Description vs. text displayed when player is in room

Authoring Inform 7
1

I know this is a really basic question. But I didn’t know the proper designation so I didn’t know how to google for an answer.

There is an object’s description, but there is other text displayed with the room description. For instance:

Grandpa is a man. "This text is displayed when you enter the room to tell you grandpa is here." The description is "This text is displayed when you examine grandpa."

What if one wants these two values to be the same? Is there an easy programmatic way to do it?

Wes

2

The other text displayed with the room description is called the “initial appearance.” You could try something like this, maybe:

Instead of examining Grandpa: say the initial appearance of the noun.

Or if you want something general:

Instead of examining when the noun is not handled and the noun provides the initial appearance property: say the initial appearance of the noun.

(I haven’t tested these, though.)

3

Matt’s solutions gives the player the initial appearance even when s/he examines the object. If you want it the other way round (i.e. to use the description of a thing for its initial appearance), you can try:

Grandpa is a man in the warehouse. "[description]". The description is "This text is about grandpa."
or if you want it to apply all things (I don’t know if you really want an initial apppearance for all things in your game, though.):

The initial appearance of a thing is usually "[description]".
4

Perfect thanks. I should have figured this one out, but I like it:

Grandpa is a man in the warehouse. "[description]". The description is "This text is about grandpa."

Or vice versa. It just broke my programmer’s heart to repeat text.