227 Release Notes

• Fixed: Files containing lines with more that 1024 chars were crashing on save.

• Fixed: Popup menus on Dream Seeker were returning the first entry when none were selected.

• Fixed: The "accept-links" option on Dream Seeker was occasionally being ignored.

• Fixed: The info panel wasn't refreshing properly after being toggled off/on.

• Fixed: The statpanel() command wasn't always refreshing the proper panel.

• Fixed: prompt() as file|null was incorrectly handling null input and invalid files.

• Fixed: Flicker should be eliminated when the appearance of objects changes. The client was supposed to be falling back on the old appearance until it downloaded the new one, but there was one _final_ bug preventing that from happening.

• Fixed: The dialogue prompts were not getting called when the user hit F1 in an empty text argument (with the quote already typed).

• Fixed: Empty file arguments were being treated as errors rather than as missing like they used to be (so that the prompting dialogues get invoked).

• Fixed: Optional client arguments followed by server expanded arguments were not being handled correctly (resulting in error messages).

• Fixed: Objects that went off of the client view and changed their direction to face south were retaining their old direction when they reappeared on the map. (Zilal's misaligned sheep problem.)

• Fixed: Deletions or changes in order of stat panels were not always being respected by the client.

• Fixed: The command line parser had a few more bugs: optional file arguments were not parsing correctly and neither were groups of multiple optional args.

• The dialogue prompts for command-line arguments now use the argument description for the prompt text.

• Added client.Stat(). By default, it calls client.stat_obj.Stat().

• The preferred syntax for "locate(Type,Container)" is now "locate(Type) in Container". If the result is being assigned to a variable with a declared type, the Type argument is optional and will default to the type of the variable being assigned.

• The "list" command at the server prompt now outputs a list of hyperlinks rather than just plain text.

• The client was filtering out empty commands (ie just hitting enter). In telnet mode, it now passes these through. In BYOND mode, it echos the command (if echoing is turned on) but doesn't do anything else. That way you can press enter to put some space in the terminal window when it is getting cluttered up. Or you can press enter repeatedly very quickly when your roommate walks in and looks over your shoulder and is just about to see a discussion of his personal defects.

• There is now an "anything" input type. It is used to combine constant input types (null, num, text, file, etc.) with objects in a list. For example (A as null|anything in list(...)). The compiler warns if you don't use "anything" or an object type filter (one or more of mob, obj, turf, or area) in this sort of case. Basically, that should only affect situations like (A as null|text in list()), which should probably be changed to null|anything, because that is probably correct.

• In cases like (A as text|anything in list(...)), it should now only prompt for stuff in the list, effectively ignoring the text input type. You can still enter it on the command line by manually inserting a quote.

• Previously, verb help was generated by outputting the expected type of each argument followed by the programmer-supplied desc text string. That doesn't always generate the most user-friendly output. Now, the programmer can specify the help text for each argument by putting it inside ()'s at the beginning of the desc text. Argument descriptions are delimited by commas. Any arguments that are not explicitely described will resort to the old method, eg:

    mob/verb/tell(mob/M in world,T as text)
  	set desc = "(recipient, message) speak to someone privately"
  	M << "[usr] tells you, '[T]'"
  

  This produces the help text:
  "tell recipient message (speak to someone privately)"

  Without the argument description, the help text would be:
  "tell mob in world "text" (speak to someone privately)"

  Notice that parenthesis are now automatically inserted around the final description to separate it from the arguments. People who have been doing that manually will need to remove the parentheses from their code so the entire desc is not mistaken for an argument description. That is for the better, because the help is used in different contexts (command-line help vs. dialogues) and the way it is formatted should therefore be left up to the client rather than the programmer.

• DreamSeeker now recognizes a special .dms (DM script) file type. This may contain client-side "aliases" for server-side commands. They will be incorporated when the file is opened. This is most useful in telnet/mud mode so that you can make your own verbs that work with command expansion, help, prompt dialogues, and menus. The return value of the alias is then executed as the real command. The syntax for aliases is a lot like verbs in DM. Example:

  shout(T as text)
  	set desc = "(message) tell something to the whole world"
  	return "shout [T]"
  

  So if this alias were invoked from within a (non-BYOND) mud, the "shout" command would act just like an equivalent verb from a BYOND world, showing up in the expansion lists, the verb panes, and so on.

  You can set the name, description, category, and hidden flag, just like with verbs. In the code, you can also use comments, preprocessor directives, and so forth. The expression syntax in the return statement is currently limited to substitution of arguments.

  You can also define alias arguments with no parse type. These just accept a single unfiltered word as input. The only real purpose of that is to provide a little syntax help to the user even though an expansion list cannot be provided.

  If a user wants to send a command literally (because it conflicts with an alias or a built-in command such as .quit or .logout) it can be done by simply sticking a double quote at the beginning of the command.

• Another feature of the script file is the ability to make links to worlds. Such links may be incorporated by using the special #define URL statement:

  #define URL "byond://dantom:6000#hub"
  

  If there are multiple definitions, the last one takes effect, so you can include any standard script files first before setting the actual address that you want. The reason we need quotes around the whole thing is to prevent the // from being treated as a comment.

  Double-clicking a .dms file containing a link will cause Dream Seeker to connect to that world. Moreover, making a hypertext (web) link to a .dms file will automatically cause DreamSeeker to connect to the desired address.

  There are three standard script files for the three protocols: byond, irc, and telnet. If the player connects to a world without using a script, the appropriate standard script file will be searched for (in the lib directory) and executed if it exists. This is most useful for irc.dms, which will contain all of the standard IRC commands.