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May 22, 2000, 9:02pm

As the subject says, Preston 30 is out.

The list of changes include:

- Note #1: The BETA phase of Preston will not end for a while since it is using the beta version of
the Active Worlds SDK.
- Note #2: Before updating your Preston, make sure to backup your preston.ini and preston.mls file.
You should regularly backup these 2 files anyway.
- This build has all the actions categorized and sorted now on the Dictionary Entry Add/Edit Dialog.
Note that this is a visual change only, all old preston scripts load and function without a change.
- Preston now has a new event: Object select. It triggers whenever someone nearby right clicks an
object.
- Object Click events with no target name now trigger on all objects. In previous builds it was
required for the object to have a name, although any name did match, the name tag was mandatory.
This is no longer the case. To have the old behavior, you have to use a pattern like ?* or similar.
There is a new action "wait". The new action causes Preston to let a sequence wait the given number
of seconds. Preston puts the current entry on a wait list, and revives it after the given number of
seconds, continuing with any sequence attached to it. Therefore the action makes only sense as part
of a sequence. Note that only the sequence is waiting, all other Preston activities continue to work
during the waiting time. There is no limit on the number of sequences waiting concurrently.
- Pattern matching is now a matching option for phrase dictionary entries. The pattern matching
algorithm understands the usual wild cards * and ?, and letter sets in curly brackets, and negation.
f?b*r would match "faber" but as well "febour" for example. "t{a-c}st" matches tast, tbst, and tcst.
"t{!e}st" is like "t?st" except that it does not match "test".
- All events except for "phrase" used to have a simple equality match on their arguments (avatar or
object names, etc). this has been changed to "pattern matching".. .an avatar click on "f*" would
match anyone whose name starts with an f.
- The target name for "change object" and "delete object" now uses the pattern matching as well.
- The announcement page now carries a "face speaker" check mark which controls if Preston faces the
avatar it hears the chat text from. Its on per default to match the old behavior, but can now be
turned off.
- There is a new action, "change world settings", which enables Preston to change the current world
settings (lights, fog, etc) on command. It takes an world settings entry name as an argument. For
that reason all world settings entries can now be named, and the editing of the world settings list
is now possible even if the automated scheduling of those entries is turned off.
- "whisper reply" on the dictionary edit window was only working for "reply" action. This has been
changed, it now should apply to all other responses too.
- The <teleport> action now understands the at notation as targets to. using at faber or at someobject
would get your bot to the given avatar/object.
- The <avatar> action now takes the avatar number as a configurable parameter in the dictionary
entry.
Preston now has a <gesture> action.
- The "Named Objects found" display now should be able to display the numbers on the right column
accurately even if the number is very high.
- The <log> action was not properly saving the logged entries to preston.log. The output on the user
tab was ok, but the log file is corrupted.

Enjoy :)

Faber

May 22, 2000, 11:16pm

Just to save Faber from a duplicate bug report (BTW - I already told him in
private :D):

I have noticed that when I use whisper reply for the change world settings
action, it says it aloud. I am assuming this happens for all actions.

-Agent1


[View Quote]

May 23, 2000, 2:02am

Is there a reason this message went through the moderator?

-Agent1



[View Quote]

May 23, 2000, 2:03am

that's an interesting bug since one bug fix was the fact that a action said a whisper outloud.


[View Quote]

May 23, 2000, 7:22pm

anbugera at videon.wave.ca (Agent1) wrote in
<392a02e9 at server1.Activeworlds.com>:

>Is there a reason this message went through the moderator?
>
>-Agent1
>
>
>
[View Quote] There is no moderator in Bots, what makes you believe that it first went
through a moderator?

--

The Wanderer
Travel Well and may your Journeys be safe!

May 23, 2000, 7:22pm

anbugera at videon.wave.ca (Agent1) wrote in
<392a02e9 at server1.Activeworlds.com>:

>Is there a reason this message went through the moderator?
>
>-Agent1
>

LOL...just noticed that there is indeed a moderator in bots now.

--

The Wanderer
Travel Well and may your Journeys be safe!

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