Cuz I’ve got a few.
The one I’ve been thinking about MOST recently is macros or custom keyboard shortcuts. … Typing [line break] and [paragraph break] can be a bit tedious and ruins the flow of writing prose.
Font size consistency is another. As well as scrolling via middle-mouse click. Zooming in the Skein. Being able to spell check only the text inside quotes.
This one, fortunately, can be changed via user code.
To say p: say paragraph break.
Then you can write “paragraph of text [p] next paragraph”. Not quite macros, but better than writing [paragraph break] every time.
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WHOA!! You just blew my mind 
And speaking of three-keystroke “words” in Inform 7 …
I’ve been using [’] so much in this story’s prose that I’ve even accidentally used it elsewhere, like in IRC chat LOL … being a trained touch typist, that one gets annoying (well, square brackets in general) because they’re “pinky keys” as it were. So the right pinky finger can get a bit …sensitive? Like, mild RSS lol
I don’t think there really is a good place to post Inform IDE feedback right now. (Which is to say, sure, you can post it here, but you might as well whisper it to the reeds, because Graham Nelson, the Inform author and maintainer, doesn’t read this forum.)
Maybe next year, when Inform 7 will hopefully be made available as open source.
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I made this as a personal extension for myself years ago, but figured it was too inconsequential to share.
Text Abbreviations by Hanon Ondricek begins here.
"Provides shorter text formatting substitutions."
To say i: say "[italic type]".
To say b: say "[bold type]".
to say f: say "[fixed letter spacing]".
to say v: say "[variable letter spacing]".
to say p: say "[paragraph break]".
to say l: say "[line break]".
to say /: say "[roman type]".
to say lb: say "[bracket]".
to say rb: say "[close bracket]".
Text Abbreviations ends here.
---- DOCUMENTATION ----
This tiny bit of code adds shortcuts for common text formatting to save typing out common formatting such as [bracket]paragraph break[close bracket] hundreds of times. The code goes within brackets inside quotation marks as a text substitution.
i is italic type.
b is bold type.
f is fixed letter spacing. (usually will display as Courier, or the preferred monospace font in an interpreter)
v is variable letter spacing. (normal variable with font, the default)
p is paragraph break
l is line break
/ is roman type (cancel formatting - standard text display)
lb is left bracket (bracket)- "[bracket]"
rb is right bracket (close bracket) - "[close bracket]"
*: "Formatting Test"
Include Text Abbreviations by Hanon Ondricek
Test Room is a room. "[one of]Type LOOK.[or]You are in the [b]Test Room[/]. It is [i]quite[/] deserted in here except for a screen reading [f]THIS ROOM IS UNIMPLEMENTED[l]-Do not even try to examine this screen-[/].[p][lb]You feel as if you are being [i]watched[/][rb]...[p]Here are your literal formatting codes, because I was too lazy to type 'bracket/close bracket' nine times in a row (yes, I know, [i]copy/paste[/]):[p][lb]i[rb][l][lb]b[rb][l][lb]f[rb][l][lb]v[rb][l][lb]p[rb][l][lb]l[rb][l][lb]/[rb][l][lb]lb[rb][l][lb]rb[rb][l][stopping]"
Test me with "look".
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Graham Nelson doesn’t maintain the IDEs, though. I believe the IDEs for Windows, Mac, and Linux are maintained by three different people. David Kinder, who maintains the Windows version, is active here. I’m not sure who the others are.
FWIW, you can simplify that to:
To say i: say italic type.
The generated code is identical either way, however, so it’s just a matter of style.
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