Looking for an Inform 6 IDE

Greetings!

I’m looking for a working Inform 6 IDE to use on Windows 10 64bits.

  • JIF 3.7 works but I have trouble using de keyboard to copy/cut/paste

  • VisualCode has plugins that enable it as an IDE for Inform 6, but lacks a objects/class tree visual aid to navegate the code

  • Imaginate freezes down when I’m trying to change options such as library path: I’ve tried the compatibility modes to no avail.

Is there a better or current option other than the above?

Awaiting your kind reply,

I think VS Code is one of the best editor/IDE for Inform 6 right now. (Disclaimer: I actually don’t code in I6 that much, and I’m the maintainer of the VS Code Inform 6 extension.)

Regarding VS Code, there’s the inf6langtools extension that adds an object/class tree to navigate the code. In my very limited experience of it, it might mark some valid code as errors, but I suppose it depends on the project.

In case you haven’t seen it, there’s also the IF Player extension that allows to open and play Z-machine and Glulx files directly in VS Code.

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I am currently writing a Punyinform game for Punyjam 1. vscode with the Inform 6 extension has very good source code highlighting. When I am in Win 10, I just keep a terminal window open and compile the code there. It literally takes less than a second to compile then go back to vscode even on my modest computer. I also keep a window with Gargoyle open to test the z-file. Probably easier then setting up the IDE.

I generally use vim on an RPi in a terminal interface. Vim does a pretty good job with source code highlight as well. You can use Genie and/or vscode in a GUI on the RPi as well. I just do better with a text terminal.

Thankyou both for your replies.

I’ll try VisualCode with the proposed extensions and see if I can use it as a viable replacement for JIF.

Much obliged!

I use Kate (a KDE editor under Linux), and I consider Kate’s support of I6 production-grade.

Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.

I’m using Atom to code Inform 6 on Windows 10/64bit, I’m able to build and run the game directly from the editor and zoom directly to lines with compilation warnings and errors. Getting that working took a little effort, if you decide to try it feel free to ping me, I’ll share my atom-build.yml file (that specifies the paths for how to build, and the regex for parsing the warning and error messages)

Could you please post some screenshots?

Gratefully,

sure here are some! the atom build yml file was the tricky part.


Thanks! I see a file browser. Is there a class/objects tool/tree diagram aid?

kinda, here’s another screenshot, see the right hand sidebar:

it’s not that great out of the box but if you like hacking regex it has a lot of potential…


Ooo! “Look why I did Mommy!” That’s kinda fun. Doesn’t look like it will drill down into individual class member properties though, only list and zoom to the classes when you click on them.

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That was rather impressive. I’m still trying out VisualCode + extensions, but if doesn’t work out form me I definitely will be looking into this Atom implementation.

Much obliged,

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