Inform 7 - won't compile [Mac App Store Version, Big Sur]

Authoring Inform 7
9

Since we’re talking about it here and the problem that was the proximate cause for the thread has been resolved, I’ll just dump this draft of a short commentary on installation here to ask for comments. I’d especially appreciate hearing what should be added or changed for Mac and Windows 'cause I don’t know those personally.

The official packages mentioned below are available on the Inform 7 downloads page.

MacOS users: Use the package on the I7 site; don’t try using the one from the App store (despite the assurance that “the current version of Inform is always available from the Mac App Store.”) There are known issues with slowness on machines with TouchBars and the cursor disappearing in Dark Mode. An unofficial MacOS IDE release addresses these.

Windows users: Use the package on the I7 site, or there’s a beta release of a new 64-bit-only Windows version.

Linux users: it’s complicated. The versions of Linux for which there’s an official IDE package have long since ceased to be supported. (“IDE” means “integrated development environment”, the software-develop-y term for the sort of editor / project manager / documentation lookup tool that the main Inform 7 application is.) That version was built with GTK 2; GTK 3 has been standard for a long time, so that version is hard to build on a modern machine. A GTK 3 update is in development; the Flatpak release of I7 6M62 for Linux is the easiest way to get it. For a discussion of known issues or how to build it yourself, see the Gnome-inform7 6L38/6M62 IDE thread.

There is also the CLI-only version for Linux, which comes with “the cheesy Perl interface”. Or consult How to use ni, inform6, and cBlorb by CLI for info on using those directly. Some projects to help are Vimform7, the Inform 7 extension for VS code, and inf7.

All of the official packages include some components for which there are more recent versions. Some updates can be found here:

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