A play button

gabemcceldry · November 15, 2015, 6:16pm

I’m trying to design an answering machine which has some messages on it. I want the player to be able to press the play button and have each message displayed in the correct order.

[code]A button is a kind of thing. A button can be pressed or unpressed. The play button is a part of the answering machine.

If play button is pressed
say “[oneof] [firsttime] Message one says… [only]Test[cycling]”[/code]

This is the error message I’m getting:

Problem. You wrote ‘If play button is pressed say “[oneof] [firsttime] Message one says… [only]Test[cycling]”’ : but this seems to give something a name which contains double-quoted text, which is not allowed. If you do need quotes in a name, one option would be to write something like ‘In the Saloon is ‘Black’ Jacques Bernoulli.’; but this problem message is often caused by an accident in punctuation, in which case you never intended to create an object - you thought that the text ended a sentence because it finished with sentence-ending punctuation, when in fact it didn’t, so that I read the next words as following on.

(The way this sentence starts makes me think it might have been intended as part of a rule rather than being a statement about the the way things are at the beginning of play. For example, 'If the player is in the Penalty Zone, say “An alarm sounds.” is not allowed: it has to be put in the form of a rule showing Inform what circumstances apply - for example 'Every turn: if the player is in the Penalty Zone, say “An alarm sounds.”)

Eleas · November 15, 2015, 6:37pm

“If play button is pressed” should be followed by a comma (if it’s a one-liner) or a colon (if the body of the rule contains multiple statements).

mikegentry · November 15, 2015, 7:47pm

A couple of things are going on, here.

First, you can’t have an “if…then” statement just hanging out in your code without any context. It needs to be part of a phrase or a rule. From what you’ve written it looks like you want the button to do something when the player types a command like “PUSH BUTTON.” So you need to write a rule for the pushing action.

After pushing the play button:
        say "[oneof] [firsttime] Message one says... [only]Test[cycling]"

You don’t really need a “pressed/unpressed” attribute for this, and the way you had coded it wouldn’t do anything in anycase. An either/or attribute (which is what your pressed/unpressed state was) is just a label; you can flip an object back and forth between the two states, but you have to deliberately write code to do that; it doesn’t just happen when the player enters a command.

The “[one of]…[cycling]” notations in your say message aren’t necessary, either. There’s only one option between them, so they’re just “cycling” through that one message over and over.

Finally, your “play button” is not actually a button. You have to explicitly indicate that in the code; it’s not enough to just include the word “button” in an object’s name. You want to do this:

A button is a kind of thing. The play button is a button.

Hope that helps.

Eleas · November 15, 2015, 7:59pm

Jesus, I think I have to recuse myself from further discussion until I’m no longer ill. Somehow, I saw “instead” on that line instead of “if”.

gabemcceldry · November 16, 2015, 7:37am

mikegentry:

gabemcceldry:

[code]A button is a kind of thing. A button can be pressed or unpressed. The play button is a part of the answering machine.

If play button is pressed
say “[oneof] [firsttime] Message one says… [only]Test[cycling]”[/code]

A couple of things are going on, here.

First, you can’t have an “if…then” statement just hanging out in your code without any context. It needs to be part of a phrase or a rule. From what you’ve written it looks like you want the button to do something when the player types a command like “PUSH BUTTON.” So you need to write a rule for the pushing action.
After pushing the play button:
        say "[oneof] [firsttime] Message one says... [only]Test[cycling]"
You don’t really need a “pressed/unpressed” attribute for this, and the way you had coded it wouldn’t do anything in anycase. An either/or attribute (which is what your pressed/unpressed state was) is just a label; you can flip an object back and forth between the two states, but you have to deliberately write code to do that; it doesn’t just happen when the player enters a command.

The “[one of]…[cycling]” notations in your say message aren’t necessary, either. There’s only one option between them, so they’re just “cycling” through that one message over and over.

Finally, your “play button” is not actually a button. You have to explicitly indicate that in the code; it’s not enough to just include the word “button” in an object’s name. You want to do this:
A button is a kind of thing. The play button is a button.
Hope that helps.

Yes it does. I wanted to add multiple voice messages, hence the cycling. Also, I was having issues, I think, with this before:

A button is a kind of thing. The play button is a button.

But I’ll try this all again and see what happens, thanks.

gabemcceldry · November 16, 2015, 7:52am

The cycling message part doesn’t work in this case. I’ve used it before in descriptions of backdrops, but not in this instance.

After pushing the play button: say "[oneof]Message one says...[cycling]"

This is the error message:

severedhand · November 16, 2015, 11:39am

If you cut and pasted verbatim, you’re just missing a space between ‘one’ and ‘of’

ie It should be

[one of]

-Wade

gabemcceldry · November 16, 2015, 8:26pm

I thought I tried that; I guess not, thanks.