This is a general reminder that if you want to use some shiny new menu extensions in your z-code or glulx game (maybe to sexen up your IFComp effort…?) that I released two semi-recently.
(EDIT: Mark Musante saw this post, and the extensions are now up on the extensions site, here:
inform7.com/extensions/authors/#Wade_Clarke )
Here’s the blurb for Menus:
“Lets you include a menu system of help, hints and/or other information in your Glulx or Z-Code project. This is an upgrade of Emily Short’s Menus extension featuring user friendly single keypress controls and a more sophisticated UI. It also has configurable options, a book mode with automatic pagination and isolated message content to make translation to other languages easy. Old Menus format tables can be upgraded for use with this extension with a little work.”
Here’s the blurb for Basic Help Menu:
“Provides a HELP command in your Glulx or Z-Code project which brings up a menu giving standard instructions about IF. This is an update of Emily Short’s Basic Help Menu extension to make it compatible with Wade Clarke’s Menus. Requires Menus by Wade Clarke to run.”
These extensions have the same name as the famous Emily Short extensions, as they are intended as upgrades/updates on those. I ran this past a good number of knowledgable people and they basically agreed I should stick with these names. Emily Short also okayed the project. All 4 extensions can co-exist in your Inform installation for the time being, since they are filed separately under their respective authors.
While these new extensions have a good number of features, the biggest helps are the single keypress selections (the old extensions required navigating in and out of menus with arrow keys, and also couldn’t keep your place in a menu) and that the newies produce really clean transcripts when players use the menu system. The old extensions produced pages of filler. All the info in the new Basic Help Menus is up to date, too.
The extensions have undergone all the tests required by the extensions website, as well as tons of testing by me and some by third parties. The docs are super comprehensive, and Menus has an example built in so you can see what it’s like.
(If you want, you can read the two old development topics about the extensions here:
The first one: https://intfiction.org/t/my-wip-menus-extension/5193/1
The second one: https://intfiction.org/t/2-new-extensions-glulx-menus-and-glulx-basic-help-menu/5274/1 )
- Wade