This will sound like a rant and I guess it is. But given what seems to be a multi-year release cycle of Inform, it’s very unclear to me why extensions are such a pain. Case in point. I use this line:
Include Common Commands Sidebar by Alice Grove.
That’s an extension from the Public Library that a new user may very well want to try out. I compile. I’m told:
"I can't find the extension 'Flexible Windows by Jon Ingold', which seems not to be installed, but was requested by: 'Include version 15/160122 of Flexible Windows by Jon Ingold"
So I guess shouldn’t the system work like literally any other dependency system and grab the dependencies it needs automatically? This is especially the case because when I look in the Public Library, there is no such extension at all. Flexible Windows is not there. So even if there’s no automatic dependency grabbing, why would the public library not have the extensions that other extensions need? I would think that’s a requirement for any extension being in the public library: that dependent extensions are also in the library. What would be the argument for that not being the case?
So I guess it’s up to the user to search around and stumble upon it. And I do mean stumble.
I say that because then I do a search and come up with this:
github.com/i7/extensions/blob/m … indows.i7x
But that’s Version 15/170131 of Flexible Windows. Which is not what I need based on the original extension, apparently.
I do another search. I come up with this:
inform7.com/extensions/Jon%20Ing … index.html
But that’s version 13/130803 of Flexible Windows. Also not what I need, apparently.
I do a search on “15/160122 of Flexible Windows” and all that comes up is this:
github.com/I7-Standard-Examples/Bronze/issues/3
I realize I could keep searching and probably find something. But I’ll turn to the crew here: what’s the normal way of handling these situations? Do I update my local extension of Common Commands Sidebar to ask for a more updated version of Flexible Windows? Then download that more updated version and install it in Inform?
I know it’s easy to bitch and whine about something but Inform clearly chose a design path of extensions and making a public library, so a base level of consistency seems reasonable. And it’s not like releases are so frequent that extensions would have trouble keeping up. If that’s not the case, it would be interesting to hear why not. I’ve encountered more than one situation where the experience is very much like the above.