Version 1.0.6

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

• Location Directory Improvements:
  • New config option area_directory_order lets you specify an order for top-level areas in the directory.
  • You can now set an icon for rooms to highlight them in the directory. The default icon is a star for featured hangouts, but you can define additional icons for different types of rooms in the icon_types config option.
  • There's now a way to navigate from the area to the room. (suggested by Tat)
• New command job/merge to move comments and description from one job to another. (suggested by Tat)
• New command combat/teamname lets you set up names for different combat teams. (suggested by Roadspike)

Fixes

• Removed combat message spam when an action is no longer valid.
• Fixed an error when deleting locations. (reported by Blu)
• Renaming a wiki page to a page that already exists now gives an error instead of hiding the page. (reported by Blu)
• Plugin install was giving an error if it couldn't register the plugin with AresCentral. (reported by Tributary)
• Fixed an error if a NPC was removed from combat. (reported by KarmaBum)

Little Things

• A new config option hide_searchbox lets you hide the search box in the right navbar, for games that move it to the menus.
• Room search results now link to the room not the area. (suggested by Clockwork)
• Setting up a github action to run unit tests required touching a slew of files, but the changes were trivial.

Community Plugins

• New community plugin: Dotcount by Ren counts FS3 ability ratings.
• New community plugin: Renown by Lyanna lets you track character renown.

Version 1.0.5

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

Improvements to the locations directory:

• Better styling (thanks to contributions from Ren)
• A new rooms config option area_display_sections controls whether each top-level area gets its own row/header. You want to set this to true if you have a lot of nested areas, and false if you don't.
• The area name is now a link. (suggested by Tat)
• In the section display (with each top-level area having its own row/header), the area names are less verbose. (suggested by Blu)
• Offstage now shows up at the end with the orphaned locations. (suggested by Clockwork)

Fixes

• Editing locations was giving an error. (reported by ZombieGenesis)

Version 1.0.4

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

• The location directory has been overhauled to something hopefully more usable.
• Rooms can now have a shortdesc set, which is used as a summary in the new directory. (suggested by Tat)
• You can now add/edit/delete rooms and areas from the web portal. You cannot create or link exits.
• There are now admin commands to rename or delete FS3 abilities, to aid with configuration updates. (suggested by Tat)
• Added some guidance for game transfers.

Fixes

• Reporting PMs from the web portal sometimes gave an error message. (reported by Ren)
• Changed the way that combat actions are reset if they're no longer valid, to avoid a wacky race condition. (reported by Clockwork)
• Mounts now show up on the combat web portal display. (reported by Roadspike)
• Roster groups weren't sorted the same way as the main character gallery. (reported by Panic)
• Deleting multiple mails at once works again. (reported by Clockwork)
• Channel chat no longer logs an error when the discord webhook is blank. (reported by Clockwork)
• Reworked the job view so it's no longer a table, to avoid missing columns. (reported by Blu & Ren)
• When starting a new page conversation from the portal, the initial message would sometimes show up twice. (reported by Tat)
• The clearlog and enable/disable log client commands have been removed. They didn't work well with the new scene system and were also prone to abuse.

Little Things

• Player handles page no longer sorts lowercase names at the end. (reported by Ren & Tat)
• Removed an extra blank line on the client-side profile display. (reported by Clockwork)
• AFK status wasn't showing the right icon on the web portal. (reported by KarmaBum)
• Having a blank guest role (to disable guests) no longer gives a configuration warning. (reported by Blu)

Community Updates

• There's a new version of the ares-dark theme, with fixes for the table of contents styling (reported by Bessarion) and various other style improvements.
• Tat has released new versions of the text and randomscene plugins:
  • randomscenes had an issue where it sometimes emitted to the command enactor twice and gave them two prompts. That's been fixed.
  • Ren made txts count toward your word count achievement properly and fixed a color issue with the text preface
  • There was an issue (at least for me) where sending texts from the portal used the recipient's color when emitting to the game instead of the sender's. Fixed.
  • 'txt' on its own no longer throws a scary code error and gives a more helpful error message

Version 1.0.3

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

• pm/review now lets you select how many messages to show, and defaults to a lower number if you have screen reader mode enabled. (suggested by L.B. Heuschkel)
• The app review screen on web now supports markdown preview. (suggested by Tat)
• The mail organization features (tag/archive/delete) now let you specify a range of messages at once. (suggested by Blu)
• New idle/reset command that basically does the same as idle/now None but simpler.

Fixes

• Character pose select dropdown was showing the wrong characters after creating a scene on web. (reported by Blu)
• Setting an NPC action in combat would print a random bunch of numbers. (reported by Roadspike)
• Profile would show a broken image link instead of 'no icon' under certain circumstances. (reported by Ren and Panic)
• Date of birth wasn't displaying correctly in wiki exports. (reported by Ren)
• Shrapnel was using the vehicle's armor not the character's armor (reported by Roadspike)
• Edit/delete pose buttons on play screen were missing their screen reader labels. (reported by Rhia)
• Screen reader and color settings are now reset when someone is put on the roster or idles out. (reported by Lucia)
• Fixed broken link and general cleanup in the ansi color help article.

AresCentral Updates

• Incorporated the old log cleaner into AresC: https://arescentral.aresmush.com/log
• Fixed an error creating handles.
• Added a community code of conduct (really just capturing what had already been posted in the discord/forum rules): https://www.aresmush.com/conduct.html Note that this code applies to the central community features (discord/forum/AresC/etc.) shared across all AresMUSH games; individual games will obviously set their own rules (though they are welcome to adopt these).

Version 1.0.2

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Fixes

• Fixed a config error when using the game directory editor. (reported by Blu)

Version 1.0.1

Upgrade Notes

This version updates the ruby version to 3.1.2, so the normal upgrade commands won’t work. To update your game:

1. Use the shutdown command to shut the game engine down.
2. In the server shell, execute the following commands:

	cd aresmush
	bin/upgrade
	bin/update_ruby
	rvm use 3.1.2
	bin/startares

If you have trouble installing ruby 3.1.2, you may need to update RVM.

3. (OPTIONAL) Edit your profile file using nano /home/ares/.profile file to remove the line rvm use 2.6.3. (keep the new one for 3.1.2). You don’t have to do this, but if you don’t, you’ll see a brief blip where it switches versions every time you log in:

   Using /home/ares/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.6.3
   Using /home/ares/.rvm/gems/ruby-3.1.2

4. (OPTIONAL) Once you’ve got the game working, you can remove older ruby versions to free up space. rvm list will show which ones are installed, and rvm uninstall <version> will uninstall one. Keep 3.1.2 and you can safely remove the others.

Fixes

• Sending mail from the web was giving an error if you didn’t have alts. (reported by Clockwork and a few others)
• scene/invite command in game was giving an error. (reported by Lyanna)
• Forum reply-as character selector was empty. (reported by Clockwork)
• Installation was aborting midway through. (reported by Stalwart)
• The ‘you joined the scene’ message was not appearing when joining from the active scenes page. (reported by Blu)
• Character page photo gallery was formatted weird in the wiki export.
• Due to the Ruby update, Ares should install okay on Ubuntu 22.04 now. But 20.04 is still the standard supported version.

Little Things

• New mail-nav CSS class for styling. (requested by Ren)
• Some minor help file reorganization so a few things (like setting mail filters and loading code) show up more clearly.

1.0.0

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

• You can now install AresMUSH easily yourself from the Digital Ocean 1-Click Marketplace. This is now the recommended way to get a game. The installation docs/options have been overhauled for clarity.
• The mail screen now lets you read and reply to mail from your alts.
• Shared scenes now have an edit version history.
• Clicking on the hearts on the combat HUD now shows a more detailed damage display, and total damage mod is now shown on the character profile. (suggested by Blu and Roadspike)
• You can now join combat from the scene menu. (suggested by Tat)
• Combatant config lets you set up a default mount type. (suggested by Roadspike)
• Clarified distinction between manage_theme and manage_wiki - theme now applies to things like theme image uploads. (suggested by Tat)
• You can now invite someone to a scene on web.

Fixes

• Loading a scene you just created was sometimes causing an error. (reported by Blu; troubleshooting help from Ren and Clockwork)
• Trying to join a scene when your alt was invited now works correctly. (reported by monad)
• Configuration checking now properly checks for crew areas, empty cron jobs, and (Tat and monad)
• After approving a chargen app it wasn’t going back to the right place. (reported by Ren)
• A missed attack could still hit mounts; now it misses. (reported by Roadspike)
• Hitting alt-enter on various pages with editor (like scene editing) would cause an error.
• Forum “reply as” dropdown was not showing icons right.

Little Things

• Created an ‘approved_on’ timestamp. (suggested by Tat)
• Fixed scene notes width so it won’t overflow on small displays. (reported by Lyanna)
• New class for the job table. (requested by Ren)
• Fixed help file links. (Blu and Tat)

Community

• Lyanna has submitted a cool economy plugin: https://github.com/cailleach1310/ares-economy-plugin
• The ares-discord app has been updated to the latest version of DiscordJS. Nothing earthshattering, but it might be more stable. See how to upgrade.

Beta 109

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade Restart Required

Features

• Coders can now edit the designated “custom” code files from the web portal. This is available under Admin->Custom Code.
• You can now search locations by owner. (suggested by Clockwork)
• Alts can now see each others’ scene and word count on the Achievements profile tab. (suggested by Ren)
• Wiki files can now use markdown in their descriptions, and the edit box is bigger. (suggested by Tat)
• You can now boot players from the “Who’s Online” page on the web portal.
• Booting a player now imposes a configurable login timeout. (5 minutes by default) This is intended as a short deterrent to keep trolls from immediately logging back in; the statue command can be used for more longer-term timeouts.
• You can now specify npc_type in the combatant types. (suggested by Roadspike)
• You can configure the per-channel discord webhooks and links directly in the Setup Channels page. This will hopefully cut down on some of the configuration issues.
• A new sheet/<section> command (e.g., sheet/attributes) was designed with screen reader support in mind, letting you view only a single section at a time.
• When screen reader mode is active, you will no longer be automatically spammed by room descs when moving from room to room. You can choose when to look, or just use the new exits command to see only exits. The old builder command to see exit DB#s is now exits/details.
• Ares now has a Docker Image. There are a few rough edges, but it’s probably the best way to run Ares on your local PC/Mac.

Fixes

• A parsing error within a custom wiki extension will no longer make the portal unusuable. (reported by L.B.Heuschkel)
• The notifications tab should now work for characters with apostrophes in their names. (reported by KarmaBum)
• Events will no longer throw an error if submitted with no organizer. (reported by Roadspike)
• Saving game directory info will now warn you if it couldn’t update AresCentral due to config errors. (reported by PernWiz & Mr. Owlbear)

Little Things

• Fontawesome was upgraded to version 6. Icons are supposed to be backwards compatible, so you shouldn’t have any update issues. There are many new icons available.
• Added debugging for outgoing Discord webhooks. (to help PernWiz and others)

Community

• Lyanna has contributed two plugins: The Marque Plugin provides a marque system for Kushiel-based games. The Pendragon Traits plugin lets you use the traits system from the Pendragon RPG. Both have impressive web portal support. You can find the links on the AresCentral Plugins page.

Beta 108

Upgrade Notes

How to Upgrade (no restart required)

Features

• Alts can now view and edit each others’ player notes. (suggested by Ren)
• Posing and chatting with an alt from the web portal now updates that alt’s last online time. Note that other web actions like forum posts don’t, but this should broaden activity tracking enough so that alts don’t slip into the idle tracker. (suggested by Clockwork)

Fixes

• Idle queue actions were giving an error. (reported by Clockwork and others)
• Character icon gallery styling was off. (reported by ZombieGenesis)
• Learning a new ability from an alt with XP wasn’t working. (reported by Ren)
• Certbot install script was missing a dependency. (reported by ZombieGenesis)

Beta 107

Upgrade Notes -- PLEASE READ

This upgrade requires some special steps due to a new version of node package manager (NPM).

1. Type upgrade/start in-game to begin the upgrade.
2. Use the shutdown command in-game or Admin -> Manage -> Shutdown from the web portal to shut down the game. (See Shutting Down the Game for help.)
3. Log into the server shell and run the following commands:

cd ~/ares-webportal
bin/update_npm

4. Start the game as usual by running

cd ~/aresmush
bin/startares

Features

• You can now spend FS3 XP from your alts. (suggested by Ren)

Fixes

• Config editor is working again. (reported by ZombieGenesis)
• NPM upgrade issues have been resolved by reverting to the prior version of Node. We'll try the upgrade again at some point after some external-to-Ares package conflicts have been resolved. (reported by several folks; thanks to Clockwork and ZombieGenesis for helping me troubleshoot on their systems).