Changes to Snowplains Talker




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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.
  • Login time stops increasing after five minutes idle now.
  • 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.

  • © Copyright 1999 Snowplains Admin - snowadm@snowplains.org.