making compound actions

[arithine]

I’m sorry, it seems like I end up coming here for every little thing. This time I was wondering how to make a compound action (for my choice system “Choice is a kind of value. The choices are cha, chb, chc, and n/a. A choice is usually n/a.”) I need the action “Choose [choice] [cha/chb/chc]” to change the choice value to either cha chb or chc.

or even better to have something like say "'yes' you reply tears welling in your eyes. [choose wedding cha]" make the choice wedding cha.

Also when i put the line “Choice is a kind of value. The choices are cha, chb, chc, and n/a. A choice is usually n/a.” in an extension instead of directly in the text i get the error

Problem. You wrote ‘choosing is an action applying to a choice’ : but an action can only apply to things or to kinds of value, for instance: ‘photographing is an action applying to one visible thing’.

it doesnt seem to recognize that i named choice as a value in the extension.

[matt_weiner (matt w)]

I don’t think you can say “A choice is usually n/a” when choice is a kind of value. (It’d be like saying “A number is usually 10.” Which number?)

You can say “Wedding is a choice that varies. Wedding is n/a.” or you could say “A person has a choice called decision. The decision of a person is usually n/a.”

Then I think this should let you change the choice fairly easily with a line like “Now wedding is cha.” in your action. Or have a line ‘Understand “choose [choice]” as choosing’ you could type “Now wedding is the choice understood” where “the choice understood” will be the thing that the player typed.

There are also ways to do this in the middle of a say phrase, I think, but you probably shouldn’t need that; you could just say your text and then put “Now wedding is cha” in the next line of your code.

For the extension thing, I’m not sure why that would happen. You’re sure you included the extension?

[Draconis (Daniel Stelzer)]

Be sure to put the definition of “choice” before any understand lines that reference it. I don’t know why this matters, as in general I7 doesn’t really care about the order of such things, but when defining kinds of value it does.

The second error only occurs when it’s in the extension because it’s now the first error it comes to, and when errors are serious enough the compiler just gives up and stops trying to go through the rest of your source.

As Matt said, remove the “usually” line. If you want to have a default value, just make it the first one in your list.

[arithine]

thanks, i was mainly just looking for a shortcut so i didnt always have to write “now the wedding is cha” Though even after removing the usually line im still getting odd behavior when the choice kind is placed in the framework instead (i am positive the framework is included)

Problem. The sentence ‘Fate-chance-corridor is a choice that varies’ appears to say two things are the same - I am reading ‘Fate-chance-corridor’ and ‘choice that varies’ as two different things, and therefore it makes no sense to say that one is the other: it would be like saying that ‘Laurel is Hardy’. It would be all right if the second thing were the name of a kind, perhaps with properties: for instance ‘Blue-Ridge Mountains is a lighted room’ says that something called Blue-Ridge Mountains exists and that it is a ‘room’, which is a kind I know about, combined with a property called ‘lighted’ which I also know about.

Problem. You wrote '‘Choice is a kind of value’ ', but that seems to say that some room or thing already created (‘choice that varies’, created by '‘Fate-chance-corridor is a choice that varies’ ') is now to become a kind. To prevent a variety of possible misunderstandings, this is not allowed: when a kind is created, the name given has to be a name not so far used. (Sometimes this happens due to confusion between names. For instance, if a room called ‘Marble archway’ exists, then Inform reads ‘An archway is a kind of thing’, Inform will read ‘archway’ as a reference to the existing room, not as a new name. To solve this, put the sentences the other way round.)

Problem. The sentence ‘The choices are n/a, cha, chb, and chc’ appears to say two things are the same - I am reading ‘choices’ and ‘n/a’ as two different things, and therefore it makes no sense to say that one is the other: it would be like saying that ‘Laurel is Hardy’. It would be all right if the second thing were the name of a kind, perhaps with properties: for instance ‘Blue-Ridge Mountains is a lighted room’ says that something called Blue-Ridge Mountains exists and that it is a ‘room’, which is a kind I know about, combined with a property called ‘lighted’ which I also know about.

this doesnt happen when its included directly in my source code.