Menu-based conversation in 6L02?

The release of Inform 7’s new build has inspired me to take my very dusty WIP down from the shelf and try to make some further headway on it. I’m encouraged to see that almost all of it compiles in 6L02, but there’s a crucial delta: the menu-based conversation trees.

I had been using Michael Martin’s Reactable Quips extension, but that seems to disagree with 6L02, and I’m nowhere near a sophisticated enough Informer to diagnose what’s wrong. Is there a more standard method for conversation menus? I’m a little baffled by the current state of I7 extensions, but would be more than happy to install something if it worked. Section 7.8 of the Recipe Book tantalizingly describes something very close to what I’d like to implement, but doesn’t seem to provide an example of how to build it. Am I missing something obvious? Do I just need to suck it up and figure out for myself how to code those trees?

You could try a standard Menus extension, but that might not provide everything you’re looking for.

I haven’t used them, but isn’t this what Eric Eve’s conversation extensions can do?

Quite possibly! So maybe my confusion is just with how to get extensions in the new I7 world. When I look at inform7.com.

So, as a Windows user, how and where do I find Eric’s conversation extensions? Googling “eric eve conversation extensions” seems to yield some things that aren’t included in the “by author” listing, but which themselves seem to require other extensions not yielded by the google search or the site index. I’ve checked out emshort.com/pl/, which seems to list exactly what I need but AFAICT offers no way to actually download it.

I’ve been away from this scene for quite some time, so it is very likely I’m missing something dead obvious. All help is appreciated.

Try emshort.com/pl/payloads/

Eureka! Thanks so much, tetractys. It was something simple! Now I just need to comb through those extensions and see if they actually support menu-based conversation as well as more sophisticated ASK/TELL.

You know what, poking through Reactable Quips, I think all the compiler errors come from a change in the way blank table columns are specified. If you replace Section 3 of Reactable Quips (the latest version, version 10) with the following:

[code]Section 3 - Quip Tables

Table of Quip Texts
quip quiptext
quip_null “[generic ask quip]”
quip_dtell “[generic tell quip]”

Table of Quip Followups
quip (a quip) option (a text) result (a quip)


Table of Ask Results
NPC (a person) topic (a topic) result (a quip)


Table of Tell Results
NPC (a person) topic (a topic) result (a quip)
– – --[/code]

then it compiles, and the example “Security Consultant” seems to run as desired. So maybe you can do that and just stick with Reactable Quips instead of converting to Eric Eve’s extensions.

The extension isn’t fully adaptive–the messages aren’t formatted for easy replacement and conversion to non-second person present viewpoints–but that’s probably not a problem for you if you’re already working with it.

(The original format was like this:

Table of Ask Results NPC topic result a person a topic a quip

which I think was partly because the old compiler used to choke on headings like “NPC (a person),” even though it wasn’t supposed to.)

Eric’s extensions don’t really support menu conversation, except with a combination of closed nodes and suggestions. You’re probably better off with your old extension.

Whoa! Even better – that completely worked! (If anybody else comes across this thread later, there is one thing to clean up: an errant tab instead of space between “result” and “(a quip)” in the first line of the Table Of Quip Followups.)

Matt, thank you so much! My whole WIP now compiles. Hallelujah!

Oh, I was completely confused about how Eric’s extensions work then. Anyway, glad I was able to help with the original extension!

EDIT: I think I’ve fixed the issue with the errant tab in the fix for Reactable Quips, but I’m not positive.

It seems I’m a bit late, but if anyone else wants to use Reactable Quips, Michael has updated the extensions for the new version, here.

Very helpful – thanks, Joey. I’m a fan of getting upgrades from authors. :slight_smile: