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QTads is a GUI interpreter for Tads games, running under Unix-based systems (it has been tested in Linux, Mac OS X and FreeBSD, but it should compile and run in many more, like Solaris and Irix). Tads is a programming language for implementing Interactive Fiction (text-adventures). If you ever played an Infocom game like “Zork” or “Trinity”, or the classic game “Adventure” by Crowther and Woods (also known as “ADVENT”; it has also been ported to Tads), then you know what this is about. The Tads compiler generates executables that run on the Tads Virtual Machine; much like Java. QTads is such a virtual machine; it runs Tads executables. Some Tads games use graphics and sound (Multimedia Tads), but QTads doesnt support that yet. You can play these games with QTads, but you wont see graphics or hear sounds. Only a subset of Multimedia Tads is supported (text-formatting effects and HTML character entities). On the plus-side, QTads supports more HTML tags than most other text-only interpreters. Since QTads uses Trolltechs Qt library for its user interface, it should be easy to port to other platforms as well, including Windows and embedded devices (cell phones, PDAs, etc.) It supports Tads 2 as well as Tads 3 games (although the Tads 3 support is somewhat half-assed, because it lacks banners). A multimedia-enabled version for HTML Tads games will be available Real Soon Now™ (which means somewhere between next month, next year, or next century). Note though, that this will be a different interpreter; QTads itself will remain text-only. QTads has a rather nice feature that none of the available Multimedia Tads interpreters can provide: text justification. This is only possible in non-Multimedia interpreters and is, more or less, the main reason QTads has been written. QTads is known to compile with Qt 3.1 and above. You also need a good C++ compiler. GCC versions 2.95.x and above are known to work. (I recommend GCC 3.2 and higher.) Although it hasnt been tested yet, Project Builder in Mac OS X should work. Other compilers should work as well, by the way..
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Windows Software
Albina Merfyn - I find this to be really easy to use. I can...
