I’m working on a little game I can run in my phone’s browser. To make it easy to use on the phone, commands are entered by tapping links at the bottom of the screen. Consequently, there’s no need for the command prompt, and I’d like to eliminate it in this case since it takes up valuable space. (I’ve already removed the status line with “Use no status line.”)
I’ve already made it look like there’s no command prompt (“Now the command prompt is “”.”), but it’s still a blank line taking up space. Is there a way to remove it altogether?
You may get some better answers, but the command prompt is such a built-in feature of parser games, and specifically Inform, that I’m not sure there’s a way to turn it off. As you’ve discovered, you can change the sigil before it from > to something else or nothing.
I can see a no-typing required parser game with clickable links only being a thing a lot of authors would like, so if you figure it out, let us know. @robinjohnson has developed a specific hybrid link/command prompt engine for his own games like Detectiveland but that does not use Inform. I believe he may be working on a version (Gruescript?) that can be used by other authors to build games, that that is likely still a work in progress.
Maybe someone else will chime in, but I’m afraid I don’t have other suggestions unless you want to switch to a different engine that can run a pure choice-based model such as Twine or perhaps even Quest. There is also Dialog, which does include a link interface, and tends to have many of the features Inform does - only it’s a different engine with a Prolog-like codebase.
Also we have a (hopefully sometime soon-ish) major Inform 7 update pending, and I believe one of the features they hope for could be a hybrid choice model built into the interface. (Don’t hold your development for that as we don’t know when, and Inform 7 updates historically tend to be a surprise, dropping out of the blue without any fanfare nor pre-announced release date.)
I ran the example “A Study in Memoriam” successfully, but when I included the Unified Glulx Input extension in my project, an error message appeared, with the title “Translating the Source - Failed.” I suspect this indicates a conflict between this extension and one or more of the three others already included in the project. (These are for features like a one-line window at the bottom of the screen that contains hyperlinks, and clearing the screen.) Good try!
You may be interested in seeing the rest of the error message, so I’m pasting it here:
The application ran your source text through the Inform 7 compiler, as usual, and it found no problems translating the source. Something must have gone wrong all the same, because the second stage of the process - using the Inform 6 compiler to turn this translated source into a viable story file - turned up errors. This should not happen. The errors are written out on the Console tab, but will only make sense to experienced Inform 6 users (if even to them).
The best option now is probably to reword whatever was last changed and to try again. Subsequent attempts will not be affected by the failure of this one, so there is nothing to be gained by restarting the application or the computer. A failed run should never damage the source text, so your work cannot be lost.
If you are using Inform 6 inclusions, these are the most likely culprits. You might be using these without realising it if you are including an extension which contains Inform 6 inclusions in order to work its magic: so if the problem only seems to occur when a particular extension is in use, then that is probably what is at fault, and you should contact the extension’s author directly.
If not, then most likely the Inform 7 compiler is at fault. Please check that you have the currently distributed build of the system: if you have, please consider taking the time to fill out a bug report at the Inform bug tracker (Bugs | Inform 7).
Yeah, it can be tough to add UGI to a working project. In my experience it works best to build the project on it.
If you’re already using hyperlinks, UGI has its own new mechanism for that, so the one you’re using would probaby need to be removed, and you’d have to rewrite that mechanic in UGI’s way.
Even including Basic Screen Effects will stop your game compiling, if I recall. This doesn’t mean you can’t use any of Basic Screen Effects’s contents – you need to lop out the bits that try to take keyboard input or wait for keypresses. The rest of it works. The input-collecting bits need to be redone UGI’s way.
UGI doesn’t support hyperlinks in windows other than the main one, too, which could be a gamestopper for you from the sounds of things.