Images and External Windows

Authoring Inform 7
1

Is there a way to have images tio appear in an external window not attached to the Main window with all the text?

ive researhed as best I can and cant see any…is there an extension perhaps?

2

It’s not possible. The virtual machines don’t have that feature.

3

Is there a way to do something like this…

> |----------|**************
> | Image |      Text      |
> | ---------|                   |
> |                               |
> |                Text        |
> |                               |
> |                               |
> |                               |
> |--------------------------|

Thanks

4

I cant get the ascii right but you get the ides,.,i hope… Id like the picture to appear in the top left and the rest used for text

5

That’s not possible either, I’m afraid. Windows must be rectangles and they can’t be nested.

6

Most terps will let you put an image into the main text window, though, so you can have it appear in a corner (of the paragraph, not necessarily the screen). However I haven’t tested it so I’m not sure if it does intelligent text wrapping around the image (text starts at the top of the image and continues down until it clears the bottom) or dumb (only the first text line appears at the bottom of the image and the next line clears it), or if the text will only appear below the image rather than beside it. You get a lot less control (essentially none) with positioning images in text windows as well.

7

If the main goal is to have an image which will not scroll away with the game text, but rather stay in place in the upper half of the screen (like a permanent image for the current location), while the game text has its own scrolling area beneath the image, you can use Emily Short’s Location Images extension, which you can install via the Extensions tab, Public Library, section 12.8. Glulx Graphics.

1 Like
8

Something else that you could consider, if this is primarily for location images (and if your images aren’t too tall):

You could section off the top of the screen, and then further divide the top part into a left and right part. Then you put the location image in the top-left window, the location description in the top-right window, and all other story text in the bottom window. This way, the player can always see the room description, regardless of how many other commands they run. (The tricky part is figuring out if there are other rules that aren’t part of the description itself but you still want to show in the upper window.)

9

Dunno about glulx, but for sure .z6 format has what seems what Gavin asks (as in Shogun , if I understand correctly)

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

10

Is there a simple example of this that sectioing off I can look at?

11

simple, even a duck lead to those pics :smiley:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Infocom+Shogun&iax=images&ia=images

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.