Basically what it says in the title. Inform just crashes when attempting to open a project I’ve started on Windows. Also looks like the IDE is not the same version of IDE that is on Windows (looks different and I’m not talking about the widgetset).
I’ve tried version on Flathub (which when starting a new project doesn’t show docs) and the version from the github (which at least shows the docs when starting new project), but both crash when attempting to open my project that I’ve started on Windows.
Again, it seems like it ships with outdated IDE (the old start screen instead of the “Welcome to Inform” screen that is on Windows) and that may be reason for the crash.
Nothing useful. Something about being unable to load gtk-something… but that also shows up when I start a brand new project which DOESN’T crash the IDE.
I think it may be something related to the differences between the Windows and Linux IDEs. Probably will try running Inform via wine next and see how it goes.
If I’m recalling correctly, the only crash-on-startup behavior I’ve ever seen occurs when there is a malformed extension file.
You could try temporarily moving all extensions to another folder to see if that lets startup complete. If you were recently working on one or more extensions, you could try just moving those at first.
But why it launches correctly if I click “start a new project” then? If extensions were the issue, it would not work either way. Besides, the very same project with the very same set of extensions, had worked on Windows flawlessly.
OK, I get it now; I didn’t quite understand the problem you were experiencing.
So… You created a project in the Windows IDE. Now you are trying to open that project in the Linux IDE. The Linux IDE crashes on startup when you try to do that. The Linux IDE does NOT crash on startup if you choose to create a new project.
Since you’ve said nothing about it, presumably the Linux IDE works if you try to compile a short test project in it.
Things to try:
Copy only the story.ni file from the Windows project into the Source folder of a new project created in the Linux IDE. Will the Linux project open correctly?
It’s possible that there’s some issue with Windows vs. Linux end-of-line handling. You could try running the individual files through a converter program.
I didn’t try to compile a new project in Linux. And the problem is likely caused by Linux Inform 7 IDE not being the same as the Windows IDE. As in, it sees something Windows IDE put in but Linux one doesn’t understand or expects something to be there that isn’t being put out by Windows IDE, and I’m not talking about line endings.
Overall, the Linux IDE looks like it’s an old IDE, pre-Inform10.x instead of the new one that’s shipped on Windows.
Installed inform via Wine. It opens the project correctly, but crashes once I try to compile it (Go button). Most likely a Wine issue though.
Seems like the problem truly is the IDE with Windows one seemingly being a newer version than the Linux IDE. Someone please recompile the IDE to Linux so we have the most recent IDE on both platforms.
Windows IDE used to look like the Linux one… back in Inform 7 6UX days (well before it was open-sourced). My theory is that Windows IDE saves some data that can’t be read by the old, obsolete IDE Linux is stuck with for whatever reason, cannot read (and I’m not talking about line endings) which leads to the crashes.
I would use Windows IDE via Wine, if not for the fact that it crashes when trying to run/compile the story at the “creating story file” step (however I believe it’s a Wine issue, nothing to do with Inform).
The fact that it launches correctly when starting a new project doesn’t mean it’s not out of date. The litmus test is to open preexisting project, which crashes the thing.
I can DM you my entire Inform folder so you can debug it yourself if you want. I really want to keep writing the thing.
//edit: And it’s not just that the start window is out of date, the entire UI in the Linux version is out of date as well. It literally seems like there are two different codebases right there, rather than the newest IDE being recompiled for Linux (as it should have been).
I know a Linux power-user who might have something to say about this thing if I asked her to look at it. Then again she has previously shown HORROR at the Inform 7 “natural” language so I’m not sure how partial she will be XD
I can show her this thread, though, and see if she has anything to add to this issue. It seems really weird; Have you tried Copy+Pasting the source code from one project to the other? Sorry if this is obvious- It’s the only thing I can think to do.
If you have any links that might help my friend, that would help for when I send this to her. Thank you, and good luck.
If it helps for others arriving here with the same issue, the crashes are caused (more than likely, I have the same issue when authoring cross-platform) by whitespace in the source files that Windows adds but the Linux version can’t handle.
If you run the source through a Windows → Linux text converter to convert the CR/LF to just line feeds, the project should open and compile as expected.
It will likely be necessary to remove all other files from the project - like the skein - and copy just the source to your Linux system for it to work. Once the project has compiled and run under Linux, the files the Linux version generates can be ported back over to a Windows machine without issue; the Windows version can handle the whitespace differences.
I know this is an old thread but just to say that 01100101’s excellent suggestion (thanks!) worked for me. I deleted the skein in the top-level inform folder and resaved the story.ni file in the source folder with LFs. I just opened the file in Visual Studio Code and resaved.
On reloading the project, everything worked fine. (I’m using the Inform7 version from Flathub.)
