inform7/notes/release/1-5.md

Release notes for Inform v1.5 (build 3P53)

This release was made on 9 June 2006, before Inform was open-sourced. At that time versions of Inform were identified by build codes in the form NLNN.

This is part of the historical archive of release notes.

Language

• Made a general rewrite of the type-checking machinery: the new version is more extensively tested than the old (and produces slightly better Problem messages), but otherwise there should be no perceptible change.
• Made it possible to unset a wider range of relations with "now". For instance, if "loving" is a one-to-one relation, then "now Elizabeth does not love Darcy" is now allowed, if sad.
• Added a new text substitution "[conditional paragraph break]".
• New phrase option for "list the contents of...": "with extra indentation", which increases the left margin by 1 level of indentation - which simulates the way that the standard inventory listing looks.
• References to tables can now refer to the table in question using a local or global variable, or a phrase to decide which table to look at.

Documentation, examples and extensions

Examples

• "The Abolition of Love" added, as a thorough exploration of all the kinds of relations which can be set and unset.
• "Beachfront" added to demonstrate finding an object in a room which was not there before;
• "Van Helsing" added to demonstrate a character who follows the player from room to room.
• "Exit Strategy" added to demonstrate the beginning of scenes once in more detail, and to describe what it means when the scene change machinery is stuck (and how to diagnose and fix the problem).
• "Otranto": dealt with a bug such that a rope tied to a door did not restrict the player's movement appropriately.
• "Tamed": typo fixed.
• "Up and Up": minor fix for a description assigned to the wrong object.
• "Day One": waiting added to the selection of acceptable activities for which Freitag will not glare at the player.
• "Stately Gardens": typo fixed.
• "Sybil 1": additional comments and code to demonstrate some expanded forms of keyword matching.
• "Port Royal 3": fixed a typo that was causing part of the source not to copy properly into the code window.
• "Odyssey": minor syntax improvement to get rid of ugly legacy form.

Extensions

• Basic Screen Effects (now version 2): modified so that local variable names are less likely ever to conflict with globals or other names in the author's work; "clear only the status line" added; "left alignment depth" variable added, allowing the author to print status elements at a different spacing than 14 spaces from the left edge of the screen;
• Menus: added arrow and escape keys as viable means of input; rule names added to several rules to make modification easier; local variable names made less likely to conflict.
• Plurality: changed "acts plural" phrase to apply to all objects, not just "things".
• Complex Listing (now version 2): corrected erroneous documentation; added "enumerated listing" option.

Problem messages

• Problem message added for tables defined with names which already have a meaning, leading to ambiguity (e.g., "Table of Three", since "three" is a number), with specific checking for clashes between table and kind named (e.g. "Table of Rooms").
• Problem message added for use of 'either' on a list of 3 or more possibilities.
• Problem message added where "number of ..." or "total ...", etc., are used with a determiner which makes this nonsensical ("number of at least three rooms", etc.).
• Problem message added for contradictory redefinition of global variables. (Non-contradictory redefinitions are superfluous but legal.)
• Problem message added for incorrect uses of "with", and an explanation supplied (where previously an internal error would sometimes occur).
• Fixed bug whereby '(called ...)' used incorrectly in a scene beginning or ending condition could cause an internal error, and added a suitable Problem message.

Bug fixes

• Fixed bug whereby certain names consisting only of an article would lead to an internal error (thus producing the record-holder for shortest source text breaking I7: "A is a room."); and similarly for a name which includes parentheses "(" or ")", also not allowed.
• Fixed bug: it's now possible to release a game with a website and cover art in PNG format, where previously the website assumed JPGs were used (although the compiled game itself was fine all along).
• Fixed bug to do with return values from activities being lost (with thanks to Jesse McGrew, who provided the solution).
• Fixed bug whereby a complex listing early in a "say" would cause a conditional [if] to go wrong later in the "say".
• Fixed bug in the debugging command RELATIONS causing it to print some relations the wrong way round, and to omit some relationships with reciprocal various-to-various relations.
• Fixed bug whereby released story files still contained some debugging verbs.
• Also accidentally left in was the I6 verb FULLSCORE: this no longer works, and is deprecated now that there are better ways to achieve the same effect. In this build, the action and corresponding grammar are removed, leaving it open for designers to provide their own versions if they choose to do so.
• Fixed bug in which "X are not Y" would sometimes complain of unproductive negative even if Y is such that not-Y is unambiguous, whereas "X is not Y" would work in similar circumstances.
• Fixed bug where attempts to unlock something with the wrong key produced the wrong pronouns in the failure message.
• Fixed bug where "each turn" and "check" rules were confused in the Rules index, and straightened out the spacing of this index.

Mac OS X app

• (Mac OS X only) Mechanism for installing extensions now added: simply click the [+] button in the Extensions panel of the application Preferences. Installed extensions may also be edited using "Open Extension >" in the File menu.
• (Mac OS X only) The 'Standard' library is now standard for Inform 6 projects.
• (Mac OS X only) Projects with a setting for a version of the Inform 6 compiler that is not installed no longer crash the application (and choose a sensible alternative version).
• (Mac OS X only) I6 compiler used internally is now bi-platform 6.31, not 6.30.
• Improved "Help" menu offers short-cuts to the Recipe Book and the Installed Extensions documentation.

Windows app

• (Windows only) The Transcript tab is now added - a major feature, and the only one omitted from the Windows application in the first public beta release. (There is one caveat: the transcript does not yet underline differences when the game text does not match the blessed text.)
• (Windows only) Switched to using the NullSoft Installer System to create the installer. If you have a previous version installed, you should uninstall it from "Add or Remove Programs" in the Control Panel before installing this version.
• (Windows only) The "Install Extension" menu item no longer rejects extensions with Unix-style line endings.
• (Windows only) The "Install Extension" menu item shows the installed extensions documentation page after a successful install of an extension.
• (Windows only) Clicking on an item in the search results window now always brings the appropriate tab to the front.
• (Windows only) Compiling a game no longer steals the input focus from the Source tab.
• (Windows only) It is no longer possible to put the edit windows into "smart quotes" mode.
• (Windows only) The Game and Build menus have been merged.