Introduction text help in Inform 7
Cerebreus
I wrote a short introduction text that I want to show up either
immediately before or after the banner text. I want it to be the first
thing players see.
However, every attempt at making it appear before play begins has met
with failure.
When the game begins after such attempts, there is NO text at all
except for those in the status bar.
While writing this, I decided that I want half of the text to appear
before the banner text and the other half to appear afterwards. Then
after the second half I want the room description to show up.
I've tried various commands (like when play begins) to get the text to
show up, but like I said, it didn't work.
This was before I decided to split the text before and after the
banner text, but I don't have an idea of how to do that.
Any suggestions?
ALSO, any critique on the writing?
Anywho, the text in question is below:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Finally, you get to live out one of your fantasies: to be like an
ork. After arriving in the game world of Orkishspiel, you are amazed
at the detail of the world. The virtual reality you are in is more
like a new reality than anything simulated. You notice you are still
human, but that is the point of the game. You're going to be orkish,
not an actual ork. There are reasons for this, the main one being to
make the player feel as if they are in the world instead of
controlling an avatar.
You have heard rumors from those who have already played the game that
the player is not the main character. You wonder how this can be, but
once the transition to the game world is over, the thought is
forgotten.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Soon after arriving in the room known as the Chamber, you immediately
set about creating an Ork identity, fashioning some of the junk around
the room into some armor and a weapon. You remember hearing people
have played the game say
In your haste to get into play immediately, you ignore most of the
surroundings. That's not a danger, though. Character creation is
usually separate from the game world, so there is no fear of missing
anything or getting hurt; the game would wait for you to finish this
task, though there was no guarantee of such treatment in the future.
After your eager frenzy is over, you 'start the game' and begin to
take notice of your surroundings."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Tarbert
> I got another problem again.
>
> I wrote a short introduction text that I want to show up either
> immediately before or after the banner text. I want it to be the first
> thing players see.
>
> However, every attempt at making it appear before play begins has met
> with failure.
>
>
>
> When the game begins after such attempts, there is NO text at all
> except for those in the status bar.
>
> While writing this, I decided that I want half of the text to appear
> before the banner text and the other half to appear afterwards. Then
> after the second half I want the room description to show up.
Try:
[code]
The Lab is a room. "This is the Lab."
Before printing the banner text:
say "I want this to print before the banner text.[paragraph break]"
After printing the banner text:
say "[line break]This is covered in ch. 17 'Activities' section 35
'Printing the banner text' of the documentation.".
[/code]
or even fancier, you can add this to the above:
[code]
Include Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short.
Before printing the banner text:
say "[bracket]Press any key[close bracket]";
wait for any key;
say paragraph break.
[/code]
HTH :)
Skinny Mike
Cerebreus
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thanks for the help. I got a few different problems now, though.
I'm trying to get the first intro text, the banner text, and the
second intro text all to appear on their own before the game begins.
Unfortunately, they either start right below instead of being the sole
thing on the page, or the part is cut off when it is on the same page
as the room description.
Should I include screenshots, and is that allowed on this site? How
would I do that anyways, if needed?
Or should I just show the source code.
Again, thanks for the help.
By the way, I try to look through the documentation. I did indeed see
the activities page, I had tried what it said, but it "didnt" work.
That's why I asked here.
Little did I realize that my problem then was that I was typing
"banner text" instead of "the banner text".
That was a mistake on my part, but I did learn some things from your
response.
Now I am trying to fine-tuning them.
Any suggestions?
James Jolley
Your best sending on the code really. I'm interested now as to why
mike's code wasn't doing what it should have. Perhaps it's something to
do with the interpreter your using?
Cerebreus
>
> - Show quoted text -
Here is the code for what I'm trying to do. I'm testing it within
Inform 7 itself.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[code]
Before printing the banner text:
say "[line break]Finally, you get to live out one of your
fantasies: to be like an
ork. After arriving in the game world of Orkishspiel, you are amazed
at the detail of the world. The virtual reality you are in is more
like a new reality than anything simulated. You notice you are still
human, but that is the point of the game. You're going to be orkish,
not an actual ork. There are reasons for this, the main one being to
make the player feel as if they are in the world instead of
controlling an avatar.
You have heard rumors from those who have already played the game
that
the player is not the main character. You wonder how this can be, but
once the transition to the game world is over, the thought is
forgotten.[paragraph break]"
Include Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short.
[/code]
[code]
Before printing the banner text:
say "[bracket]Press any key[close bracket]";
wait for any key;
say paragraph break.
[/code]
[code]
After printing the banner text:
say "[bracket]Press any key[close bracket]";
wait for any key;
say paragraph break.
[/code]
[code]
After printing the banner text:
say "[line break] Soon after arriving in the room known as the
Chamber, you immediately set about creating an Ork identity,
fashioning some of the junk around the room into some armor and a
weapon.
In your haste to get into play immediately, you ignore most of the
surroundings. That's not a danger, though. Character creation is
usually separate from the game world, so there is no fear of missing
anything or getting hurt; the game would wait for you to finish this
task, though there was no guarantee of such treatment in the future.
After your eager frenzy is over, you 'start the game' and begin to
take notice of your surroundings."
[/code]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now the first intro part is fine.
The banner text appears right below the first intro part, but I want
it to be separate.
When the second intro part appears, it is cut off midway.
Any ideas what I could do to fix this?
Otto Grimwald
> Now the first intro part is fine.
>
> The banner text appears right below the first intro part, but I want
> it to be separate.
>
> When the second intro part appears, it is cut off midway.
>
> Any ideas what I could do to fix this?
I don't understand your problem: your example just run fine for me:
There is the intro, then the "Press any key", a space, the banner, a new
"Press any key", a space, the second intro, and the game. The banner is
separated, and the second intro is not cut.
You can also add some :
clear the screen;
after the "press any key" if you wish.
Eric Eve
"Otto Grimwald" <contact_is...@anamnese.fr.st> wrote in
message news:493b820b$0$22500$426a...@news.free.fr...
> Cerebreus wrote:
>
>> Now the first intro part is fine.
>>
>> The banner text appears right below the first intro part, but I
>> want
>> it to be separate.
>>
>> When the second intro part appears, it is cut off midway.
>>
>> Any ideas what I could do to fix this?
>
> I don't understand your problem: your example just run fine for
> me: There is the intro, then the "Press any key", a space, the
> banner, a new "Press any key", a space, the second intro, and the
> game. The banner is separated, and the second intro is not cut.
Yes, I also couldn't reproduce the OP's problem, but there is
another problem with this code, namely that you'll get the whole
introduction displayed again in response to a VERSION command, which
probably isn't what you want.
The way to avoid this is to add the clause "when not requesting the
story file version" to all your before/after printing the banner
text rules, e.g.:
[code]
Before printing the banner text when not requesting the story file
version:
say "[bracket]Press any key[close bracket]";
wait for any key;
say paragraph break.
[/code]
(Also I'm not sure why you need two before and two after rules;
couldn't all your code be combined into one before and one after
rule? It seemed to work fine when I tried it.)
-- Eric
James Jolley
<contact_is...@anamnese.fr.st> said:
Same for me, the reason why I never responded is that being blind I
wouldn't be able to comment as much on the formatting problems you had,
but you weren't doing anything i'd not do with I7 myself.
Best
-James
Mike Tarbert
> "Otto Grimwald" <contact_is...@anamnese.fr.st> wrote in
> message news:493b820b$0$22500$426a...@news.free.fr...
>> Cerebreus wrote:
>>
>>> Now the first intro part is fine.
>>>
>>> The banner text appears right below the first intro part, but I
>>> want
>>> it to be separate.
>>>
>>> When the second intro part appears, it is cut off midway.
>>>
>>> Any ideas what I could do to fix this?
>> I don't understand your problem: your example just run fine for
>> me: There is the intro, then the "Press any key", a space, the
>> banner, a new "Press any key", a space, the second intro, and the
>> game. The banner is separated, and the second intro is not cut.
>
> Yes, I also couldn't reproduce the OP's problem, but there is
> another problem with this code, namely that you'll get the whole
> introduction displayed again in response to a VERSION command, which
> probably isn't what you want.
>
> The way to avoid this is to add the clause "when not requesting the
> story file version" to all your before/after printing the banner
> text rules, e.g.:
Yeah, nice catch, Eric. (It's funny, I remember at least one of this
year's comp entries made this same mistake and I forgot all about it.)
> (Also I'm not sure why you need two before and two after rules;
> couldn't all your code be combined into one before and one after
> rule? It seemed to work fine when I tried it.)
>
Right. I only separated the code in my original response because I
wanted to show the OP two different ways of doing it -- with and without
the "wait for any key" option. In actual practice, I would combine the
separate phrases. Also, although not really necessary, I'd move the
"Include" statement to the beginning, just because I like to have all
the extension includes together at the start of the source to make it
easier at a glance to see which ones I'm using.
Which brings me to the OP's problem stated above. The output seems fine
on my IDE (winXP). IIRC, James uses a mac, and although he's using a
screen - reader and can't actually see the output, I'm guessing text cut
off from the screen would also be cut off from the reader. Let us know
what OS you're using. The problem could also be some other code you've
got in there that you didn't post. Are you using any other extensions,
particularly ones which might be placing the output into a buffer which
is filling up?
Skinny Mike
Cerebreus
Thanks for the help. The "clear the screen" thing was what I needed.
Alas, I made a fool of myself.
It seems the cut off was due to the smaller window I had the thing set
on. Full screen "fixed" the "problem."
I know this might seem like an obvious thing, which it is, but there
was a reason I didn't think of it.
I had been using a gargoyle interpreter, so I was used to small
screens.
Also, before I added the extra long text, everything was on screen.
I was lead to believe that the top of the panel was always shown when
the game was wrong.
And to those who pointed out the code problem, I did clean up the code
a bit. I didn't think of how to combine them until reading the advice
here. Then I remembered the instructions on the documentation.
I didn't realize at first that a semi-colon would do the job.
Man, I feel like a fool.