Hello, and thanks for your interest in CocoaTads.

The first thing I have to make clear is that CocoaTads is pre-beta at the moment. This means that a lot of features are missing, and there are probably plenty of bugs.  By using this pre-release software, you agree to do so at your own risk. If it causes any damage, makes your computer explode, etc., it’s not my fault. If you do find a bug, you can e-mail me at support@charlessoft.com to report it, but as always, you should check my web site (http://www.charlessoft.com/) for the latest version before doing so to make sure the bug has not already been fixed.

This version should be engine-complete. This means that this should be able to run any TADS story file, and everything should work, including animations, background images, sound effects, etc. If you come across a TADS story file that does not work properly in some way, please let me know about it and provide a link to the download location for the story file.

If I did everything right, this app should run on everything with:

- A Macintosh computer with a G4, G5, or Intel processor

- Mac OS X 10.5 or higher

However, I have only tested it with:

- my MacBook Pro

- Mac OS X 10.6.4

Therefore, it’s possible that it could turn out not to run properly on PowerPC machines or on 10.4 or something. If this happens, please let me know at support@charlessoft.com. Sorry about that, but in this early pre-release stage, if you use this app, you’re the beta tester.

One thing to note is that support for Mac OS X 10.3.9 and below is not going to happen. Please do not e-mail me with requests for this, as it would require redoing a lot of work that I’ve put into this app and would generally be a giant pain. 10.5 and 10.6 are quite nice, and I recommend you use one of them. :-)

The list of known issues is below - while your suggestions are welcome, please do not e-mail me about any issues that are already on the list. Also, please do not e-mail me with questions about how to use CocoaTads as I will most likely not answer them (sorry, I’m just busy at the moment).

Known issues:

- Number one: The source code is not yet available. I may eventually decide to make this open-source, but it is not time yet. Please do not e-mail me about this - I will release the source code if and when I feel I’m ready to do so.

- There are a lot of improvements that need to be made to the save file mechanism. One of these is that there should be a way to double-click a .sav file, have it open with CocoaTads, and then ask you what game file it goes with. This is not yet implemented. You have to open the .gam, then type “restore”, and then open the .sav.

- Eventually, I want to get this so that multiple games can be running at the same time. Unfortunately, due to the way the TADS engine is designed, it looks like some complicated stuff with threading will be required to make this work, so it’ll probably be a while before I get to this. As it stands, there’s a rather awkward error message that you’ll see if you try opening a game when another game is already open - sorry about that.

- VoiceOver support is currently not working properly.

- There are sometimes some weird bugs in the placement of the definition box when you use the built-in spell-check service (⌘-Ctrl-D). But I did implement the spell checker at least, and it’s partially working. Isn’t that nifty?

- There is currently no documentation at all other than this file, which isn’t much.

- There’s probably a lot more options I could implement in the preferences.

- There are some more things, but I’m not remembering them at the moment. I’m sure I’ll get some e-mails reminding me...

Okay, with that out of the way, what the heck is this? Well, CocoaTads is an HTML TADS interpreter for Mac OS X. If you don’t know what HTML TADS is, go here for a description:

http://www.tads.org

Basically, this allows you to play multimedia interactive fiction games without having to fire up VMWare or Parallels. I also made an effort to support standard Mac OS X services, so most of your favorite Mac text shortcuts such as control-A, control-E, etc., should work, and if you’ve set up any custom key bindings, they should be honored. Also, the dictionary widget works (sorta), so if you type ⌘-Ctrl-D while hovering the mouse over some weird word that some thesaurus-loving game author decided to throw in there, you should get a definition (it’s a little buggy, though). All in all, I tried to make this a nice, Mac-friendly port, so I hope that comes across.

Okay, now for the boring legal stuff that I have to put in here.

CocoaTads Copyright 2001-2010 © Charles J. Srstka

This software is freeware. It may be freely distributed, provided that the application and all documentation is included unaltered and in its entirety. It may NOT be distributed as part of any package for which there is a charge without first obtaining express permission from the author (I’ll probably grant it, though, I just would prefer you ask first).

This software is provided as-is. Absolutely no warranty of any sort, express or implied, is provided. The author of this program is not responsible for data loss or any other type of damage this software may do to your system. By using this software, you agree to run it AT YOUR OWN RISK.

This software makes use of the following third-party libraries:

zlib, Copyright © 1995-2005 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler

This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

libmng, Copyright © 2000-2007 Gerard Juyn.

liblcms, Copyright © 1998-2007 Marti Maria, with the following license:

//
//  Little cms
//  Copyright (C) 1998-2007 Marti Maria
//
// Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining 
// a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), 
// to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation 
// the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, 
// and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software 
// is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
//
// The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in 
// all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
//
// THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, 
// EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO 
// THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND 
// NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE 
// LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION 
// OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION 
// WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

libogg, Copyright © 2002 Xiph.org Foundation, with the following license:

Copyright (c) 2002, Xiph.org Foundation

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

- Neither the name of the Xiph.org Foundation nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

libvorbis and libvorbisfile, Copyright © 2002-2004 Xiph.org Foundation, with the following license:

Copyright (c) 2002-2004 Xiph.org Foundation

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

- Neither the name of the Xiph.org Foundation nor the names of its
contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE FOUNDATION
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.