I have a new action called querying it about, which works like the built-in consulting action but with objects instead of topics. The problem is, the parser’s attempts to understand partial commands (? I think?) are messing with other, supposedly unrelated commands.
[code]Querying it about is an action applying to one thing and one visible thing.
Understand “look up [any room] in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
Understand “look [any room] up in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
Understand “consult [something] about [any room]” as querying it about.
Understand “read about [any room] in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
Understand “look up [any thing] in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
Understand “look [any thing] up in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
Understand “consult [something] about [any thing]” as querying it about.
Understand “read about [any thing] in [something]” as querying it about (with nouns reversed).
A thing has some text called the note.
A room has some text called the note.
The note of a thing is usually “‘I have nothing to say about this.’”
The note of a room is usually “‘I have nothing to say about this.’”
Carry out querying the notes about:
say the note of the noun.
Lab is a room.
The notes are a thing in Lab.
The painting is a thing in Lab.
Hall is south of Lab.
Test me with “look behind painting / s / look notes”.[/code]
As far as I can tell, the code is trying to parse “LOOK [something it doesn’t understand/something not in scope for examining]” as “LOOK [thing it doesn’t understand] UP IN SOMETHING”. I have no idea how to go about fixing this, though. Is there a decent way to stop Inform from understanding “LOOK [any thing]” on its own as querying? Alternatively…?
I guess for LOOK BEHIND PAINTING, replacing “That noun did not make sense in this context” with a vague “I didn’t understand what you were trying to do” kind of message would suffice. But with “LOOK [thing that exists but isn’t in scope for examining]”, I’d much rather have it just say “You can’t see any such thing” instead of trying to run the querying action on the noun.
Sorry this question is so vague. I’m just floundering around trying to figure out what my options are!