The next major update of QTads, a cross-platform TADS (2&3) interpreter, supports Multimedia TADS games (aka “HTML TADS”). The final version (2.0) is not released yet, but development is shaping up pretty nicely and in its current state can be used to play through all games I and others tested with no features missing:
Binaries for Linux and Mac OS X, more screenshots and the source code can be found at:
it’s working really well on my system (Archlinux), it’s good you’ve updated qtads, thank you.
I’ll add it to my livecd “esclinux” as soon as there is an official release.
I don’t have a PowerPC Mac, but it seems to run OK with Rosetta on Intel CPUs. Please feel free to contact me if you come across any weird bugs with it.
A final 2.0 release draws nearer. There are a few things left to do before that happens. One of them was the configuration dialog. The most needed functionality, like changing fonts, sizes, colors, hyperlink appearance and enabling/disabling media functionality is now provided. The visual glitches of that dialog on the Mac should now be fixed too.
Also, the application now follows local desktop standards and guidelines. For example, on Gnome and XFCE, changes apply instantly and there’s only a “Close” button. On KDE, changes don’t apply instantly, and there are OK/Apply/Cancel buttons. The behavior changes at runtime, according to which DE the interpreter is running in, which means there’s no need to have different binaries for each DE.
On the Mac, there are no buttons at all and changes apply instantly.
I hope to provide “Defaults/Undo” buttons at some point.
There were other changes and bugfixes as well. The new build (2010-06-02) can be found at the usual location:
I consider the Linux version very solid at this time. Unfortunately, there are a few strange bugs still present in the Mac version, which I’m trying to fix. (For example, the input window loses focus at times when scrolling or for no apparent reason.)
The input focus bug on Mac OS X should be fixed now A few other bugs were fixed as well (like being able to insert weird looking, non-printable characters in the edit field, and a crash that occurred in some rare cases when clicking on links.)
I’ve uploaded the new build (2010-06-04) for Linux and Mac to the download page.
Please give this build a try. If you find any bugs or even just weird behavior, please report it; I’m going to wrap this up for a 2.0 release soon.
A “Recent Games” menu has been added, as well as a game meta-info viewer. The configuration dialog has seen some changes too, like the ability to specify arbitrary font sizes and more native color button appearance (KDE/Gnome/Mac.) There’s also the usual assortment of bug fixes.
I ran Walker & Silhouette and played through the first scene quickly just to test that the new QTADS build was working for me. It is, but I noticed a small bug.
At the end of each scene, the game pauses to wait for a keypress, asking the user to “Press space”, and the word “space” is an apparently empty hyperlink. In HTML TADS for Windows, clicking “space” is treated as pressing a key and continues the game, but in QTADS nothing happens.
I’ve uploaded a save game so you can check it out. Type (or click) “door” to end the scene, then click “space”.
Thanks for your work on QTADS! w-s.t3v.zip (7.23 KB)
High, I just installed QTads (version 2.1.1-1) on Linux (AntiX - a Debian off-shoot), using apt-get install. The pictures aren’t working (though the links are), any suggestions?
A few other bugs were fixed as well (like being able to insert weird looking, non-printable characters in the edit field, and a crash that occurred in some rare cases when clicking on links.)