[I7] Taking a group of things from a location

Authoring Inform 7
1

I’m trying to work out how to do something like -

put all the letters in the folder

or

put letters in the folder

When “letters” would be different letters collected at different locations - letter to john, janes letter, letter from bank - that sort of thing.

So, how do I get I7 to understand that “letters” refers to the various letters that are either carried or visible.

2

You can try this:

A letter is a kind of thing.
Understand "letters/letter" as a letter.
The letter to John, Jane's letter, and the letter from the bank are letters.

That lets the player do things with “all letters”. (How to make the parser understand “letters” as “all letters” in an intelligent way, I can’t tell.)

3

What about this:

Understand "letters" as the plural of letter.

as in section 16.8 of Writing with Inform? I haven’t tried it, but I think that’s meant to let the parser understand “letters” as all the letters without the player typing “all.”

4

Indeed! (Thanks Matt.)

What you should do then seems to be this:

A letter is a kind of thing. Understand "letter" as a letter. Understand "letters" as the plural of letter.
The line «Understand “letter” as a letter.» is needed, I think, if you want ‘letter’ to refer to things like the postcard to John or Jane’s epistle (i.e., things that don’t have the word ‘letter’ in their names).

5

Thanks, this is working for my project.

6

I’ve got the other solution suggested working, but I will give this a try as well. Thanks.