This file contains tips and additional information about QTads.


Unicode
=======

QTads uses Unicode to draw text when playing Tads 3 games.  To be able
to get things like typographical quotes (also called ``curly'' quotes),
typographical dashes (dashes of different lengths) and in general any
Multimedia TADS character entity or Unicode value displayed correctly,
you must use a font that supports these characters.  If the font you
select lacks these characters, all you will get when the game tries to
display these characters will be empty boxes.  If this happens, select
a different font.  I recommend using TrueType fonts from a Microsoft
Windows or Microsoft Office distribution, since most of them include
these characters (and render better than most Type1 fonts included in
major Linux distributions).  You can check for these characters by
using the KDE program "KCharSelect".  Start it and cycle through the
available fonts on your system to see which of them display the
characters correctly (the typographical quotes and dashes are in page
32).  If nothing helps, you can disable the use of typographical quotes
in the configuration dialog.

Note that typographical spaces (en-space and em-space for example)
aren't supported by QTads.  There are two reasons for this:  a) The
Tads 3 VM does not allow text-only GUI interpreters to display them,
and b) even if the VM allowed it, the Qt library isn't able yet to
display them.  Sorry.  All I can say is that I'll try to work around
these limitations.  Until then, en- and em-spaces will be displayed by
using two ordinary spaces.


Multimedia TADS Character Entities in Tads 2
============================================

Although the Tads 2 VM is not able to use Unicode for I/O (and this is
not likely to change now that we have Tads 3), QTads is nonetheless
able to work around this limitation by using a variation of UTF-8
encoded Unicode for Tads 2 I/O (how this works in described in
src/osqt.cc).  This means that QTads can display typographical quotes
and dashes even in Tads 2 games if the font you use supports it (not
only quotes and dashes; the full set of Multimedia TADS character
entities is supported).  Note though, that the game itself must support
these characters.  If the game just prints normal ASCII (") quotes,
QTads can't change this.  Here's a list of games that support
typographical quotes and/or other special characters:

  Arrival
  Common Ground
  The Plant
  Till Death Makes A Monk-Fish Out Of Me

Here is a list of games that do *not* support this feature and simply
use plain ASCII:

  Aayela
  Babel
  Bliss
  Deep Space Drifter
  Glowgrass
  Kaged
  Losing Your Grip
  Lost New York
  Once and Future
  Perdition's Flames
  Small World
  Sunset Over Savannah
  The Legend Lives
  The Light: Shelby's Addendum
  Toonesia
  Uncle Zebulons Will
  Worlds Apart
  Zero Sum Game

As you can see, the majority of Tads 2 games doesn't support these
special characters.  Some of them due to the false assumption that only
HTML-enabled interpreters can do this.  If you're a game author,
please consider updating your old games to print typographical quotes
and dashes even in text-only interpreters, since these interpreters are
able to map these special characters to ASCII equivalents; for example,
if the game tries to print an em-dash, text-mode interpreters will
print two ordinary dashes.  There's nothing to gain by not using these
characters in text-only terps.  For example, don't do this:

  "\"Hello,\" he said. "

but rather:

  "<q>Hello,</q> he said. "

This gives interpreters like QTads or WinTADS a chance to use curly
quotes.  Other text-only terps will simply use regular ASCII quotes.


Supported HTML Tags
===================

QTads supports a small HTML subset (but still larger than other
text-only interpreters).  In particular, it is able to display bold as
well as italic text.  Horizontal rules are currently displayed using a
fixed amount of underscores.


Saved Games
===========

QTads can restore games saved with other non-HTML Tads interpreters.
You can restore games saved with WinTADS, MaxTADS, MacTADS, GlkTADS,
and in general any text-only interpreter that has a "Tads" in its name.
Of course it also works the other way around (or at least I hope it
does...)  Games saved with Multimedia Tads interpreters (HTML TADS on
Windows and HyperTADS on the Mac) are a different story.  Sometimes it
works, sometimes it doesn't.  When not, you'll have to play from the
beginning (I hope you still remember how you got there...)


Colors
======

The default color scheme is black text on a white background.  This
isn't very good for the human eye.  It's best to change the backround
to something less bright (if you want your eyes to do their job well
next morning, that is).


On-line Documentation
=====================

The configuration dialog's settings are documented; just click on the
"What's This" button (usually represented by a question mark '?' or a
small 'i' on the top right of the dialog's window-frame) and then on
some of the dialog's controls.  You can also right-click on most
controls and select "What's This?".


Aborting Tads 2 games
=====================

If, for some reason, you need to quit the interpreter immediately
without having to confirm it, type $$ABEND (which is short for
"abnormal end", not German for "evening").  Note that no leading or
trailing spaces are allowed and that the command must be typed in upper
case.  Also, the command will be recognized only if the game is waiting
for an input in the normal prompt (where game-verbs are recognized).
Furthermore, $$ABEND is only recognized by the Tads 2 VM, which means
it won't work in Tads 3 games.


I have more questions!
======================

Just send me an email then.  See the README file for an address.