I7/Glulx: I7 inline styles ignored when printing to text-buffer windows from indexed text

[Erik Temple]

I've run into an issue that may be an I7 bug, a Glulx/Glk bug, or possibly
simply a limitation (though I doubt the latter); there is also a chance
that it could be due to a bug or an oversight in Flexible Windows, though
that seems less likely.

Basically, if you have a text-buffer window (other than the main window),
opened under Flexible Windows, the basic Inform inline stylehints (bold,
italic) are ignored if the output comes from indexed text. This little
example shows the problem:

<code>

include Flexible Windows by Jon Ingold.

Test is a room.

The test-window is a g-window spawned by the main-window. The measurement
is 50.

The drawing rule of the test-window is the test text-writing rule.

The test-var is an indexed text variable. The test-var is "This is output
from an indexed text variable. [bold type]This should be bold.[roman type]
And [italic type]this[roman type] should be italic."

This is the test text-writing rule:
move focus to test-window, clearing the window;
say "This is output directly via a say phrase (i.e., it is text). [bold
type]This should be bold.[roman type] And [italic type]this[roman type]
should be italic.[paragraph break]";
say "[test-var][paragraph break]";
return to main screen.

When play begins:
open up the test-window.

</code>

The output from test-var is straight roman text, the bold and italic
"tags" have no effect.

Does anyone have any insights/speculations about this issue that would
help me direct a bug report to the appropriate party?

Thanks!

Erik

[Andrew Plotkin]

Here, Erik Temple <ek.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I've run into an issue that may be an I7 bug, a Glulx/Glk bug, or possibly
> simply a limitation (though I doubt the latter); there is also a chance
> that it could be due to a bug or an oversight in Flexible Windows, though
> that seems less likely.

It's a limitation of indexed text, unless I completely misunderstand
what's going on. Indexed text is an array of characters. It can't
store style information at all.

Your question implies that it *does* work in the main window, but I
don't see that happening, and I don't see how it could.

--Z

--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*

[Erik Temple]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2009 22:02:24 -0600, Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com>
wrote:

> Here, Erik Temple <ek.t...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I've run into an issue that may be an I7 bug, a Glulx/Glk bug, or
>> possibly
>> simply a limitation (though I doubt the latter); there is also a chance
>> that it could be due to a bug or an oversight in Flexible Windows,
>> though
>> that seems less likely.
>
> It's a limitation of indexed text, unless I completely misunderstand
> what's going on. Indexed text is an array of characters. It can't
> store style information at all.
>
> Your question implies that it *does* work in the main window, but I
> don't see that happening, and I don't see how it could.
>
> --Z
>

You are right. I made the assumption that I had used inline stylehint
changes in the main window, but testing it just now, that doesn't work
either. And of course, I should have thought this through before
posting--as you say, an array of characters couldn't pass style info.

Thanks!
Erik