[I7] Confirmation on Named Property as Condition

Authoring Inform 7
#1

Reading 4.10, you can set conditions. So, for example, I have this:

A glass box is a case in the Learning Lab. The glass box is either shatterable, crackable or invulnerable.
This works in that I can use a text substitution to check the condition. To wit, I could do this:

"Glass box confirmed as [glass box condition]."

The manual page then talks about a second condition (… Left to itself, Inform will call the second one “fruit condition 2” …) where you can name the condition as a property. So I do this:

The glass box can be clean, smudged, or dirty (this is its cleanliness property).

However, with that, I cannot do this:

"Glass box confirmed as [glass box cleanliness]."

That leads to an error: “In the sentence ‘if the glass box is clean, say “Glass box confirmed as [glass box cleanliness].”’ , I was expecting to read a text, but instead found some text that I couldn’t understand - ‘glass box cleanliness’.”

I can, of course, do this:

"Glass box confirmed as [cleanliness]."

I just want to make sure that’s expected behavior.

The page in question (4.10) is all about conditions but it wasn’t clear to me what to expect when I name a condition as a property. The page states “So we are also allowed to give these conditions names of our own choosing.” That seems to imply that “cleanliness” is simply a condition with a specific wording, which would lead me to the implication that this wording could be used in place of the term “condition” in text substitutions.

#2

I think in “glass box condition” “glass box” is just part of the name of the property that the compiler assigns if you haven’t supplied your own name. As 4.10 says, “the name is the name of the object with the word ‘condition’ tacked on”; “glass box” is tacked on as part of the name but it isn’t semantically distinct. But if you give your own name then “glass box” won’t be part of the name (unless you say it is), so you just need to use the name by itself. Or you could say “cleanliness of the glass box” if you need to refer to it in a context in which Inform might not be sure which object’s cleanliness in question.

In 4.10 note this:

and this:

As you can see, “squishiness” is parallel to “fruit condition” as a whole, not to “condition.”

#3

It’s a matter of syntax. You can say "Glass box confirmed as [cleanliness of glass box]" , that’s a valid way to put it.

"Glass box confirmed as [cleanliness]." Works because (I’m assuming) the last specified noun was the glass box, so inform automatically assume’s that you’re referring to the cleanliness of the box.

#4

Well, the words “glass box” in the quote don’t do anything – Inform doesn’t even know that they refer to the “glass box”! I think it works because (most likely) it’s being used in the description of the glass box, and Inform knows that “cleanliness” must mean the cleanliness of the item described. Otherwise you’d probably have to use “cleanliness of the glass box” or “cleanliness of the item described” or in other contexts “cleanliness of the noun” or something like that.