be inside a number? - now produces a problem message.)
Examples:
	"Uptempo" given a better "fast time rule".
	In some 21 of the examples, the syntax "-- has a property called --" has
		been rewritten to be more specific about what kind of value is involved.
		(For instance, to say "-- has some text called --" if the property
		will hold text.) This is better style, and allows Inform to check
		usage more carefully.
Unnecessary Inform 6 general parsing routines are no longer compiled for
	kinds of value which are not ever parsed: under some circumstances
	this can save a significant amount of space at run-time.
Problem message added for grammar token trying to understand a kind of
	value which cannot be parsed, such as 'rule' or 'scene'.
Improved problem messages for property declarations, and allowed property
	declarations to create properties whose values have to objects of a given
	kind.
Improved problem message for when "Understand the command..." goes bad.
Improved problem message for incorrect usage of "... condition" names.
Added problem message if a verb is defined with two present plurals (as
	this can't be right, and usually means that someone has tried to define
	the past tense using "they" rather than "he", "she" or "it").
Added problem message for an attempt to "change O to A", where O is an object
	and A is an adjective the truth of which can be tested, but not changed
	(e.g. "change O to visible").
Added problem message for creating a kind of value containing "of". (This
	never worked, due to all kinds of grammatical ambiguities, but used to
	fail with an inexplicable problem message: now it fails with an apology.)
Extended the range of what can be negated using "now", so that, e.g.,
	"now Elizabeth does not love anyone" is now allowed. (An obvious feature
	whose absence was reported as a bug, but technically it's new.)
Removed spurious problem message claiming that certain "after" rules would
	have no effect.
Fixed bug whereby arbitrary text could, under some circumstances, match the
	"[number]" token of grammar.
Fixed bug under which rules applying to actions done for the Nth time
	might fail to apply if these actions had been interrupted by other
	actions earlier in the same turn (e.g., to implicitly take something
	before moving on to do something with it).
Fixed bug whereby specifying that one of the named built-in rules belongs
	to another rulebook (i.e., as well as its usual one) would result in
	one of the two rulebooks being a partial duplicate of the other.
Fixed bug causing "item described" (and the thing implicitly meant by a
	bare property name) in a text with substitutions to refer to the
	wrong thing, when this text is being printed from within another text
	with substitutions.
Fixed bug in which tests such as "if not visited" sometimes lost the
	sense of the "not" and instead tested "if visited".
Fixed bug whereby route-finding and counting steps through reciprocal
	various-to-various relations would sometimes give incorrect results if
	the relation had been changed from its initial state at run-time.
Fixed bug by which "everything" was not always equivalent to "every thing",
	and similarly for "everyone", "everybody" and "everywhere".
Fixed bug to do with parsing times of day around midnight and midday.
Fixed obscure bug to do with editing the player's command. (Well, in fact
	Jesse McGrew fixed it.)
Fixed bug in which a property is being declared as possible but whose name
	coincides with a participle of one of the containment verbs. (E.g.,
	"A weapon can be worn.")
Fixed bug whereby a rule about "doing something" (unspecified) to some
	specific kind of noun would result in run-time errors if the current
	action did not take a noun, e.g., when looking.
Fixed bug whereby setting the printed plural name of a kind might lead
	to a failure to compile through Inform 6 (due to a duplicated "plural"
	property).
Fixed two unrelated bugs to do with apostrophes inside commands leading
	to grammar declarations which failed to compile through Inform 6.
Fixed bug causing spurious problem messages with garbled text: this
	affected the examples "Table Foosball" and "Air Conditioning is Standard".
	(We believe the bug only manifested itself under Mac OS X running on an
	Intel processor.)
Fixed bug causing scene begin/end conditions to go wrong if they tried to
	use the "location of X" phrase.
Fixed bug causing problems with scene begin/end conditions to be reported
	at the wrong sentence of the source text.
Spurious newline after "That noun did not make sense in this context." removed.