Inform 7 (6G60) solution for replacing "you must name something more substantial"

I’m not thrilled with the “you must name something more substantial” error message when I do something like

TAKE EAST

Now I see how to modify things in I6. There’s that line in Action.i6t that says “You must name something more substantial.” So I can use I7’s “replace I6 code” feature with (- and -), and I’m good to go for a quick fix.

But I’m curious how this might be done with relative ease in I7. Because I wouldn’t like a flat error message but, instead, something like “You [if noun is a direction]can’t act physically on directions[else]tried to act on something noncorporeal or unavailable[end if].” in the appropriate function.

This isn’t part of a parser error (at least, catching everything with a parser error rule in a blank project does nothing) so I am wondering if

If this code must be done in I6, I’ll go over to that subforum to see about “if (variable) is a direction” type code. And if the solution is “upgrade to 6M or something,” well, yes, that’s more motivation to.

Thanks!

1 Like

I haven’t looked at 6G60 in a while, but this is part of the “basic accessibility rule”. (Which is implemented in I6.) You could replace that rule.

3 Likes

This isn’t helpful for your case, but for reference, 6L02 added the ability to modify parser messages like that via its responses feature; all you need to do in more recent versions is:

The basic accessibility rule response (A) is “Whatever you want to put in here.”
2 Likes

Oh right–that’s what I was trying to remember and forgot!

It can be tough to move up, because so many of my old projects are with the old inform, and when I start a new project, I just reflexively use the same IDE that’s already open on my desktop, with my very cheap keystroke-sending scripts pointing to the old IDE.

But enough encouragement/observation like this will push me to move up to 2015 or so.

2 Likes