1TF(1)                              TinyFugue                             TF(1)
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3
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NAME

6       tf - TinyFugue, a MUD client
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SYNOPSIS

9       tf [-ffile] [-lnq] [world]
10       tf [-ffile] host port
11

DESCRIPTION

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
17       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
21       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
29       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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36

COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS

38       With no arguments, TF will try to connect to the first world defined in
39       the configuration file(s).
40
41       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.
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45       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
48       OPTIONS
49
50       -ffile Load file instead of $HOME/.tfrc at startup.
51
52       -f     Do not load any personal configuration file.  The  library  will
53              still be loaded.
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55       -l     Disable automatic login.
56
57       -n     Do not connect to any world at startup.
58
59       -q     Quiet login (overrides %{quiet} flag).
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61

FEATURES

63       Among other things, TF allows you to:
64
65       Divide  the  screen into two parts, for input and output, with flexible
66       handling of input (/visual mode).
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68       Connect to multiple worlds and switch between them.
69
70       Wrap MUD output at the edge of the screen.
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72       Edit text in the input buffer.
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74       Recall previous commands.
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76       Modify key sequences used to perform editing functions.
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78       Bind commands to key sequences.
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80       Define complex macros to perform MUD tasks easily.
81
82       Create triggers which automatically perform certain tasks when  certain
83       output is received from the MUD.
84
85       Modify  existing  macros  using  either a command format or interactive
86       editing.
87
88       Support "portals" that automatically switch from world to world.
89
90       Hilite or color all or part of a line that matches a certain pattern.
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92       Gag lines that match certain patterns.
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94       Suppress frequently repeated text ("spamming").
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96       Automatically log into a character on a world.
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98       Send a text file to the MUD in flexible ways, or echo it locally.
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100       Send the output of a system command to the MUD, or echo it locally.
101
102       Send text previously received from the MUD  to  the  MUD,  or  echo  it
103       locally.
104
105       Repeat a MUD or TF command a number of times.
106
107       Do the above four things at varying intervals, or at a rapid-fire rate.
108
109       Log a session to a file.
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111       Separate LP and Diku style prompts from normal output.
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113       Page output using a --More-- prompt.
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115       Recall previously received text.
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117

CONFIGURATION FILES

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
125       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
130       For backward compatibility, TF will also try to read the TinyTalk  con‐
131       figuration  file.   Its  name  defaults  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.
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135

HISTORY

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.
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151       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
157       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.
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160

REVIEWS

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
167            "Tinywar doesn't exist; TinyFugue merely shouldn't."  -- Coined by
168       Woodlock, I believe.
169
170            "TinyFugue is a work of art."  -- Binder, obviously  after  having
171       too much to drink.
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173            "TinyFugue  is  the  biggest  hack since the platform it was built
174       on."  -- Explorer_Bob, in one of his lucid moments.
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176       The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor  and  the  Washington
177       Post all refused to comment.
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179
181       Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006-2007
182       Ken Keys
183
184       TinyFugue (aka "tf") is protected under the terms of  the  GNU  General
185       Public License.  See the file "COPYING" for details.
186
187       TF  is  currently supported by Ken Keys, who may be contacted by e-mail
188       at kenkeys@users.sourceforge.net or kkeys@ucsd.edu.
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190

BACKWARD INCOMPATIBILTIES

192       VERSION 3.2
193
194       /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
198       VERSION 3.1
199
200       Added type argument to WORLD and LOGIN hooks.
201
202       VERSION 3.0
203
204       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
208       VERSION 2.1
209
210       The CONNECT hook is now called before the LOGIN hook.  In 2.0,  CONNECT
211       was called after autologin.
212
213       VERSION 2.0
214
215       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.
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218       Tinytalk style name gags and hilites are no longer supported.  You must
219       use the '*' wildcard explicitly, as in '/hilite hawkeye*'.
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221       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
225       The  .tinytalk  file  may  not  be  supported  in the future; use .tfrc
226       instead.
227
228       The '-' command line option in versions prior to 2.0 is no longer  sup‐
229       ported, and has been replaced with '-l'.
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231

BUGS

233       When  unterbamfing,  the  old connection should not be closed until the
234       new connection succeeds.
235
236       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.
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239

WARNINGS

241       The  Surgeon  General has determined that MUDding can be detrimental to
242       your GPA.
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245
246TinyFugue 5.0                     2007-01-13                             TF(1)
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