Disambig/Distinguishers

Authoring TADS
1

Hello, geniuses. I need to borrow a cup of brains.

For reasons that seem less and less valid as I try to program, I decided to elaborate on the anatomy of my Actors.

Ex:

bob: Person 'Bob' 'Bob'
;

+bHead : Component 'head' 'head'
"It's severed. "
;

alice: Person 'Alice' 'Alice'
;

+aHead: Component 'head' 'head'
"It's not severed. "
;

scientist: Person 'scientist/schroedinger' 'Schroedinger'
;

+sHead: Component 'head' 'head' 
"It may or may not be severed. "

Um…but less morbid.

Anyway, here’s what I want:

But as you can probably guess, here’s what I’m getting:

I’ve tried creating a new class and reordering the distinguishers…


class BodyPart: Component
sightSize = small
distinguishers = [ownershipDistinguisher, locationDistinguisher, basicDistinguisher]
;

But it does nothing. I still get the same “The head, the head, the head” mumbo jumbo.

I even tried doing something with the listers, but that resulted in some bizarre nonsense about
" 's head do you mean, the head, the head’s head, the head?"

…

yeah.

I’ve been pouring through the tourguide and the library, but one is no help here and I barely understand the other. Is what I want even possible without have to go back and rename everyone’s heads based on who they are?

Please help; I’m on the verge of gnawing off my left arm. >_<

2

Look up the disambigName property in the Library Reference Manual. It may do what you want.

On the other hand, why not name bHead ‘Bob’s head’? Do you gain anything by not giving it a distinctive name?

BTW, I hope you’ll consider joining the TADS Study Group, which Conrad just started in Google Groups. I’m sure we’ll be kicking around ideas like this as we go along.

–Jim Aikin

3

As Jim suggested, I think a combination of ‘Bob’s head’ and isProperName=true would probably serve you well in a lot more situations than this. Compare “You can’t do that to the head.” to “You can’t do that to Bob’s head.”

4

Hmm, alright. I had originally wanted to avoid having to go back and rename everything, but I managed to use << >> to put a disambigName in my custom Class. Easy. Never even thought about the other situations, though, so I guess I’ll have to check that out too.

Thanks, guys. :smiley: