: Well, depends what we're talking about. I the original poster (whoever it
: was...amazing how that happens) was comparing the Mac TADS runtime with
: MaxZip. I'm trying to think what it is that MaxZip does that TADS
: doesn't. Commands you type are in boldface. I believe room titles are, as
: well.
You can't do this with the current TADS runtime. TADS itself does support
bold type (as you can see in the UNIX ports of the runtime that Dave
Baggett has done) but not much else, formatting-wise. The Z-machine is
more flexible. It supports bold, bold italic and italic in addition to
regular type. Plus you can have that as normal or fixed-width (monospace)
type, which gives you 8 choices.
Anyway, the reason the Macintosh version of the TADS interpreter won't
let you see boldface text or whatever is because it doesn't used styled
TextEdit. (TextEdit is the built-in Macintosh text-editing system software)
You'd have to rewrite the runtime to support styles. Which isn't massively
hard but isn't trivial either.
: There may be a couple more commands on the menus, which I hope is
: not what he meant, as I've never seen the purpose of this (does it take
: more time to choose Go|West or type 'w'?). The biggie is that the status
: line is a separate window. This annoys the hell out of me, especially
: since the status line keeps resizing in many games (for quotes). But I'm
: sure it could be done to the TADS runtime.
Just a note about the menus - I find them pretty helpful. But that's
because I've added command-key equivalents for the directions on the
compass rose. You just type the command key you want and it'll type in
the command. Useful particularly if you want to move in the same direction
several times, etc. Not hugely significant, but I like it. :)
: Really, I guess I'm confused as to what's missing from the TADS runtime
: besides a splash of the boldface pen here and there. Original poster,
: care to clue me in?
As has been noted, MaxZip does a fab job of supporting the Zmachine's
multiple type styles. It also remembers your type style and size preferences
between sessions; TADS does not, reverting to Monaco 9 each launch. MaxZip
also remembers your window size, which TADS also doesn't. (I hacked my
copy with ResEdit since it was annoying to have a teeny tiny window
appropriate for Mac Pluses in Monaco 9.) MaxZip has a command history,
which is a very handy timesaver. And finally, you can set custom text
colours with MaxZip, though that's not a feature I consider all that
important myself - black on white is the most readable colour combination
for my eyes.
However this isn't to say that there are things about TADS that I do
prefer over MaxZip. TADS has some useful commands in the menu bar, which
I kind of like. TADS keeps the status line in the same window as the
text, which I prefer to a floating status line (though I acknowledge
there are times it's useful to have it that way)
There are two features that I'd like to see on both interpreters, though.
First, drag and drop editing and second, zoom boxes on the windows. (MaxZip
has one, but it doesn't seem to do anything on my copy. And, hm, I just
noticed that MaxZip doesn't revert the cursor to the I-beam when in the
text window, and that it doesn't support Internet Config's ICeTEe. Not
that the latter really matters - I only know of one game with a URL in it
and it's not even released!) And maybe custom macros would be nice, and
support for Macintalk speech synthesis so you can entertain your friends
at unsuccessful parties (though admittedly that might be handy for the
visually impaired) and the ability to set the filetype for saved textfiles
from scripts, and speech recognition and maybe some artificial intelligence
routine that would write my thesis for me so I'd have time to play some
of the IF contest games, and...)
- Neil K.
-- Neil K. Guy * neilg@sfu.ca * tela@tela.bc.ca 49N 16' 123W 7' * Vancouver, BC, Canada