The player carries a briefcase. The briefcase is a container. It is lockable and locked.
Test me with “unlock briefcase. open it / unlock briefcase then open it / unlock briefcase. / unlock briefcase”.[/code]
Inform can understand UNLOCK BRIEFCASE on its own as a partial command, and try to guess or disambiguate the second noun. But if the incomplete command is followed by a full stop or a second command, Inform just gives up trying to understand the incomplete command.
(This isn’t specific to UNLOCK - pretty much any incomplete command will trigger it. In my case, it’s causing issues with Robin & Orchid’s photography code.)
I prodded gingerly at the Inform 7 bug database and this inform7.com/mantis/view.php?id=636 surfaced, but it’s technical enough that I can’t tell if it’s the same bug or just something probably related. And if it is what I’m looking for, I have no idea if I can apply the patch directly to my I7 install, or if I would have to wait for I7 Next to come out, or what.
Inform makes me sad sometimes. I am unable to get my head around the complexity of its Layers of Stuff.
Um, so, I guess my question is, how do I fix this for Robin & Orchid? Can I patch my (and Ryan’s) Inform libraries? Or is there a workaround I can use instead?
I think it is the same bug but I haven’t tested the fix.
You can apply the patch, but you have to stick in a large block of I6 code to change two lines. Also, as Graham says in the bug, “any change in this area makes some things better and other things worse”. I do not know what the side effects of the patch are.
In my experience, players rarely use periods in commands these days. (Not “never”.) It was a more attractive feature back in the 80s when command-processing was slow, and you wanted to queue up the delays.
Though as an anecdote, I was using “unlock door with key then go left” a lot just the other day in House at the End of Rosewood Street, where there was a lot of repetitive movement that I wanted to chain. (It was fairly neurotic that I kept locking my door even after it was pretty clear that it wouldn’t make a difference.) I use period chains this fairly often in games where I have to traverse the map. Probably doesn’t apply to photography.