how can I get the command that requires the player to press any key to continue displaying text? I think two variations should be possible, the one that erases the text displayed before pressing a key, and the one that doesn’t…
Use the extension Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short. It comes included with Inform 7.
If you want to erase the text, you’ll use a separate statement (‘clear the screen’) in conjunction with the statement to wait for a keypress (‘wait for any key’). Alternatively you can use ‘pause the game’, which does both, but the player has to press space.
ok, explaining my problem on a broader scale:
interactive story, which means the game should run semi-automatic, the player isn’t able to do anything than press space and choose from given dialogue options (that’s problem #2); how can I achieve this the easiest?
To detect when the player presses space, use Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short. Among other things, it lets you pause the game until space is pressed.
Detecting when the player selects a conversation is relatively easy. There are two ways: A menu (using another Short extension), or a new action. I’d recommend the new action method, because I find menus clunky for things other than help systems. Just create an action applying to one number and understand “[number]” as this action.
There are a number of extensions that might help here: Simple CYOA, Adventure Book, Simple Chat, Quip-Based Conversation, and Questions.
–Erik
Simple CYOA quickly leads to WTF?, but Adventure book seems promising, gonna try that now…
but I’m pretty sure this should also work without extensions, it’s just hard to figure out the parts I need without learning the whole thing
edit: ok the extension should cover all I need (unless I run into unexpected problems), but clearing the page isn’t mentioned in the description, any advice on that? really need that feature…
Personally, I’ve found that extensions are one of the best ways to learn about how I7 works. If you study the code of these extensions (rather than just plug one in and use it), I bet you’ll walk away with a good idea of how to write your own implementation.
–Erik
Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short lets you clear the screen.
I was able to create a makeshift CYOA style conversation system involving sh*tloads of scenes, a number variable, and three actions (Aing, Bing, and Cing). Very big and messy but it works.
Should probably try one of those extensions though.
yes I know that now but how do I combine it with the Adventure book syntax? I really don’t have the time to learn everything just to come to a conclusion that is very easy to figure out who knows the software…
please…
Whenever you want to clear the screen, you just invoke the phrase “clear the screen”. You can do that in any rule. Simple.
here’s an example of the AB syntax, where would I place the clear the screen command?
The First Page is a page.
" An evil magician known only as The Mad Hermit is causing terror throughout the land of Placebo, and you’re as good a person as any to put a stop to him. So, laying aside your afternoon plans, you decide to head off on an adventure."
A choice called tfpa is for The First Page. “Journey forth!” It triggers YourHouse.
this indeed does the trick! but it also clears the screen every time a new page is triggered, how can I bypass this to make only certain pages clear the screen?
I’ve figured out to do almost all I need now, but:
-the interpreter (Frotz 1.14) eats the first two lines of every page displayed 
this obviously has to do with the aforementioned clearing the screen thing, and of course doesn’t happen when the game is played in Inform
any non-manual way to fix it?
Try putting something like this immediately after your “clear the screen” line:
say “[paragraph break][line break]”;
I’m guessing that in Frotz your text is getting hidden under the status line.
–Erik
thanks, paragraph break is one too many for some reason, but line break does the trick!
btw, you have the same first name as my main character 
now to my final problem: Glulx Text Effects by Emily Short
what I need is pink text (in the 3 variants roman, bold and italics), but the technobrabble in the manual does not make the slightest sense to me (or is there a way to get pink text with z-code?)
tx
another issue: any chance of getting rid of this text that appears on startup
– Created using Adventure Book for Inform 7 by Edward Griffiths
Based on Adventure Book by Jon Ingold
Command Summary:
LOOK / L Repeat the last page
INVENTORY / I Show player inventory
SAVE / S Save the game
RESTORE / R Restore the game
QUIT / Q Quit the game
RESTART / X Restart the game
HELP / H This text
Select options by their number. To use an object, type its name as it appears in the inventory list.
I guess it would have to be erased from the extension itself?
Glancing quickly at the source suggests that you could remove the intro with
When play begins:
now the current page is the First Page.
but I haven’t tested that.