this question is a bit complicated, not because of its nature but because you’ll need to put yourself into my shoes.
I would love to do a game which has a graphic window on top (40-50 % of the screen height) and a text window below, very similar to text/graphic adventures from the bad old time (Magnetic Scrolls, Level 9). I want to do it in Inform 7 because I’ll need multiple choice dialogues and I’m familiar with that in Inform 7. I can program a text-only in Inform 7 using the standard IDE. I am not retarded concerning the installing and using of a new environment but when I started looking at some explanations on what I need to do I found them to be requiring knowledge I don’t have. I can pick up that knowledge but I lack a comprehensive guide that covers the basics and directs me to the documentation I need.
So, what do I need to do? I found the “Simple Graphics Windows” extension by Em Short - is that it? I found Glulx but do not yet understand how to set it up and what to do to achieve my picture/text combination. Nothing else required, just a picture on top of the screen that I can define in the room description. Well, Hybrid Choices by AW Freyr should run since I’ll need that.
Any directions? Does a tutorial for dummies exist that covers my needs? Any help appreciated.
It really depends on what you want in the graphics window. I mean, Magnetic Scrolls game just had one static picture at a time – is that right? If that’s what you want, all you need is one extension. Emily Short’s extension Location Images does that. Here’s a thread about it, because people were having some troubles with it if it was run in, uh, Quixe I think (for online play - EDIT: actually, everyone got past this, and it may not have even been a thing. It’s a pain having to skim-read the whole other thread while typing an answer )
If you’re thinking of something else with the graphics, you’ll have to describe what you’re thinking.
I suggest you start a new test project, and work up the simplest situation which displays this problem, and then post the resulting code here. It’s much easier to help when we have something definite to look at.
When posting code, you can either put three backticks on a line before and after the code (back ticks look like this: `. On my keyboard it’s the key top-left, next to the number 1) or you can click on the “preformatted text” option in the editor. This will prevent the forum from messing with the tabs and quotes and suchlike.
Check this game by me. If this is what you are looking for I will send you example code.
I have added code for clearing the screen after every look, too, as in vintage games.
(Beware, the standalone Lectrote builds are up to 180Mb, but they will show the better environment - The Online version will show how it works anyway, although the screen is mostly vertical.)
Hmm, interesting. First, thanks! Then, I’m experiencing the same problem that ameetnsharma had in the discussion severedhand pointed out.
"Test Game" by Grueslayer
The story headline is "A test.".
The story genre is "test".
The release number is 1.
The story creation year is 2021.
Include Location Images by Emily Short.
Figure of Aaaa is the file "Logo.jpg".
When play begins:
display the Figure of Aaaa;
say "TEST".
The player is in My Room.
My Room is a room. The printed name is "Your Room". The description is "You are in your room. It is spacious and amazingly tidy. Next to the window is your bed. On the desk is your computer. A door leads out.". The room-illustration is Figure of Aaaa.
“display the Figure of Aaaa;” shows the logo, “The room-illustration is Figure of Aaaa.” does nothing. Inform 7 build 6M62 on a Windows 7 machine. I’m confused.
@ Marco Innocenti: Yes, that’s pretty much exactly what I’m looking for.
EDIT: Starting the released gblorb file shows that the top 40 % of the screen (which supposedly are reserved for the location picture) is empty and remains so. So the space for the picture is reserved but it’s not displayed.
That example works for me (shows the location image) in I7 6M62 (on Windows 8.1).
What’s the version number of the included extensions?
Under the Index tab, there’s a Contents sub-tab which has a list of all extensions which are directly or indirectly included by your project. (Even those which are not listed by the VERSION command in-game due to authorial modesty.)
Here’s what I have there:
EXTENSIONS
Included from the source text
Location Images by Emily Short 237 words
Included by the extension Location Images
Simple Graphical Window by Emily Short version 9/160121 1936 words
Included by the extension Simple Graphical Window
Glulx Entry Points by Emily Short version 10/200602 1903 words
Glulx Text Effects by Emily Short version 5/150123 2182 words
Included by the extension Glulx Entry Points
Glulx Definitions by Dannii Willis version 1/160919 879 words
Glk Object Recovery by Dannii Willis version 1/171025 460 words
Glk Events by Dannii Willis version 1/160919 161 words
Included automatically by Inform
Standard Rules version 3/120430 42655 words
English Language by Graham Nelson version 1 2297 words
If you’ve got something different there, try to replicate this setup by downloading them from the public library in the IDE and from the I7 extensions github site.
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