New to I7, having difficulties

So. I am making my way through the documentation and making a testing route if you will. however for the game I want to actually make I wanted to have a focus on random portals appearing, leading players into a challenge room where they have to complete a task to make the exit appear.

I downloaded and installed Secret doors by Andrew owen and inform keeps throwing contradictions at me.

[code]The castle foyer is a room. “A stone chamber with red drapes hanging on the walls”. The castle door is south of the castle foyer. the garden is south of the castle door. the castle door is a door. it is closed

The garden is a room. “Many different types of plants bask in the sunlight and you hear the chirping song of birds in the nearby trees. The Mystic gate lies to the east”.

The mystic gate is a door. it is open. it is east of the garden. through it is the Mystic room.

The Mystic room is a room."[if unvisited] When you step through the mystic gate, is vanishes behind you with the sound of rushing air [end if] You are standing in what can only be described as a pocket dimension. There is an alter in the middle with a glowing chest on it. A strange pedestal stands nearby.". An alter is in the Mystic room. it is a supporter. The glowing chest is on the alter. the glowing chest is a container. it is openable. it is closed. The orb is in the chest. the orb is a thing. The pedestal is here. it is a supporter.

The ether portal is north of the mystic room. The ether portal is a secret door. The garden is north of the ether portal.

every turn:
if the orb is on the pedestal and the orb was not on the pedestal:
Change the ether portal to revealed;
say “The weirdest noise you ever heard heralds the appearance of a shimmering portal to the north”;[/code]

The every turn section was suggested to me by someone else and was meant as a one way route. I tweaked it to use the secret door extension. Also. I may not have wrapped my head around it. I might have to go back and read the chapter about descriptions. but whenever I try to give something a description. it appears in the room description instead of when examined

The Mystic room is a room."[if unvisited] When you step through the mystic gate, is vanishes behind you with the sound of rushing air [end if] You are standing in what can only be described as a pocket dimension. There is an alter in the middle with a glowing chest on it. A strange pedestal stands nearby.". An alter is in the Mystic room. it is a supporter. The glowing chest is on the alter. the glowing chest is a container. it is openable. it is closed. The orb is in the chest. the orb is a thing. The pedestal is here. if examined say. "There is a spherical indent on the surface of the pedestal, it seems something can be placed here". it is a supporter. that set up causes inform to complain.

I’ll help with your descriptions.

Here is some working code, first of all:

[code]The Mystic room is a room. “[if unvisited]When you step through the mystic gate, is vanishes behind you with the sound of rushing air [end if] You are standing in what can only be described as a pocket dimension. There is an alter in the middle with a glowing chest on it. A strange pedestal stands nearby.”

An alter is in the Mystic room. It is a supporter.

The glowing chest is on the alter.

the glowing chest is a container. it is openable. it is closed.

The orb is in the glowing chest.

The pedestal is here. it is a supporter.
The description is “There is a spherical indent on the surface of the pedestal, it seems something can be placed here.”[/code]
First, note that the double spacing is not required; it can be placed all in one paragraph if that’s what you prefer.

Now when it comes to the way inform wants to describe things, you generally have two ways. First and most important what is plainly called “description” which is used upon “look at altar”, “examine altar” etc.

The description property of most things should set with a statement such as one of these three lines:

The description is "Altar description." It has description "Altar description." The description of Altar is "Altar description."
The other kind of describing feature is called the “initial appearance” which is often printed while the entire room is looked at. There is a shorthand method to give an object an initial appearance. This is done by placing quoted text near the object declaration.

Cereal is a thing. It is in kitchen. "This is the initial appearance text."

You can also do this by changing the “initial appearance” property of the thing, which is similar to changing the description property.

Secret Doors doesn’t work with the current version of Inform. (This can be a problem with the extensions website; the extensions don’t tell you what version they were designed for.) This post has a version that should work, so you might want to replace the version you have with that and see if it helps.

Also I think “change the ether portal to revealed” is currently deprecated; “now the ether portal is revealed” will do the same thing.

By the way, note that it’s spelled “altar” not “alter” – this could give your players some trouble.