i am so confused and frustrated. how to i get it to work

Authoring Inform 7
#1

i am making an action called filling
for some reason i cant make it so the action works.

i can make it in the actions sentence but not make it really happen.
im trying to make it so the command make the objects fill with something else.

report filling: say "you hold [the noun] and gently tilt it downward to fill [the second noun]
it works with that but when i do the main action i cant get the [the noun] to work…

i want to make it so it can fill basically al the containers in the game not just a single one… i tried this

after filling the cup with the water:

… didnt work i tried this and i cant think of anything else to try

i am frustrated very confused and i feel like i wanna give up
and i never try to give up ion my goals…

#2

I believe there are extensions that deal with this kind of thing. Maybe try Measured Liquid by Emily Short?

(Dishes by Emily Short and Modern Conveniences by Emily Short look like they might also be useful.)

#3

it said there is no such extension?

#4

In my version of Inform, if you click the Extensions tab, and then click the Public Library, there’s a long list of extensions, and Measured Liquid is in there. You have to download it before you can use it.

#5

It sounds like you’re trying to run before walking.

Have you read the manual that comes with Inform?

You might also find The Inform 7 Handbook, an alternate manual by Jim Aikin, to be helpful.

In Jim’s words:

Once you have the basics down, you can go back and read the main manual with more understanding.

If this sounds like I’m trying to dissuade you from trying something challenging, I’m not. But if you find yourself frustrated often, it can be a good idea to step back and build your skills a bit. The studying that you do after having tried writing some games will probably be more useful and make more sense, because you’ll have some experiences to attach to what you’re reading.

#6

One thing to keep in mind is that [the noun], with brackets, is something that only works inside quotation marks. Outside quotation marks, anything in brackets will get treated as a comment–that is, it gets ignored completely. (This is useful for writing notes to yourself in the code, but not useful when you’re trying to get it to do something.)

So the thing you wrote:

report filling: say "you hold [the noun] and gently tilt it downward to fill [the second noun]"

will work (with the extra quotation mark) because you’re using brackets in quotation marks. But in the main rule you’d have to write something like:

Carry out filling: now the noun is full.

without brackets, because you’re actually trying to do something to the noun instead of just saying its name in quotation marks.

Hope this is helpful!

For your other issue, how exactly did you define the action? If you want to be able to refer to the action as “filling the cup with the water,” you have to let Inform know where the first noun goes and what the preposition is. We do that like this:

Filling it with is an action applying to two things.

Inform will know that the noun goes where the word “it” is in the action definition and the second noun goes at the end… so it will know to expect “filling the cup with the water” rather than “filling the cup the water” or something like that. (This is mentioned in section 12.7 of Writing with Inform, but it’s mentioned really quickly two-thirds of the way into the section, and if you blink you’ll miss it. As Vince said, Jim Aikin’s Handbook might be more useful here.)

Also, not to dissuade you from something challenging, but as Vince said in another thread, liquids are notoriously difficult to handle in Inform. I’m pretty experienced, and when I wrote a cooking game with liquids, they were really annoying to program. (My comment at the beginning of that section of my program is “What was I thinking?”) So it really might be a good idea to try to get a handle on the other parts of your game before you dive into the liquids.

#7

well no i didnt read the manual i read the documentary [or whatever its called] i dont know where the manual is… i didnt finish the documents either i only read the “things” one and i think it said new world?, and maybe a few others, i pick at them like only read the ones i need to know… i never read a whole document either probably. but ill re-read the documentary try to.

but i still dont know where the manual is your talking about…
but ill continue reading the documents i guess

thanks for the help ill try harder and ill go the link you gave me.

#8

Besides the Inform 7 handbook, another guide you can look at is this quick-start guide.

#9

Another comment on the pile:

Inform already has an “inserting it into” action that is very close to what you want with filling.

You might be able to get by with something like:

[code]
Understand “fill [something] with [something]” as inserting it into with nouns reversed.

Understand “water/tap” as the faucet.

A container can be waterfilled.

Instead of inserting the faucet into a container:
say "You fill [the second noun] with water;
now the second noun is waterfilled.[/code]