v0.7.2

Notable new features:

• A new lightweight markup language lets you customize text appearance in messages, sent either as a player or by a plugin.
• The new ArrivalEvent and DepartureEvent events definitively indicate when players arrive to and depart from the game.

Notable improved features:

• The chat plugin uses the new ArrivalEvent to trigger adding guests to the #guest channel.
• The chat plugin now automatically removes guest players from #guest when they depart.
• Help content for commands now lists permitted roles.

Fixed bugs:

• Missing help text for MAIL MARK_READ is added.
• The events plugin no longer allows guests to use it.

Other interesting changes:

• If the current owner of a thing is missing, it cannot be claimed or abandoned.
• You can now abandon a thing with no owner.

v0.7.1

Notable new features:

• AnnounceCommand lets a wizard page all players at once.
• Plugin commands may now list caller roles that are permitted for them.

Notable improved features:

• The chat plugin supports channel visibility and joinability constraints by role and/or player name. The role constraints are possible through the new getRoles plugin API command.
• The $chatadmin plugin command is now restricted to wizards.

Fixed bugs:

• RunCommand now ignores SHUTDOWN.
• ANSI coloring is now correctly disabled when an actor's "ansi" preference is not set to "true".

v0.7.0

Notable new features:

• Scripts have been removed in favor of plugins. Instead of running softcode written in Groovy and stored within a universe, Grounds calls out to external plugins over JSON RPC written in any language.
• In turn, plugins may call back to Grounds through a new API in order to gather information about the universe and make changes to it.
• All of the former scripts - random, magicfiddle, chat, and events - are replaced with equivalent plugins. The first two are written in bash (!) and the last two in Go.
• TeleportCommand and MoveCommand now emit enter and exit messages to other players when a player enters or exits a location.
• Similarly, YoinkCommand now emits arrival and departure messages to other players when a player is yoinked (logs in, logs out, or is yoinked).

Notable improved features:

• BuildCommand returns the ID of the thing it built.
• The GOD player can build from any location, even nowhere.
• RunCommand prints "true" or "false" for successful commands that return booleans.
• InitCommand no longer replaces the original guest home of a new universe.
• Code coverage tests no longer include code generated by protoc.

Fixed bugs:

• Guest players are now built with a BUILD command instead of directly by Shell, which closes a hole allowing changes in the universe outside of commands.
• ArgumentResolver now always checks the requested thing type when resolving "here".
• Empty lines work correctly in RunCommand again.
• LookCommand no longer reveals extensions to non-wizards.

Other interesting changes:

• Grounds now requires Java 17 or higher.
• GroundsSecurityManager is eliminated. It was only present to run with a Java security manager to try to protect Grounds from rogue scripts, but the danger is gone with plugins.
• RecordOutput and TabularOutput now support creation in one step from maps. This is mostly in service of plugin support.
• Jackson dependencies are updated to 2.12.6.
• There are unit tests for more commands and more of command handling, and more of other stuff too.
• A new Concierge class centralizes guest management.
• Use of generics around the Command class is tightened up.

v0.6.0

Notable new features:

• Telnet is now supported, either by itself or along with SSH.
• Autocomplete for commands and subcommands is available.
• Players are notified when another player arrives in their location by logging in, or departs their location by logging out.

Notable improved features:

• With no arguments, the HELP command provides general guidance.
• Line breaking is vastly improved. Most importantly, it now accounts for ANSI escape codes which otherwise can cause early line breaks. Trailing spaces are also trimmed more effectively.
• The MUTE and UNMUTE commands may now refer to players that are not in your current location. Similarly, TELEPORT may now refer to other locations by name.
• The WHO command reports the value of each player's "doing" attribute as a way of reporting status.

Fixed bugs:

• Entering an empty line no longer produces an error.
• Entering multiple exclamation points in a command no longer triggers "event expansion", which would insert previous command text. So awesome!!!
• The WHO and ACTOR BOOT commands no longer fail if an actor is connected but has not yet selected a player.

Other interesting changes:

• Messages can now emit horizontal rules which span the actor's terminal.
• You can no longer MUTE yourself. Just say less.
• The default host for the server is changed to 0.0.0.0.
• The maximum action dice you can spend on a combat maneuver is increased to 4.
• Unchecked exceptions thrown from commands are now logged and wrapped properly.
• An attribute specification, like "count[integer]=4", can now use lowercase for the type.

v0.5.0

Notable new features:

• Players can now engage in non-mortal combat! The new COMBAT command provides a system for teams of players, and optionally NPCs, to fight using skills and the luck of the dice.
• Non-guest players can use the new softcoded $event command to manage scheduled events.
• The new PAGE command lets you communicate with players from afar.
• The new CHANGE_PASSWORD password lets you do just that, finally.
• Actors can now set their timezone, which is applied to timestamps they see (like in events).

Notable improved features:

• The initial player selection process after logging in is cleaned up and much easier.
• Commands may now be input across multiple lines.
• The ACTOR GET command is improved with much more actor information.
• The WHO command is revamped with better output, and it now works for all players.
• MAIL LIST and MAIL GET command output is improved.

Fixed bugs:

• Some issues with rendering ANSI colors have been fixed.

Other interesting changes:

• The LOOK command shows the ID of the player's current location, when IDs are being shown.

v0.4.0

Notable new features:

• You've got mail! An in-game mail system is introduced through a new set of MAIL commands.
• With no arguments, the MUTE command prints out the player's mute list.
• A thing attribute may now have a "timestamp" type (with second resolution).
• The new ACTOR LIST command lists all actors.
• Grounds can now be run under a security manager, in order to restrict what softcode (Groovy scripts) is permitted to do. The run.sh script helps with starting Grounds with a security manager enabled. Operations that are restricted include:
  • working with the actor database
  • executing commands
  • working with and saving universes
• New events are created for:
  • a player leaving a location
  • a player saying something
  • a player taking something
  • a player dropping something
  • a player getting yoinked from a location
  • a player getting yoinked to a location

Notable improved features:

• Chat channels now have controls for who may see and join them.
• The INSPECT command can now print just one attribute of a thing.
• If a script run for a ScriptedCommand throws a CommandException, it is reported to the caller's console or shell, and not just logged.
• Scripts can now log what they are doing.
• A listener attribute on an extension may be made "localized", so that it only triggers for events in the extension's location.
• Events now include a location. Retrieved event payloads automatically include player and place IDs.

Fixed bugs:

• Line breaking no longer can occur within ANSI escape codes.
• A guest's temporary player may now receive messages and has a correct home.

Other interesting changes:

• The actor preference "showIds" controls whether thing IDs are presented in game. Usually you don't want to see them, but it can help wizards a lot.
• Line breaking is generally improved.
• Guests may now use the chat system, and are automatically joined to the #guest chat channel.

Internals:

• Java 11 is the new minimum supported JVM version.
• Several dependencies are updated, including Groovy and Apache SSH.

v0.3.0

Notable new features:

• When a player leaves the game, they are "stowed" at the universe origin and
  so not present in the IC world. When a player returns, they are brought out
  to their home location.
• New $chat and $chatadmin commands are available.
• Help text for scripted commands is now supported.
• Extensions support listener attributes, which are scripts run in response to
  events posted by commands. This enables automatic reactions to occurrences in
  the game.
• Extensions are now considered players in the game, with their own roles; this
  avoids the need to create hidden "bot" players for that purpose.

Notable improved features:

• Password authentication failures are logged in a way that is easily detected
  by fail2ban.
• Saving a universe to its default file, as well as autosaves, now involves
  saving to a temporary file first, to guard against a save failure corrupting
  the save file.
• Values for attributes that are themselves either attributes or lists of them
  may now be constructed from YAML strings as well as JSON strings.
• The GOD player is now handled better when a new universe is loaded.
• Failure to parse or run a script is now logged.

Fixed bugs:

• The SWITCH_PLAYER command now works even when the two players involved are not
  in the same location.
• Player auto-selection will no longer happen if the player is occupied.
• In single user mode, the GOD player's actor is now set, so that messages
  appear.

Other interesting changes:

• A universe is now required to have an origin, lost and found, and guest home.

v0.2.0

Notable new features:

• Things can be destroyed.
• Actors can store preferences. The only defined one right now, "ansi", controls whether color codes are emitted.
• Players can have home places.
• Actors may be kicked off of the server ("booted") and locked out.
• Players may mute other players.
• Players may describe things more easily.
• Guest login is supported.
• The server emits a welcome banner prior to user login.

Notable improved features:

• Help text is complete and packaged in a bundle for internationalization.
• Actor login times and IP addresses are tracked.
• The state of the universe is now saved automatically at a configurable interval.
• Actors may now log in multiple times at once.

Other interesting changes:

• The multiverse model has been removed. The game now only uses one universe at a time.

Internals:

• Unit tests are now using JUnit 5.
• Jacoco code coverage is integrated.