Less complex way to use else/if statements to add elements onto an html link

Authoring Twine
1

Twine Version:
[Harlowe]

Hi there, hope everyone is keeping well and having a nice weekend!

I have several twine stories which link together at various moments with variables added into the html based on elements picked up. This all works successfully at the receiving end but I am trying to find a more trustworthy and less complicated and lengthy (!) means to change the ends of the html link based on the inventory.

Currently this involves writing code like this:

(if: $inventoryofthinkers contains "Jenny Oddell)")[<a href="theseentangledmappings?i="jo1"" >These Entangled Mappings</a>]] 
(if: $inventoryofthinkers contains "Jenny Oddell" and $adrenaline is "3")[<a href="theseentangledmappings?a=3&i="jo1"" >These Entangled Mappings</a>]]

There are a lot of sources in my inventory so I was basically wondering if there is a means to say - add this element onto the html - rather than come up with (possible tens of different options of combinations).

Hope this makes some sense and realise this may not be possible! Thanks so much in advance.

2

Essentially, you still have to “check” each variable you want to send, but you can do it a bit more streamlined. I don’t know the context or what you want to pull across through the URL, but here are some ideas:

(set: _varList to "")
(if: $inventoryofthinkers contains "Jenny Oddell")[
  (set: _varList to it + "&i=jo1")
]
(set: _varList to it + "&a=" + $adrenaline)

(set: _url to "theseentangledmappings?x=x" + _varList)
<a href="_url" >These Entangled Mappings</a>

I just add & in front of each variable that’s added to the list. This creates a possible string of &i=jo1&a=3 and that is why I added ?x=x before appending that string of variables. You’ll notice that I used temporary variables with the _ character as well. I also use it to condense the code a bit.

I hope these ideas help you refactor your code into something more manageable.

Edit: Also, you don’t have to put quotes in the values sent in the URL. URL variables are all understood as strings regardless if they are a number or not… which means you have to use the (num:) macro to convert a URL number to a number data type to use again in Harlowe.