Provided by: tf5_5.0beta8-7_amd64 
NAME
tf - TinyFugue, a MUD client
SYNOPSIS
tf [-ffile] [-lnq] [world]
tf [-ffile] host port
DESCRIPTION
TinyFugue (also known as "Fugue" or "TF") is a line-based client designed for connecting
to MUD servers (note: LP, DIKU, and other servers which use prompts require "/lp on"; see
/help prompts).
Most of the TF documentation is in the help file, which may be read online with the
"/help" command. This manual page may be obsolete in certain areas; however, the helpfile
will always be up to date.
TinyFugue is larger than most MUD clients, but has many more features and is much more
flexible. The goal is to provide the most functionality in a client that still maintains
the user-friendliness of Tinytalk. Clients with extension languages such as Tcltt or
VaporTalk can do a little more in certain areas, but are considerably harder to use and
learn. TF provides most of these abilities in such a manner that learning to use any one
function is relatively easy.
Because I am continually adding new features and changing the code, TF sometimes becomes
less stable in a new release. Versions labled "alpha" are generally not as well tested as
"beta" versions, so they have the potential for more bugs. For this reason, I leave some
older versions at the site where I distribute TF, which do not have all the current
features but may have fewer bugs than the most recent release.
COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
With no arguments, TF will try to connect to the first world defined in the configuration
file(s).
With a world argument, TF will try to connect to world, as defined in the configuration
file. If world is omitted, it will try to connect to the first world defined in your
configuration files.
With host and port arguments, TF will define a temporary world and try to connect to it.
The host may be an IP number or regular name format.
OPTIONS
-ffile Load file instead of $HOME/.tfrc at startup.
-f Do not load any personal configuration file. The library will still be loaded.
-l Disable automatic login.
-n Do not connect to any world at startup.
-q Quiet login (overrides %{quiet} flag).
FEATURES
Among other things, TF allows you to:
Divide the screen into two parts, for input and output, with flexible handling of input
(/visual mode).
Connect to multiple worlds and switch between them.
Wrap MUD output at the edge of the screen.
Edit text in the input buffer.
Recall previous commands.
Modify key sequences used to perform editing functions.
Bind commands to key sequences.
Define complex macros to perform MUD tasks easily.
Create triggers which automatically perform certain tasks when certain output is received
from the MUD.
Modify existing macros using either a command format or interactive editing.
Support "portals" that automatically switch from world to world.
Hilite or color all or part of a line that matches a certain pattern.
Gag lines that match certain patterns.
Suppress frequently repeated text ("spamming").
Automatically log into a character on a world.
Send a text file to the MUD in flexible ways, or echo it locally.
Send the output of a system command to the MUD, or echo it locally.
Send text previously received from the MUD to the MUD, or echo it locally.
Repeat a MUD or TF command a number of times.
Do the above four things at varying intervals, or at a rapid-fire rate.
Log a session to a file.
Separate LP and Diku style prompts from normal output.
Page output using a --More-- prompt.
Recall previously received text.
CONFIGURATION FILES
TF will attempt to read two files when starting. The first is a public configuration file
"stdlib.tf", located in TFLIBDIR. TFLIBDIR is defined when TF is installed, and is often
/usr/local/lib/tf.lib, or under the home directory of the installer. This library
contains many macros and definitions essential to the correct operation of TF.
Next, TF will attempt to read your personal configuration file, $HOME/.tfrc, in which you
can put any TF commands you want executed automatically at startup. Two of the most
useful commands to use in a TF configuration file are /addworld and /load.
For backward compatibility, TF will also try to read the TinyTalk configuration file. Its
name defautls to $HOME/.tinytalk, or can be defined by the TINYTALK environment variable.
This file may start with a list of worlds that will be defined as if with /addworld.
HISTORY
Anton Rang (Tarrant) in February of 1990 released Tinytalk, the first Tinyclient with any
great number of features, including hiliting and suppression of text, simple triggers, and
separating input and output on the screen. Leo Plotkin (Grod) made rather extensive
modifications to Tinytalk to produce Tinywar, which was plagued with some serious bugs and
was never officially released (the phrase "Tinywar doesn't exist" is often quoted), and is
now an unsupported client. TF began when Greg Hudson (Explorer_Bob) merged many of the
new features of Tinywar back into TinyTalk, and added many new features of his own, most
notably the split screen. Some of the code in Greg's releases was contributed by Leo
Plotkin. After Greg moved on to VaporTalk, Ken Keys (Hawkeye) took over design and
maintenance of TF in July 1991, and continues to make improvements in features and
performance.
The code size of TF has surpassed 300K (unstripped), and is signifigantly larger than
Tinytalk. It is, in fact, more than three times the size of a number of existing servers.
As of version 3.0, it has 66 builtin commands and 57 library commands, each documented in
the helpfile.
It has been stated that TF is the most-used client in MUDdom at the current time. I
haven't taken a poll, but I wouldn't be surprised.
REVIEWS
TF has significantly changed the tinyclient world. It has a number of merits and a number
of flaws, and has frequently been criticized (mostly out of boredom; nobody takes this
business too seriously) as having too many features and being too damn big.
"Tinywar doesn't exist; TinyFugue merely shouldn't." -- Coined by Woodlock, I
believe.
"TinyFugue is a work of art." -- Binder, obviously after having too much to drink.
"TinyFugue is the biggest hack since the platform it was built on." -- Explorer_Bob,
in one of his lucid moments.
The New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and the Washington Post all refused to
comment.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2006-2007 Ken Keys
TinyFugue (aka "tf") is protected under the terms of the GNU General Public License. See
the file "COPYING" for details.
TF is currently supported by Ken Keys, who may be contacted by e-mail at
kenkeys@users.sourceforge.net or kkeys@ucsd.edu.
BACKWARD INCOMPATIBILTIES
VERSION 3.2
/rand has been replaced with rand(). Color names can no longer be user defined (but color
codes still can). The "=" operator does comparison, not assignment.
VERSION 3.1
Added type argument to WORLD and LOGIN hooks.
VERSION 3.0
Backslashes in macros are interpreted slightly differently than in previous versions.
Turning on the "backslash" flag will enable the old behavior.
VERSION 2.1
The CONNECT hook is now called before the LOGIN hook. In 2.0, CONNECT was called after
autologin.
VERSION 2.0
In versions prior to 2.0, <space> was used to scroll the pager; 2.0 uses <tab> as the
default, to allow the pager to be nonblocking.
Tinytalk style name gags and hilites are no longer supported. You must use the '*'
wildcard explicitly, as in '/hilite hawkeye*'.
Tinytalk style page and whisper hilites are no longer supported. However, /hilite_page
and /hilite_whisper macros are provided in the default macro library.
The .tinytalk file may not be supported in the future; use .tfrc instead.
The '-' command line option in versions prior to 2.0 is no longer supported, and has been
replaced with '-l'.
BUGS
When unterbamfing, the old connection should not be closed until the new connection
succeeds.
If a shell quote (/quote !) reads a partial line from the pipe, the read will block until
the rest of the line is read.
WARNINGS
The Surgeon General has determined that MUDding can be detrimental to your GPA.