Changes to Snowplains Talker

23 February 1999

timeout uses more verbose date formatting to avoid US/UK confusion.

It is now possible for the web login facility to be disabled by admin.

E-mail addresses may not contain spaces.

check info now shows the country configured.

After setting an idle message, you will get told how long you were idle when you next type a command.

Various updates and corrections to the UK version of the help.

friends no longer lists players who are not yet visibly logged in.

All objects belonging to player now removed at nuketime - also objects cannot now be given to or taken by newbies.

mail read on its own without a message number will now behave like mail next.

August 1998

Newbies no longer inherit old data from nuked residents of the same name.

Reboots and shutdowns happen without losing connections, unless the talker crashes irrevocably.

Reboot and shutdown messages changed to reflect their behaviour.

It is possible to force an external shutdown even if the talker thinks it should reboot.

If talker crashes irrevocably, or if it is shutdown, when starting up it now displays 'down' message instead of starting with inconsistent database.

email friends command to restrict viewing of your email address to your friends.

Initial login site recorded for newbies as their home site.

Prompts can contain macros which expand to time, location or player information.

timeout command to conveniently nuke timeouts.

Empty entermsgs are no longer allowed.

Pager is now used on room descriptions and on help.

Newbies can now read (but not edit) descriptions.

Lots of text output coloured and some permissions problems fixed.

Failed password logs include the user ident as well as the site.

Automatic handling of leading apostrophes in emote commands made more intelligent.

Code neatened up internally a lot!

The rank command can now take rank numbers as well as names, and operates much faster.

8 April 1998

vlog given permissions for each logfile, so now even choccy penguins can see some of the logs.

HTTP logins now also take note of when nameserver lookup is disabled.

More bugfixes to HTTP reconnects.

January / February 1998

Long descriptions added. The previous description is now called the tagline and the new descriptions appear separately from examine and are edited with the editor.

Some mail bugs fixed and a function to recreate a consistent mail system added for emergency use.

14 December 1997

Headlines command added to show the UK national news headlines, derived from www.pa.press.net.

check name to check for name clashes.

resident and make check for clashes and refuse to work.

Bugfix to HTTP reconnects.

27 November 1997

Room locking mechanism changed to simplify it - invites now removed.

Room commands can be done only on your own room.

List entry shown after making changes.

http:// appended to addresses when generating residents page.

You now can't delete your home room.

Reconnect behaviour changed so you don't lose previous changes when reconnecting - the state should be static across the reconnect.

check dns added.

grpleave warns you if the group is a saved channel so you know it'll come back at next login.

Bugfix: residency clash checks shorter names as well now.

25 October 1997

Function added to generate a mailing list for admin emails.

News now unsubscribes you from groups if they don't exist any more or the permissions now exclude you.

Added ID command to encompass previous ID command, site and trace functionalities.

Residents page now generated automatically.

Added net.pet as a new relationship.

Added ICQ pager numbers to finger.

Added ability to reject and divorce people not logged in, reluctantly.

object list is now admin-only, and sends the list to a file.

Bugfix to SPS cancellation of logged-off users.

26 August 1997

Lots of time spent tracking down a bug that was crashing us due to a malicious user and an obscure fault with the old mail system.

New mail system with folders, deferred deletion, forwarding, and rules for what to do when posting, saving, quitting regarding deleting and saving mails. Completely replaces old mail system.

Ability to disable nameserver lookup added since our server has a dodgy nameserver.

Bugfix to object give.

30 April 1997

Chocolate Penguins and above can now examine/finger banned players.

Added drop and pickup messages to objects.

Non-admin can now remove their own news articles.

News articles with subjects beginning with "Re:" don't get another one when they're replied to.

Friends mails no longer list the names, but just say Friends of XXX.

Connection messages show the ident for Royals and above. Chocolate Penguins see the site.

mail delete all added.

rmlist added to remove yourself from someone's list.

mailblock added to stop someone mailing you.

Both friends and fwho show people blocking friends tells in brackets [] now.

Bugfix to news posting.

15 March 1997

Site now shown on finger (for yourself, and for Penguins).

Failed help requests logged so we know what help we need to add.

Added ability to ban shouts for everyone.

Inform now shows spouses, slaves, and ministers.

quiz tick can now award more than one point.

Added specific social to a random person ability.

Added ability to restrict newsgroups to certain ranks, and also added a Penguin newsgroup.

Added .abort as an alias for .quit in the editor.

Ministers now have say_loudly.

mail recount removed.

27 February 1997

New quiz mode added for making quizzes easy to run and mark - quizzes won and played are saved and displayed on examine.

Residency date is now saved and displayed.

mail friends now possible.

Settings shown after room description when logging in instead of before, so you can actually read them. News check added to them.

You can't play SPS with yourself any more, and newbies can't do it. Both these measures to stop cheating!

Fixed replies to news articles so they don't overwrite originals.

30 January 1997

Players now have a country setting and all text output is internationalised - so far we only have UK and US and W3 for HTML output.

HTTP server added on additional port to give web equivalents of who, examine, finger.

New news system added with subscribable newsgroups and easy reading of 'new' news. Completely replaces old system.

[Convict] added for jailed player connections.

10 December 1996

time <player> now tells you someone's local time.

Nuked players are wiped from your list automatically on login.

New object give command to change ownership and location of an object simultaneously.

Output from idle improved and it now works with friendsof lists (@name).

Fixed bug so objects not on sale can't be bought.

Fixed the inform message so it always says [Penguin] or [Friend] if appropriate.

3 December 1996

Friends-of tells, remotes, thinks, sings and dreams.

finger friends coloured and changed to give how long since your friends logged on rather than when they logged on.

Added ability to destroy objects. You don't get your login time back.

Added show all to toggle all show flags, and coloured output.

Coloured some penguin commands which had uncoloured output.

Coloured the output from hitells.

Coloured idle warnings, and accompanied the one minute warning with a public message.

rename now performs a name check the same as when a newbie logs in.

Fixed bug where hatchlings who hadn't set email and password crashed the talker by doing a tf or similar.

Bugfix to length of group names and length of social names.

14 November 1996

look does not show prefixes.

divorce command added.

Relationships can be added and removed manually to cater for problems with player files.

Objects now display a default message for get and drop if no succmsg or dropmsg is set.

Hatchlings are prompted for their terminal type as part of the login sequence.

id doesn't show empty email addresses.

Added frazzle command for ministers.

Added scissors-paper-stone game with saved scores.

Added aliases of Surfers-style channel commands for handling groups.

Hatchling names are checked and problems reported to the Penguin channel.

6 October 1996

Nominate changed a bit.

Fixed bug in chlim_list for logged out players.

who paging fixed.

26 September 1996

Individual tells now appear brighter than those to multiple recipients.

finger now shows plans again. Oops.

check rooms display corrected.

Fixed small bug in forceable display.

20 September 1996

Groups implemented with provision for automatic multiple-recipient tell support.

16 September 1996

reject can now break off engagements.

finger and examine contents rationalised.

It is easy to determine a player's gender using finger or examine now.

list_res summary now uses the pager along with the main list.

Fixed bug in resize.

12 September 1996

Added more colour to who and spods.

Added a command to change ownership of objects.

Added ss to sing on the Penguin channel.

Added ef as an alias for remote friends.

Objects can be picked up and dropped now.

map now in technicolour.

The messages of the day are now coloured, and only display if they have changed since you last logged in.

Added new rank command to give your spod-ranking.

Commands listings are coloured according to ranks.

Some commands now can not be abbreviated.

Longest login session is recorded

You can now use "me" instead of your name in socials.

Bug fix for examine on logged out players.

Bug fix for nuke.

29 August 1996

Added rd and fd commands.

Added two more information fields: rlname and location.

Added colour to all short lists of players (swho, fwho and the list of people in a room).

Everyone now sees session changes, regardless of whether they see sessions with who or not.

Connect/disconnect messages show [Friend], [Penguin, or [Hatchling] as appropriate.

Fixed a potential source of crashes in reset_sneeze, blankpass and blank_email.

Fixed a bug in resize so Penguins can now resize someone else's list.

Changed the output from check info.

Started work on code to handle objects.

21 August 1996

Added colour to examine, room exits and login information.

privs now shows all rank flags for yourself.

picture command added.

20 August 1996

Extra tagged player files to hold new data fields.

As a result, new url, and relationship code (propose, reject, marry).

New auth code which waits for a response, scanning when it scans the player.

Remote sing (rs) and friend sing (fs).

A new I Spy game to play.

10 August 1996

forceable now works on people who can't force.

New archive_log command to forceably archive a log file.

list_res - counts the ressies without listing them.

Moved lots of admin commands around to lower levels.

7 August 1996

who at the login prompt now produces correct results.

tell <someone> *<something> no longer does a remote dream.

examine tells you if the player has new mail.

shutdown now kills the Guardian Angel so I don't have any more embarrassing memory lapses. A new reboot command provides the old shutdown functionality.

Hidden commands, to provide aliases without cluttering the command list.

9 June 1996

examine now shows some of the player flags at the bottom.

Names can now be abbreviated on examine and socials.

idle now shows the idle times as well as messages.

New, clearer, messages for earmuffs.

There is now a separate Penguin MOTD (pmotd).

Use of who is now mentioned in the newbie area.

Long titles are now refused rather than truncated.

Connection messages are now colour-coded.

New banlist command.

New resize command to automatically give you a maximum size list.

17 May 1996

The list of people in the room is always tabulated now.

Removed news and mail view.

Each command now has associated with it the level at which it can be forced.

wake can include a message.

Forcing multiple people to do socials aimed at a person now works.

quit can't be abbreviated.

forceable lists what can be forced.

Socials are case-insensitive now.

blockfriends tells your friends when you use it.

$$ for random socials now. Fairly random, anyway.

8 May 1996

quit can't be forced any more.

quiet command removed.

w is now short for who.

suggest command added.

suggest and bug echo the report to the [ADMIN] channel.

drag reports the reason to the [PENGUIN] channel, and the person dragged.

The ": " pemote bug is fixed.

Logs are now archived, not deleted.

say_loudly command added.

24 April 1996

Lots more new socials added.

spods command lists the top ten spods.

Socials allowed in main room again, because Penguins can ban them.

Commands can be abbreviated.

Residents may become inebriated and incoherent. Not just like normal, that is.

16 April 1996

drag lowered to Choccy level, but Choccies can only drag newbies.

Password change/set is reported on the [PENGUIN] channel.

11 April 1996

examine now works for logged out players.

who gives Chilly and Frozen for major spods.

Idle booting added.

spods command added.

29 March 1996

Warns to [PENGUIN] channel if a character sets an email address to one already in use. Kings+ get to see who it's the same as too.

lookup command looks up an email address and shows the player.

7 March 1996

Some new socials added.

Lots of public rooms added, including the residents' village.

Socials not allowed in public room any more.

vlog doesn't use the page if the user has it turned off.

list_res on its own now lists all ressies and a count of them.

3 March 1996

Social command added. Current socials are: grin, kick, gurgle, cart, kiss, tango, snog, and bounce.

Help completed for admin commands which were missing.