FEATURE: UTF-8 encoding is now supported for source, solution and transcript files. This extends support for non-English languages. The new compiler option -encoding will make the compiler assume that the source code is encoded with UTF-8. In addition, import files that have a UTF-8 BOM marker will always be read using UTF-8 encoding, irrespective of any options. The interpreter switch -u will indicate that input and output in the terminal, command logs, transcript files and solution files, is performed using UTF-8 encoding (which is the default on Linux and becoming more common). See Appendix C in The Alan Language Manual for details.
FEATURE (language): Block comments. See chapter 4, Lexical Definitions in the Alan Language Manual
FEATURE (interpreters): Make it possible to generate transcript and command logs simultaneously from a single game run
FEATURE (misc): Ensure Alan complies with the Babel Treaty (a convention to make it possible to identify and catalog *all* works of Interactive Fiction)
FEATURE (interpreter): Add separate option for not paging output ("<More>")
WARNING: warn for actors in containers as the behaviour is not completely well-defined
BUGFIX: When an item is located in a container the limits now considers content in possibly contained items recursively. Furthermore, if the container in itself is inside a container with limits those limits are also checked. This might change behaviour of existing games, please check by running your tests.
BUGFIX: Large games with many string or set manipulations could sometimes exhibit significant slowdowns over time
BUGFIX: Transcript was always empty when started from code using "Transcript On."
BUGFIX: Random spacing issues fixed
BUGFIX: Dynamic variable $v gave wrong output if used in Exits
BUGFIX: Dynamic variable $o crashed the interpreter if used in an Exit
BUGFIX: Option section did not allow you to use 'no' before a boolean option
FEATURE: ellision/contraction marked by apostrophe (such as "l'aqua" in italian) is now handled so that it is first looked up as a complete word, but failing that will fallback and look for the two parts separated by the apostrophe as single words.
FEATURE: allow double conjunctions between player sentences, to allow such as "take the stone and then drop it". ("and" and "then" are both conjunctions).
BUGFIX: pack option did not work
BUGFIX: Random In Container sometimes crashed
BUGFIX: Grave accented 'È' ('è') was lost in syntaxes and synonyms
BUGFIX: It was possible to declare multiple pronouns but only the first one worked.
BUGIFX: System Error was thrown when using IN-filters and the container was a local variable.
BUGFIX: Division by zero crashed the interpreter, now it throws an Application Error instead.
BUGFIX: If the player input in a string parameter contained a dollar sign, it was expanded on output (or crashed)
FEATURE: compiler now figures out the most general class taken transitively by containers and uses that instead of entity where applicable
FEATURE: MacOS application to run text-only interpreter in a terminal
BUGFIX: if the hero was already defined as something other than an actor, declaring it the compiler crashed
CLEANUP: corrected implementation of transitivity
CLEANUP: rebuilt Makefiles for building on Windows10 and 64-bit, continuous integration with Jenkins etc. etc. after move to new machines and other infrastructure
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What they say
"I think its most attractive quality is simplicity, a quality that no other adventure creation language possesses."
Walt Sandsquish
"All those weirdly arranged parentheses, and semi-colons and strange curlicues hanging out in the middle of blank lines. Impossible. But when I looked at Alan I saw the light or, at least, English."
Eric Mayer
"If I was to write a new text adventure I wouldn't bother with any other authoring system. Alan is just that much easier."
Felix Pleșoianu
"[the game] does not represent the real capabilities of the Alan Language but does demonstrate Alan's amazing ability to allow someone who has never done an iota of computer programming of any kind to produce SOMETHING within a few weeks!"
Eric Mayer (on his game HeBGB Horrors)
"Well, it was very easy to learn and it's easy to do stuff in it."
