omega.bug2

My own (Billy's) observations:

Inventory still contains some messages which cling onto the screen for far
too long (such as "You add the item to your pack.").  inv.c

The messages which are sometimes given while you're travelling need to have
a morewait() after them.  aux3.c

It would be really, really nice if confirmation would default to a no. It'll
probably work to change ynq() in util.c to accept spaces and default to
'quit', but I don't know whether that will work...  I'll try, though.  It
seems to be working OK.  There are some situations where a 'quit' response
seems to waste a turn, though; I'll have to puzzle that out.

It would be nice if I could control the duration of inventory mode.  For
example, when picking something up I'd like to automatically leave inventory
mode as soon as the up-in-air slot is empty (of course, this would not be
the case when the user had deliberately entered inventory mode, only when
they'd been pushed into it).  This isn't hard, but I have to find time...

Wow.  I just got a MAJOR patch donated which makes color possible on Unix
ncurses systems.  Tres cool.  Now to make it work on MSDOS, which
unfortunately can't do color anymore.  If this can be done, I'm going to be
able to postpone rewriting Omega's color 'graphics' (text, actually) system
and get down to actually fixing problems and adding stuff.  Confirmation!
It works, and works reasonably well.  It's not perfect -- the new system is
something of a hack, and doesn't set up things like bright backgrounds
(although it uses them, which makes things blink), but adding it makes the
DOS code identical to the Unix code, which allows me to remove a huge
amount of #ifdef code.  Yay!  This also makes the DOS version work under NT,
which is a great victory.  Hack or not, this patch just made my job a LOT
more fun.  Now I can concentrate on fixing the gameplay and later on writing
a _REAL_ display subsystem (graphics, text, whatever), and I can skip
worrying about fixing a broken subsystemm.

I've just changed the license from its former status, which was essentially
"don't make any money off of this, and ask my permission before you change
this" to the GNU Library GPL.  This change has two purposes: first, to make
it easier for programmers to change Omega (by not being _required_ to ask
permission); and second, to make it possible to distribute later expansions
to Omega without source code, so that puzzles and secret levels could be
kept secret.  I have not included any clauses prohibiting making money from
Omega; I believe that the (L)GPL gives sufficient incentive against that,
while still allowing for value-added work, such as tech support and
(profitable) CDROM distribution.  There are two important things to me:
first, that people get to enjoy Omega for free; and second, that people get
to make additions to Omega without having to release all the puzzles in
those additions.

In case you're wondering, I do have specific permission from Laurence to
make this license change.  Laurence, if you have any problems with any
aspect of this license, let me know and I'll post the correction.

Future plan: modernize the source code by using a K&R-to-ANSI converter and
going over it with a fine-toothed comb.  Are there any objections?  Any
non-ANSI systems still out there?