FrobTads/QTads question - export transcript

Authoring TADS
1

This may be a glowering error on my part, but I can’t seem to find a way to get either FrobTads or QTads to export a transcript of the game session (list of commands is what I really need) from the command line.

Is there a command line option to do this on the Linux side? Something like the “-o file” switch on win32 t3run?

Thanks in advance.

2

I believe you can use ‘record’ after launching the game to save a command transcript list, and ‘replay’ to load and play back the command file. I’ve done it, but I’m not on my Mac right now, so I can’t check it. Let us know if it doesn’t work for you.

If you want a full transcript including both the commands and the game responses, you should be able to select and copy the text in the interpreter window. If you’re running the game on the command line, I wouldn’t know how to do that.

1 Like
3

Thanks Jim.

It does work, but for my purposes I need transcript control from the command line. Frobtads allows you to input a script from command line, but not output without the record command.

Hmmmmmmmm. I’ll check the docs again.

4

I’ve never tried this, and I’m not sure I’d have the courage to do so, as it’s potentially dangerous … but you could probably create your own recording function by copying the code in the library (look up the Record action), hard-coding a filename and directory so there would be no file dialog box, and then calling your function from showIntro. That way, each time you launch the game, recording would automatically begin.

5

There isn’t such an option, but it does sound like a nice thing to have. I’ll look into adding it.

6

I’ve did something similar to automatically record full transcript by adding this to gameMain object:

    newGame()
    {
        local date = new Date();
        ScriptAction.performFileOp('transcript/' + date, nil);

        inherited;

//        ScriptOffAction.turnOffScripting(nil);
    }

The commented-out line caused big troubles for me, but it worked overall quite fine without it.

On the other hand there is also a possible to feed some commands such as:

record on
transcript.txt
restart
y

through -R command line option of Frobtads to instruct it to do some recording prior the player types commands. This is what I use during testing for auto-walkthrough of my game where I don’t mind some initial commands. The first solution is invisible on the other hand. It’s probably not 100% what you want so take it rather as a source of inspiration than complete solution.

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