Diagnostics

As TADS 3 and Proteus develop, debugging tools specifically designed to take advantage of TADS 3 metadata and reflection features will be put into this module.

Referencing Game Objects in Meta-Commands

Proteus provides three means for identifying a TadsObject class object. Any object can be referenced using commands of the format:

>metacommand <opt> reference

Where:

metacommand is a proteus metacommand, such as @save, or @show.

opt is an optional keyword: sym, tag, or voc, specifying that the reference is to be interpreted as a symbolic, an object reference tag, or a noun phrase and is only required when some ambiguity exists in identifying the reference as a symbolic, object reference tag, or noun phrase.

reference is either a symbolic, an object reference tag, or a noun phrase.

>metacommand <voc> nounPhrase

Where the object defines vocabulary, it is often convenient to use the voc (noun phrase) version of the command to display object information.

>metacommand <sym> symbolicName

Where the object does not define vocabulary using the symbolic will display its object information. The symbolic form is case-sensitive. The symbolic MyThing references a different object from myThing.

>metacommand <tag> tads#hhh

Dynamic objects or objects not defined with symbolics should be referred to by using the object reference tag. Static objects can also be referenced using object reference tags.

Using Command AHref “Drill-down”

Several of the metacommands now use object reference hyperlinks that execute the previously issued command for the object reference that the author clicks on. This allows an author to “drill down” into object inheritance, extension, and containment hierarchies.

To enable this feature make sure that link highlighting has been turned on within the interpreter.

From the menu bar go to VIEW>LINK HIGHLIGHTING>ALWAYS SHOW LINK HIGHLIGHTING.

Going to a Location or Object

The @goto metacommand moves the actor to a