Change history

Version 5.4 (13 Feb 2009)

• Fixed build problems on various systems.

Version 5.3 (14 Nov 2008)

• IFM is now hosted at Bitbucket.
• New them keyword, which refers to the list of items mentioned in the current statement.
• New game-solver variables: finish_room, finish_item and finish_task, which can be a comma-separated list of extra rooms, items and tasks which get assigned the finish attribute (i.e., cause the solver to exit).
• New task graph variables: task_graph_wrap, which controls word-wrapping when printing graph nodes, and task_graph_font, which sets the text font.
• The new keywords true and false can be used in place of 1 and 0, respectively, when setting variables.
• Both versions of the personal initialization file (.ifmrc and ifm.ini) are now read, if they exist.
• There’s a new Perl script ifm2web, which converts IFM maps to image files suitable for the Interweb.
• The GNU Emacs ifm-mode.el in the contrib directory has been improved: it can display task recording and debugging output, now has imenu and flymake support, and a minor bug fix.
• The documentation is now much prettier, thanks to Sphinx and Pygments. The contrib directory contains the Python module used to syntax-highlight IFM code and IF transcripts.
• Since asciimapper is now in the IF archive, it is no longer part of the contrib directory.
• PostScript maps now conform properly to Adobe DSC. This stops Ghostscript 8.x barfing on them.

Version 5.2 (7 Sep 2006)

• There’s a new -errors option, which controls the maximum number of errors printed before giving up.
• New program in the contrib directory: asciimapper. This is a tool to create IFM maps from ASCII art maps, contributed by Elijah Griffin.
• The GNU Emacs ifm-mode.el in the contrib directory has new commands to display maps, items and tasks and various other things. Based on an initial version contributed by Lee Bigelow.
• Several unused features which added needless complexity have been removed. These are: preprocessing by gpp, expressions for real/integer values, and variable interpolation in strings.
• An obscure bug has been fixed which involved the follow and need attributes combined. This caused some valid task orderings to be flagged as cycles.
• A bug with modification of room attributes has been fixed.
• Don’t crash when trying to solve game and there are no rooms.
• A crash when trying to print an error message about cyclic task dependencies has been fixed.

Version 5.1 (30 Nov 2004)

• The tkifm program now supports line numbering and syntax highlighting, thanks to a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous.
• There is now a man page summarizing the command-line options.
• In PostScript output, up/down and in/out labels are now drawn separately, next to their respective rooms. Also, if a link leaves a room and returns to the same room, it’s drawn as a small circle. Thanks to Dan Eble.
• Hopefully, the Windows port should work properly now.
• Fixed weird bug with scaled arcs in PostScript output. More thanks to Dan Eble.
• Fixed bug in ifm2tex with converting strings to TeX format (specifically, ones with embedded zeros).
• Fixed crash when using it in some circumstances.

Version 5.0 (23 Jan 2003)

• New map output: Fig format, suitable for viewing or editing with Xfig, or exporting to other formats.
• New utility program: ifm2dev, which pipes IFM output in Fig format through fig2dev repeatedly to write each map section to its own file.
• New utility program: ifm2tex, which converts Fig files to EPS and includes them in a LaTeX document together with tables of items and tasks.
• New task output: graphviz (dot) format, which dumps a task dependency graph.
• New keep with and keep until syntax for items, allowing items to be kept until certain tasks are done or certain other items are dropped.
• New room nodrop attribute, indicating that no items should be dropped there.
• New task and item ignore attribute, indicating that these things should be ignored when finding a solution.
• New task do attribute, indicating that when a task is done, it also does one or more other tasks automatically.
• New option: -style, which sets global styles for all IFM objects.
• New option: -set, which lets you set variables from the command line. To support this, the variable-setting syntax has been changed: instead of a space separating the driver name from the variable, there’s now a period.
• New -show option: maps, which lists all the map sections and their sizes.
• The -map option now accepts an optional list of map sections to print.
• There’s a bunch of new variables to control things, including the overall behaviour of the game solver.
• IFM input is now preprocessed, in a similar way to C programs. As a result, the old include and alias features have been replaced with the preprocessor equivalents.
• There’s a new require keyword, which lets you say that a certain version of IFM (or later) is required for a map.
• Changed implicit-link style behaviour: the style clause on a room now applies to both the room and the implicit link, so it’s now independent of its position relative to the dir clause.
• The command-line option -debug has been removed; its functionality has been replaced by a control variable.
• The old puzzle and special attributes have finally been removed; if you have any old maps which use these, you must replace them with the corresponding styles instead.
• Documentation is now distributed in HTML and PDF formats, instead of GNU Info.
• The GNU Emacs IFM mode in the contrib directory now has font lock support. The ifm.vim file has also been updated with the latest keywords.
• Fixed bug with room link and join attributes: it didn’t work to use last as an argument.
• Fixed glitch in room text on PostScript output: now tries reducing font size before squishing, so that text is filled better.

Version 4.1 (10 May 1999)

• Fixed minor task bug: in special cases, giving items caused solver to fail to find newly-opened paths.
• Fixed stupid blunder with DOS \r characters in one of the source files.
• Fixed core dump problem when reading colour definitions (on FreeBSD, at least).

Version 4.0 (21 Apr 1999)

• PostScript driver can now print in colour.
• New 3D room shadowing effect on maps.
• Many new output variables to control new map features.
• Variables can now be set via expressions, not just values. Variables can now be used to customize many aspects of the input (e.g., notes, repeat counts).
• Individual parts of the map can now be customized using display styles.
• New include syntax, which allows files to include other files, either explicitly or via a path search.
• New -include (-I) option to prepend directories to the search path from the command line.
• New -show option to show various things (defined variables, search path), also included in tkifm menus.
• More information is now printed in item lists: which tasks require an item, which tasks an item requires, etc.
• Some example maps are now bundled with IFM, in the demos subdirectory.
• Names and defaults of many output variables have been changed in order to make them more consistent.
• Extra complexity in variable syntax has been removed, as it wasn’t being used. Specifically, variables can’t be set according to type of output or per-map-section any more, only by output driver.
• Removed formatted man page documentation: now only Info, HTML and text documentation is distributed. If there are enough complaints, I’ll put it back.
• The puzzle and special attributes are now obsolete; they’re replaced by display styles.
• tkifm now redisplays old map windows when refreshing the map.
• Win32 version is now compiled with Cygwin b20, and so requires cygwin1.dll (not cygwin.dll), included in the distribution. See README.win32 for details.

Version 3.0 (1 Oct 1998)

• There’s a new program scr2ifm in the distribution, which attempts to convert a game transcript into IFM format. It’s a perl script, and gets installed on Unix-type systems if perl is detected.
• New nolink attribute for rooms, which suppresses generation of an implicit link between this and the previous room.
• New nopath attribute for rooms, links and joins, which stops those map connections from being used by the game solver.
• New task cmd none syntax, for tasks that don’t need any special user commands (e.g., visiting a room for the first time).
• New PostScript variable link_arrowsize, which allows you to change the size of arrowheads on one-way links.
• tkifm is now installed automatically on Unix-type systems if wish (or one of its namesakes) is detected.
• tkifm now shows busy-cursor when doing something CPU-intensive.
• Improved solver failure messages, which give more information about what’s wrong.
• Removed PostScript documentation from distribution.
• The times keyword is now obsolete (but still works, for compatibility); just the repeat count is used instead.
• Fixed bug with drop all except clause; it was treating it as just a simple drop clause.
• Fixed bug in task path calculation; it didn’t always choose the best route between rooms.
• Linking a room to itself with no dir clause now results in an error, instead of failing mysteriously at the map-drawing stage.
• Minor fixes to make installation smoother on FreeBSD.

Version 2.1 (26 Aug 1998)

• Fixed bug which caused some types of variable not to be set properly.
• Minor fixes to library functions to link properly under Solaris.

Version 2.0 (19 Aug 1998)

• Lots of new keywords for use by the game solver, which has been considerably enhanced.
• New commands to modify previous definitions, which allow you to keep all game hacks in one place.
• New show_tags variable, which toggles addition of room tag names to room descriptions.
• New -debug command-line option, which gives the gory details of what the game solver is up to.
• New recording output, which can generate commands to play back in interpreters.
• Package now has a test suite.
• Links and joins can now be hidden, which means they’re used only for task purposes.
• Removed groff output; it’s not worth supporting any more, now that PostScript output works so well.
• Text task output now prints details of the rooms you move through to get places, including directions moved in (or commands typed to move that way).
• PostScript driver now has some standard page sizes. Also there’s a variable page_rotate which can override the default decisions on whether to print landscape or not.
• Having no rooms defined is not an error any more, in order to placate tkifm.
• Changed list attributes to be cumulative, instead of overriding previous value.
• Variables can now be set to undef, which allows their default setting to reappear.
• Various tkifm enhancements to make it convenient to use your preferred editor.
• Unix version now uses GNU autoconf/automake for installation.
• Got tkifm save-as option to set current filename properly.
• Stopped outside grid warnings from causing tkifm to fail when drawing map.
• Library function now doesn’t clobber read-only strings.

Version 1.0 (11 Jun 1998)

• First release.