[I7] Text Direction

Authoring Inform 7
1

In most interpreters, the text is written top-to-bottom until the window is full, point in which the older text will climb out of view. In gargoyle interpreter, and possibly others, the text is always added at the bottom of the window, with the older text also climbing off the screen.

Is there a way to control this behavior so that it becomes the same regardless of interpreter? Either have all interpreters write at the bottom first or have all interpreters write at the top?

Mostly an issue with windows that are cleared frequently, as that makes it so some windows (the uncleared ones) will have their recent texts at the bottom while others (the cleared ones) have it at the top, so the players have to move their eyes everywhere to read it.

2

Unfortunately this is not possible. But at least it remains consistent for each interpreter - those who use Gargoyle are used to Gargoyle’s behaviour.

3

Oh well.

Ended up making a setting to allow the screen to clear after every action, which at least makes it so non-Gargoyle users have all their texts in the same vertical position, if they so wish.

Thanks for the help.

4

Is there a way for the game to detect what interpreter it’s being played on?

5

Sometimes; there are a variety of tricks, some more and others less reliable.

The Interpreter Sniffing extension is a framework for detecting interpreters, and has some built in. More could be added. But for example, its CocoaGlk tests are based on avoiding fatal bugs, so if they were fixed it may not detect it accurately any more.
github.com/i7/extensions/blob/m … iffing.i7x