I was trying to figure out how to stop default descriptions of various things from appearing (especially items on top of supporters). I thought if I set them as “mentioned” it would stop their display, but that didn’t seem to work.
Actually, the “handled” part doesn’t work as I expected in this example either. Help!
[code]The Study is a room.
The Desk is a supporter in the Study. The description is “A solid desk. [desk-notable]”. It is not described.
To say desk-notable:
repeat with item running through things supported by the desk that are not handled:
say “[paragraph break][initial appearance of item]”;
now item is mentioned;
repeat with item running through things supported by the desk that are handled:
say “[an item] is also on the desk.”;
now item is mentioned;
The Notes is on the desk. “Scattered bits of notepaper are strewn about on the desk.”
Pens are on the desk. “A jumble of pens lies about.”.
test me with “x desk/get pens/put pens on desk/x desk”[/code]
As I recall, you need to “write a paragraph about” to use the mentioned thing effectively. Basically, “mentioned” isn’t a global property (or not a meaningful one outside the writing a paragraph about rulebook, because of the order of when things happen in the turn), and I think you only need to use it when you want to not mention objects other than the one you’re writing a paragraph about.
Take a look at the Timeless example. It only uses the mentioned property to unlist the other zombie wolves - I believe if there was only one, you could just say “Rule for writing a paragraph about” alone. Should be easy enough to test, in any case.
Edit: I’m a little surprised by the ‘handled’ thing as well - but then that’s never worked the way I expect, so I just don’t use it.
A basic misapprehension here: “mentioned” is only used for tagging things to mention during the LOOK action. It does not affect what happens during EXAMINE.
If you want to customize the way contents are reported for a supporter or container, you may want to tweak the “examine containers” and “examine supporters” rules. (Or, if fancy customized containment description is not meant to be a systematic feature of the whole game, the short and sweet way is to write an “Instead of examining the desk” rule.)
This is yet another situation when I would want to take a quick peek at the source of the Standard Rules to see how something should be done without missing any exceptional cases. I never remember the path to the Standard Rules, and of course on the Mac the contents of an app are hidden in the Finder by default, so finding the source is not trivial. I suppose in time it will become a habit, but my personal preference is for it to be available from the IDE.
By the way, I went looking for the source of Simple Chat, which I have installed, but I could not find it anywhere within the app. Where are extensions installed to?