I7: Scenery containers vs. supporters

Authoring Inform 7
1

I observe that one difference between containers and supporters is that the contents of scenery supporters are listed in the room description, whereas the contents of scenery containers never are, even if the container is transparent. This inane little minigame demonstrates.

[code]The Parlour is a room. “There is nothing here but a table and a glass box. The door is to the south.”

The exit door is a door. It is south of the parlour. It is locked. It is scenery.

The glass box is a closed, unopenable, transparent container in the parlour. It is scenery.

The table is a supporter in the parlour. It is scenery.

The key is in the glass box. The key unlocks the exit door.

The tuning fork is on the table.

Instead of attacking the tuning fork:
say “The glass shatters!”;
now the glass box is open.

Understand “tap [the tuning fork]” or “strike [the tuning fork]” or “play [the tuning fork]” as attacking.

After opening the exit door, end the story finally saying “You’re free!”[/code]

What is the easiest way to make transparent scenery containers display their contents (so that the container is listed with its contents when there’s something in it, but not listed when nothing is in it)?

Or, I suppose equivalently for me, is there a way to make a specific supporter list its contents as being “in” it rather than “on” it?

2

If you just want to mimic the existing behavior for scenery supporters, you could add:For printing a locale paragraph about a thing (called the item)(this is the describe what's on scenery containers in room descriptions rule): if the item is transparent scenery and the item does not enclose the player: if a locale-supportable thing is in the item: set pronouns from the item; repeat with possibility running through things in the item: now the possibility is marked for listing; if the possibility is mentioned: now the possibility is not marked for listing; increase the locale paragraph count by 1; say "In [the item] "; list the contents of the item, as a sentence, including contents, giving brief inventory information, tersely, not listing concealed items, prefacing with is/are, listing marked items only; say ".[paragraph break]"; continue the activity.
Note that this is just the “describe what’s on scenery supporters in room descriptions rule” from the standard rules, edited for use with containers. If you’d like more customized behavior, check 17.23-17.26 of the docs or post an example and we can figure something out.

(Edited to add “transparent” to the above rule.)