The TADS 3 Tour Guide and Getting Started in TADS 3, formerly available from this site are now part of the TADS 3 documentation set, which can be obtained from tads.org. For the latest official release (3.0.18.1) see http://www.tads.org/tads3.htm.
This latest release of TADS 3 contains a new manual (first distributed with version 3.0.16), Learning TADS 3, that takes a different approach from that of Getting Started. Instead of taking the reader through the development of a tutorial game, Learning TADS 3 works through the basics of TADS 3 in a more systematic fashion, with short snippets of example code as illustrations, and longer exercises readers are invited to carry out. Learning TADS 3 should be a good alternative for people who don't find the approach of Getting Started in TADS 3 so helpful. Since this manual is still quite new it may require correction more frequently than new versions of TADS 3 are released, so the latest version of Learning TADS 3 will continue to be made available from this site for the time being; the current version of Learning TADS 3 (that of 08-Jan-09, with a few corrections made to the version released with TADS 3.0.16) may be downloaded from the link above (this is the same as the version of Learning TADS 3 distributed with TADS 3.0.18). You can also view Learning TADS 3 on line; I'll try to keep this version updated with any corrections I'm aware of.
Additionally, you may want to view the log of corrections to Learning TADS 3 since the version distributed with the TADS 3.0.16 release (although if you have downloaded version TADS 3.0.18 or 3.0.18.1 you'll already have a version of Learning TADS 3 that incorporates these corrections)
Please send me any feedback and suggestions you may have on this new documentation. I should also be interested to hear whether you found Getting Started or Learning TADS 3 more helpful as a starting point for getting to grips with TADS 3, and whether substantial changes could usefully be made to Getting Started now that Learning TADS 3 is available.
The exercises in Learning TADS 3 refer to a set of sample games. This is a collection of ten small sample games designed to illustrate various aspects of TADS 3. You can download the source code for these games here, either for use with Learning TADS 3 or simply as a collection of sample TADS 3 code.
My article on Lists and Listers (in the TADS 3 Technical Manual for version 3.0.16) contains a potentially misleading error near the beginning, in the section on Really Simple Lists. Some missing square brackets may confuse some readers about the capabilities of the objectLister and stringLister listers.
Where the article says:
You may sometimes wish you could just use code like this:
objectLister.showSimpleList(orange, apple, pear);
stringLister.showSimpleList('red', 'white', 'blue');
It should have said:
You may sometimes wish you could just use code like this:
objectLister.showSimpleList([orange, apple, pear]);
stringLister.showSimpleList(['red', 'white', 'blue']);
Note the square brackets to enclose the list of objects and strings in the argument to showSimpleList(). More generally, of course, these methods would be used to format a list constructed elsewhere, e.g.:
objectLister.showSimpleList(lst); objectLister.showSimpleList(me.contents);
Note that this has been corrected in the Technical Manual for TADS 3.0.18. However TADS 3.0.18 incorporates a minor reorganization of lister classes that is not yet reflected in this article on Lists and Listers; see the the adv3 change log.
A page is missing from the TCommand documentation, both in the version that comes in the /lib/extensions directory of the TADS 3.0.16 installation. This has been corrected in TADS 3.0.18, but if you are using an earlier version of TADS the missing page can be viewed here. You may find it helpful to copy this page into the ../lib/extensions/TCommand/doc directory of your TADS 3 installation.
The sheer scope and scale of the TADS 3 library can seem a bit overwhelming at first. One way to help make it a bit more manageable is to summarise some of the essential information in Quick Reference charts. A collection of three such charts (in PDF format, designed for printing out) may be downloaded from here in a single zip file. The three Quick Reference charts included in this zip are a Dynamic Actors Quick Reference (for creating NPCs), a Templates Quick Reference, and an Action Messages Quick Reference to help you find the message properties you need to override to customise responses quickly and easily.
Game authors already familiar with Inform and interested in
learning something about TADS 3 might like to check out the TADS 3 versions of
the William Tell and Captain Fate games from the Inform Beginner's Guide,
which include substantial commmenting to explain the differences between the
two languages. A zip file containing the TADS 3 source for both games may
be downloaded from
here (last updated 07-Sep-05)
Having studied those, you may also like to look at the source code of my TADS 3
port of the Ruins game from the Inform Designer's Manual
(updated 21-Aug-06).
An improved version of this has now become the TADS 3 Library Reference Manual, part of the complete documentation set which may be downloaded from tads.org. It may also be viewed on line there.
As well as producing some of the TADS 3 documentation mentioned above, I've also written a number of games both in TADS 3 and Inform. Information about them can be found here
© 2004-2009 - Eric Eve