1TF(1) General Commands Manual TF(1)
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6 tf - TinyFugue, a MUD client
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9 tf [-ffile] [-lnq] [world]
10 tf [-ffile] host port
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13 TinyFugue (also known as "Fugue" or "TF") is a line-based client
14 designed for connecting to MUD servers (note: LP, DIKU, and other
15 servers which use prompts require "/lp on"; see /help prompts).
16 Most of the TF documentation is in the help file, which may be read
18 online with the "/help" command. This manual page may be obsolete in
19 certain areas; however, the helpfile will always be up to date.
20 TinyFugue is larger than most MUD clients, but has many more features
22 and is much more flexible. The goal is to provide the most functional‐
23 ity in a client that still maintains the user-friendliness of Tinytalk.
24 Clients with extension languages such as Tcltt or VaporTalk can do a
25 little more in certain areas, but are considerably harder to use and
26 learn. TF provides most of these abilities in such a manner that
27 learning to use any one function is relatively easy.
28 Because I am continually adding new features and changing the code, TF
30 sometimes becomes less stable in a new release. Versions labled
31 "alpha" are generally not as well tested as "beta" versions, so they
32 have the potential for more bugs. For this reason, I leave some older
33 versions at the site where I distribute TF, which do not have all the
34 current features but may have fewer bugs than the most recent release.
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38 With no arguments, TF will try to connect to the first world defined in
39 the configuration file(s).
40 With a world argument, TF will try to connect to world, as defined in
42 the configuration file. If world is omitted, it will try to connect to
43 the first world defined in your configuration files.
44 With host and port arguments, TF will define a temporary world and try
46 to connect to it. The host may be an IP number or regular name format.
47 OPTIONS
49 -ffile Load file instead of $HOME/.tfrc at startup.
51 -f Do not load any personal configuration file. The library will
53 still be loaded.
54 -l Disable automatic login.
56 -n Do not connect to any world at startup.
58 -q Quiet login (overrides %{quiet} flag).
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63 Among other things, TF allows you to:
64 Divide the screen into two parts, for input and output, with flexible
66 handling of input (/visual mode).
67 Connect to multiple worlds and switch between them.
69 Wrap MUD output at the edge of the screen.
71 Edit text in the input buffer.
73 Recall previous commands.
75 Modify key sequences used to perform editing functions.
77 Bind commands to key sequences.
79 Define complex macros to perform MUD tasks easily.
81 Create triggers which automatically perform certain tasks when certain
83 output is received from the MUD.
84 Modify existing macros using either a command format or interactive
86 editing.
87 Support "portals" that automatically switch from world to world.
89 Hilite or color all or part of a line that matches a certain pattern.
91 Gag lines that match certain patterns.
93 Suppress frequently repeated text ("spamming").
95 Automatically log into a character on a world.
97 Send a text file to the MUD in flexible ways, or echo it locally.
99 Send the output of a system command to the MUD, or echo it locally.
101 Send text previously received from the MUD to the MUD, or echo it
103 locally.
104 Repeat a MUD or TF command a number of times.
106 Do the above four things at varying intervals, or at a rapid-fire rate.
108 Log a session to a file.
110 Separate LP and Diku style prompts from normal output.
112 Page output using a --More-- prompt.
114 Recall previously received text.
116
119 TF will attempt to read two files when starting. The first is a public
120 configuration file "stdlib.tf", located in TFLIBDIR. TFLIBDIR is
121 defined when TF is installed, and is often /usr/local/lib/tf.lib, or
122 under the home directory of the installer. This library contains many
123 macros and definitions essential to the correct operation of TF.
124 Next, TF will attempt to read your personal configuration file,
126 $HOME/.tfrc, in which you can put any TF commands you want executed
127 automatically at startup. Two of the most useful commands to use in a
128 TF configuration file are /addworld and /load.
129 For backward compatability, TF will also try to read the TinyTalk con‐
131 figuration file. Its name defautls to $HOME/.tinytalk, or can be
132 defined by the TINYTALK environment variable. This file may start with
133 a list of worlds that will be defined as if with /addworld.
134
137 Anton Rang (Tarrant) in February of 1990 released Tinytalk, the first
138 Tinyclient with any great number of features, including hiliting and
139 suppression of text, simple triggers, and separating input and output
140 on the screen. Leo Plotkin (Grod) made rather extensive modifications
141 to Tinytalk to produce Tinywar, which was plagued with some serious
142 bugs and was never officially released (the phrase "Tinywar doesn't
143 exist" is often quoted), and is now an unsupported client. TF began
144 when Greg Hudson (Explorer_Bob) merged many of the new features of
145 Tinywar back into TinyTalk, and added many new features of his own,
146 most notably the split screen. Some of the code in Greg's releases was
147 contributed by Leo Plotkin. After Greg moved on to VaporTalk, Ken Keys
148 (Hawkeye) took over design and maintenance of TF in July 1991, and con‐
149 tinues to make improvements in features and performance.
150 The code size of TF has surpassed 300K (unstripped), and is signifi‐
152 gantly larger than Tinytalk. It is, in fact, more than three times the
153 size of a number of existing servers. As of version 3.0, it has 66
154 builtin commands and 57 library commands, each documented in the help‐
155 file.
156 It has been stated that TF is the most-used client in MUDdom at the
158 current time. I haven't taken a poll, but I wouldn't be surprised.
159
162 TF has significantly changed the tinyclient world. It has a number of
163 merits and a number of flaws, and has frequently been criticized
164 (mostly out of boredom; nobody takes this business too seriously) as
165 having too many features and being too damn big.
166 "Tinywar doesn't exist; TinyFugue merely shouldn't." -- Coined by
168 Woodlock, I believe.
169 "TinyFugue is a work of art." -- Binder, obviously after having
171 too much to drink.
172 "TinyFugue is the biggest hack since the platform it was built
174 on." -- Explorer_Bob, in one of his lucid moments.
175 The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington
177 Post all refused to comment.
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181 Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006-2007
182 Ken Keys
183 TinyFugue (aka "tf") is protected under the terms of the GNU General
185 Public License. See the file "COPYING" for details.
186 TF is currently supported by Ken Keys, who may be contacted by e-mail
188 at kenkeys@users.sourceforge.net or kkeys@ucsd.edu.
189
192 VERSION 3.2
193 /rand has been replaced with rand(). Color names can no longer be user
195 defined (but color codes still can). The "=" operator does comparison,
196 not assignment.
197 VERSION 3.1
199 Added type argument to WORLD and LOGIN hooks.
201 VERSION 3.0
203 Backslashes in macros are interpreted slightly differently than in pre‐
205 vious versions. Turning on the "backslash" flag will enable the old
206 behavior.
207 VERSION 2.1
209 The CONNECT hook is now called before the LOGIN hook. In 2.0, CONNECT
211 was called after autologin.
212 VERSION 2.0
214 In versions prior to 2.0, <space> was used to scroll the pager; 2.0
216 uses <tab> as the default, to allow the pager to be nonblocking.
217 Tinytalk style name gags and hilites are no longer supported. You must
219 use the '*' wildcard explicitly, as in '/hilite hawkeye*'.
220 Tinytalk style page and whisper hilites are no longer supported. How‐
222 ever, /hilite_page and /hilite_whisper macros are provided in the
223 default macro library.
224 The .tinytalk file may not be supported in the future; use .tfrc
226 instead.
227 The '-' command line option in versions prior to 2.0 is no longer sup‐
229 ported, and has been replaced with '-l'.
230
233 When unterbamfing, the old connection should not be closed until the
234 new connection succeeds.
235 If a shell quote (/quote !) reads a partial line from the pipe, the
237 read will block until the rest of the line is read.
238
241 The Surgeon General has determined that MUDding can be detrimental to
242 your GPA.
243 LOCAL TF(1)