pal-tf.txt

;; An outside basic tutorial I learned about through the TF mailing list,
;; exact author unknown.


; Look to the end of the log file for a summary of commands.
; +mail Strongbark with questions regarding TF and this log. Thanks!

You say, "Welcome to my class on tinyfugue coding. Hopefully after the class 
	we'll be able to have an macro you have online ported to tinyfugue to 
	save much needed database space :)"

You say, "Just as a reference, how many people have done any tinyfugue coding 
	whatsoever in here?"

Glendor did some coding

Frodo raises his hand about an inch.

Lithait says, "not I"

Glendo says, "Actually, He had his before mine."

Tulvhon raises his hand, "a little

Torn raises his toe, but then gets nervous and drops it.

You say, "Okay, no problem. I am constructing this class so that anyone can 
	use it. If you know tf coding, the first few topics will be very 
	basic."

Yarrow says, "None at all."

You say, "First and most important thing in tinyfugue coding: Save your work 
	in a file!"

You say, "You CANNOT type /defs at the prompt and expect them to be there the 
	next time you load up tinyfugue :) It's much better to work with them 
	offline."

Torn says, "uhh...you mean the .tfrc file ?"

You say, "So, the people that have tinyfugue here (and can multitask), please 
	pull up a window of a blank file so that you can follow along."

Paleran nods to Torn, ".tfrc can be one of them. You can have other files as 
	well that contain your macros, as long as you /load them. Which leads 
	to /load, the first command you should learn.

You say, "/load <filename>"

Torn ahhs..

You say, "Pretty simple. It will just execute each of the commands in your 
	file. I will go over more in detail on how to construct files later."

You say, "First basic topic: simple macro programming."

You say, "I bet there are many people here, or many people on the MUSH that 
	have macros like:
$ic:+set ic

Paleran had it for the longest time before he got tf. This is the very easiest 
	macro to port into tf. Those that have their files up, type this into 
	it:
/def thinker=think [switch(hasflag(*paleran,connected),1,Paleran is connected!)]"

You say, "Then, type /load <file>."

You say, "..after saving of course."

You say, "And type /thinker."

Frodo kewls.

You say, "Very simple, very straightfoward. It can be used to port any of 
	your simple macros that do not require arguments. Some more examples 
	might be:

/def ic=+set ic

/def armory=@tel #12345

You say, "Also, you can use walking macros in this manner, but I'll go over 
	how to do those more efficiently later."

You say, "Next in line for macros that people commonly use: those 
	with arguments."

Yarrow raises her hand, "I know this is a basic question...but how do you 
	"save a file" in TF?"

You say, "How many people have coded a $pub:+com public=%0?"

Glendor coded it, but not for <public> :)

You say, "Um, you don't save a file through tf. You pull up an editor 
	(like pico, emacs) and save from there."

Glendor says, "Can you recall /defs?"

Yarrow nods.

You say, "Saving from tf is a more complex problem."

Dragan says, "Can you put notes in a file, like thinks that are ignored 
	when you use /load?"

Tulvhon has ctrl-w input '+com public=' into his tf input buffer....

Paleran nods, "/list, Glendor."

You say, "Dragan, all you have to do is place a semi-colon (;) at the 
	beginning of the line. Tf will ignore that line."

Dragan says, "Cool."

You say, "Now, to code a com channel macro in tf, the following is required:
/def pub=+com public=%0

You say, "Here is where I'll give a brief explanation of how tinyfugue 
	handles arguments."

You say, "A more in depth explanation can be found in /help substitution."

You say, "Basically, there are three types of arguments:
	%0 or %*: these two will select the entire argument line
	%1, %2, %3: these will select the Nth word from the argument list.
	%-1, %-2, %-3: these will select the entire list from the nth 
		argument."

You say, "Any questions regarding the three types of arguments? I'll use an 
	example that contains the bottom two in a moment."

Torn says, "any difference with %0 or %*?"

You say, "No, %0 and %* are the same in tinyfugue."

Torn nods

You say, "Okay, here is a simple (but stupid) macro you might want to use 
	in tinyfugue:
/def com=+com %1=%-1

You say, "Now, this exactly emulates the +com command. The channel is passed 
	in as argument 1 (%1), and everything after the channel is the text 
	to say on the channel, so to use the macro, you would type:
/com public Hello everyone!

You say, "Any questions regarding arguments? Realize this can be used for 
	ANY command. Your +looker's, OOC macros, etc."

Glendor has a question related to this macro.

You say, "Glendor?"

Glendor says, "In softcode, I can make a macro +os which will take +os:bahs 
	and +os :bahs and produce <OOC> Glendor bahs. Can I do it in TF so 
	/os:bahs works?"

You say, "No, you cannot. Tf will interpret everything from the / to the 
	first space as a command."

Glendor nods

You say, "Now I'll move on to multiple line commands. As a former smith, 
	I liked to keep a macro online that would enable me to describe a 
	helmet, shield or armor quickly using one command. Something like:
$dshield:+eqset shield/describe=blah;+eqset shield/osucc=blah, etc...

You say, "Now, in tf, you can make things easier on the MUSH (and yourself) 
	by doing something like this:
/def dshield=+eqset shield/describe=blah%; \
        +eqset shiield/osucc=blah%; \
        Etc.

You say, "Here I bring up two more points in tf coding. The %; will define 
	the end of a command, and the \ will allow you to place one command 
	on multiple lines."

Glendor says, "TF understands \ at the end of the line?"

Paleran nods, "TF will wrap the next line as part of the command if \ is 
	the last character of that line."

Glendor says, "Does it add space there, or strip trailing spaces?"

You say, "Take a look in your tf-lib directory. Like map.tf. A little 
	beyond the scope of what I want to cover today, but it contains 
	quite a few macros that illustrate what I'm saying."

Paleran hmmms, "Not sure, actually. Let me find out real quick."

You say, "It will strip the whitespace on the beginning of the next line."

You say, "Here's an example I just did:"

You say, "/def tester=think blah \
        blah2\
        blah3%;

You say, "When I typed /tester at the prompt, I got:
blah blah2blah3

You say, "Good question, Glendor :)"

You say, "Everyone following?"

Yarrow says, "Sort of."

You say, "Keep in mind tf is not MUSH. It's a whole programming language in 
	itself, essentially."

You say, "Now, for this is where you songbook/harp writers want to take heed."

You say, "You can easily code your songbooks offline and just load them in 
	with tf using the examples I have previously illustrated."

You say, "All I have covered so far is simple interaction of a user typing a 
	command at the prompt, and tf sending information to the MUSH that 
	you would exactly have on the MUSH. What I'm going to go over now 
	is tf-MUSH interaction."

You say, "How many people have the TF Edit macro? Probably everyone, right?"

Tulvhon nodsnods

Dragan noders.

Yarrow says, "I don't know. Sorry...I'm very basic here."

Torn doesn't actually know =)

Glendor nods

Torn goes sit by Yarrow =)

Yarrow grins at Torn. :)

You say, "This is a little harder to program offline. It requires a little more knowledge of tinyfugue and how it handles triggers. As an example, this is my robust version of that macro:"

You say, "/def ed = /send @swi [setq(0,sort(lattr(before(%0,/)/[after(%0,/)]*)))][words(\%q0)]= 0,@pemit/s me=%%% No such attribute(s).,@pemit/s me=[switch(#\$,>1,pemit(me/s,Additional attributes: [rest(\%q0)]))]Edit : &[setq(0,first(sort(lattr(before(%0,

/)/[after(%0,/)]*))))][first(\%q0)] [before(%0,/)]=[xget(before(%0,/),first(\%q0))]"

You say, "And the standard trigger afterwards."

You say, "Now, this macro is totally unnecessary for most people :) It takes 
	into account wildcards and other silly stuff."

You say, "But what I want to point out is the words() function."

Yarrow says, "What does the macro do?"

You say, "Notice how I escaped out the %q0? That's because tf will try to 
	analyze it. Make sure you escape out things you want the MUSH to 
	understand, like registers."

You say, "It will take an attribute and place it into your input buffer."

You say, "I will post a simpler version later on tacked at the end of the log."

You say, "So what you would do is: /ed obj/attr and it would place 
	&attr obj=<stuff in attribute> into your input buffer so you can 
	edit it easily. No nasty @edits :)"

You say, "Now, the tf edit macro most of you have illustrates the tf-MUSH 
	interaction and the next step of tinyfugue editing: triggers."

You say, "Triggers are something that tf will look for when input is passed 
	to it (from the MUSH) and allow you to process it any way you want."

You say, "For example, if you wanted to hilite pages, you would use this macro:
/def -ah -t'*pages:*'

You say, "And, if you wanted to keep a list of all the people that paged you, 
	you could do something like this:
/def -ah -t'*pages*'=/set page_list=%page_list %1

Orophin says, "Of course, that would miss the pose-pages...From afar..."

You say, "Which brings me to variables in tf. Variables are set with /set 
	and called using %, or %{variable}"

You say, "Of course, Orophin, then you'd do something like this:"

/def -ah -t'From afar,*'=/set page_list=%page_list %3

Orophin nods, "Just checkin'" :)

Glendor says, "But what I don't know how to deal with is that when you SAY 
	to me `Paleran pages, "Go to class!"' the thing is hilited as a 
	page :)"

You say, "Note that the triggered phrase gets passed to the argument list 
	whole. Not just the wildcard expression. So the name of the player 
	that pages you is %3 in the pose-page and From is %1"

You say, "Ah, that requires some nasty stuff."

You say, "The easiest way is to set NOSPOOF, but usually, you can't avoid it."

You say, "Remember, when you get set NOSPOOF, tinyfugue will interpret it as 
	a whole line. So you'd have to account for the beginning dbref in a 
	tf edit macro if you wanted to be NOSPOOF."

You say, "Well, this is about the scope of the class that I wanted to cover. 
	A brief introduction to tinyfugue coding and how to offload macros."

Torn holds his hand up. "Does the  for example take the first word from 
	the line the defined words are ?"

You say, "Right now, I'd like to open up the floor."

You say, "One moment..."

You say, "Torn?"

Torn says, "did you get that percentage sign ? =)"

You say, "Ummm. Please escape out the variable :)"

You say, "Use: %%0"

Yarrow raises her hand with a question.

Torn holds his hand up. "Does the %0  for example take the first word from the line the defined words are ?"

Torn acks..."I mean %1" =)

You say, "%1 takes the first word from the argument list."

Torn says, "I mean with triggers"

Paleran nods. With a /def <name>, though, the <name> is not passed into the 
	argument list, only what comes after.

You say, "Yarrow, you had a question?"

Yarrow asks, "If there anyway to set up defs so that they only work in 
	one particular world?...If you are several worlds at once this can 
	be confusing."

You say, "Yes, using the -w<world> option. Like I have a macro:
/def -wtol2 elf=+who/cu *galad*

You say, "Which will pass the text into the tol2 world (Elendor)."

Yarrow says, "So the -wtol2 is the name...then define as usual. Okay."

Paleran nods, "Right, Yarrow."

You say, "Does anyone have a macro they would like to have me convert for 
	them into tinyfugue?"

Yarrow still looks confused...but is listening. :)

Glendor converted all his macros, not it's time to convert FUNCTIONS :)

You say, "I have one last example to show, then I'll let y'all go :)"

You say, "It's the example I pointed out before concerning walking. You 
	know, the macros you have that take you from point A to point B 
	with one command."

Yarrow says, "Say you had a random emit set up on a MUSH...could you set 
	that up as a tf macro?"

Martyn pages: My bbscan attr.

You say, "Before I go on, though... Do you mean a random emit as in an 
	emit thats sent at a random interval of time?"

You paged Martyn with 'What dbref/obj?'.

Martyn pages: Me. :)

You paged Martyn with 'Attr? :)'.

Martyn pages: bbscan

BBSCAN [#17099v]: $bbscan:+bbscan [v(lastscan)];th [set(me,lastscan:[secs()])]

Long distance to Martyn: Paleran ahs.

Yarrow says, "No...an emit that draws from a list inside the object and 
	emits one at random when you issue a command."

You paged Martyn with 'Hold on, let me get Yarrow's question first :)'.

Martyn pages: Okie.

Yarrow says, "i.e.: 'strum guitar'...and then one of say 3 emits would happen."

Yarrow says, "That would pose you strumming the guitar."

You say, "okay, that would be simple:

/def strum=:[v(guitar_[rand(2)])]

You say, "Then you could have &guitar_0 me=First, &guitar_1 me=Second and &guitar_2 me=Third."

Glendor says, "Well, if we are saving DB space, you should move the texts 
	off-line too :)"

Yarrow asks, "How do you set up the emits? Would it have to be on the object?

You say, "You could also do that in tf. It has it's own rand()"

Yarrow nods to Glendor. "How though?"

Paleran hms.

Paleran tries something for a moment.

Glendor says, "I don't know if TF works as macroprocessor, i.e. if you can 
	compose variable names from bits which are evaluated"

Paleran doesn't think so, but I'm trying :)

Yarrow nods and listens.

Glendor says, "You can chain a bunch of /if's but that sucks :)"

; Trying stuff here, but can't get anything to work :)

You say, "This isn't an easy problem :) It requires manipulation of the 
	/nth and rand() function calls... I'm not an expert tf coder 
	myself which is why I'm having problems :)"

You say, "You see, there's no easy way to grab text like that randomly."

You say, "I'll figure out something after the class and post it to the 
	end of the log."

Yarrow says, "Bummer...this would really clean up my stuff elseMU too. :) I 
	like the randomness factor...helps add to RP. Well...I can move the 
	commands off anyway...it is a start."

You say, "Now, Martyn wished me to show him the /def for his bbscan macro."

Glendor says, "You can do it with /quote and shell scripts quite easily"

You say, "Yeah, but that's shell scripts ;)"

Glendor says, "And text will be stored in a file."

You say, "Could you write that up for me, Glendor? I'm really lacking in 
	shell scripts knowledge."

Yarrow says, "That would work for songs...but not the random commands...
	I'll have to keep studying."

You say, "The macro online is: $bbscan:+bbscan [v(lastscan)];th 
	[set(me,lastscan:[secs()])]"

Glendor has a few shell scripts running around his TF :)

Paleran says, "Offline in tf, the new command is:

/def bbscan=+bbscan [v(lastscan)]%; \
        /send think [set(me,lastscan:[secs()])]

You say, "So you could type /bbscan and have the same exact effect occur."

Glendor says, "Why nof @set?"

Paleran shrugs, "That was his macro :)"

Glendor says, "Ok, why /send? :)"

You say, "/send is a safety clause that I like to use. You don't *have* to use it."

You say, "It's habit for me to create macros that way :)"

Glendor says, "What does it add safety-wise?"

You say, "So TF doesn't try to interpret something the wrong way. Plus, it will send it directly to the host, instead of attempting to interpret it."

Paleran shrugs, "Like I said, you don't have to use it :)"

Glendor says, "Ok, why do you send +bbscan directly and think via /send?"

Glendor says, "That's what confused me, actaully"

Paleran was mixing it up... I did the /send without thinking. If I was to 
	create that command, it would be like:
/def bbscan=/send - +bbscan [v(lastscan)][set(me,lastscan:[secs()])]

You say, "The hyphen indicates the end of options. Again, a safety clause 
	so tinyfugue doesn't try to interpret anything as an option."

Glendor nods

You say, "It's good habit to use stuff like that so you use it when it's 
	needed. In that /def, neither the - nor the /send is necessary."

You say, "Also, it allows for extensions. If you wanted to use a variable 
	in tf, you would just simple add it to the text. Stuff like that :)"

You say, "Okay, but this is getting too far past what I wanted to cover 
	here, so basically the class is over :) I will post the log (and 
	Galdor will have it). It will have at the end a summary of what I 
	covered. All the /defs and how to use them."

Martyn says, "Kewl."

You say, "Thanks to those that stuck the class out, and I hope y'all have 
	a fun time coding in tf and offloading those globals!"

Yarrow says, "Great. :) Thanks for the class, Paleran. :)"


; Tf macros:

/def ic=+set ic

/def pub=+com public=%0

/def com=+com %1=%-1

/def dshield=+eqset %0/describe=text%; \
	     +eqset %0/osucc=test%; \
	     Etc...

; Here are two versions of the edit command:
; 
; The first will use the MUSH to process input, so you can send this:
; /ed object/attribute

/def ed=think Edit : &[after(%0,/)] [before(%0,/)]=[xget(before(%0,/),after(%0,/)]

; The second version allows you to type in the text like this:
; /ed object attribute

/def ed=think Edit : &%2 %1=[get(%1/%2)] 

; This /def is needed for either version:

/def -ag -t'Edit : *'=/grab %-2


; Perhaps I'll get into more in-depth macros later like the random emit
; Yarrow requested for. I can't quite figure that one out yet :) Using
; functions in tinyfugue is a little obscure. They usually don't evaluate
; the way you want them too ;)