I’m working on a project that would benefit a lot from having keypress detection. (It’s sort of like a roguelike… ;o ) I’ll be using Quixie (or maybe Parchment, depending on how big it ends up being - but probably Quixie) for releasing it for a few reasons, one of which is so that I can mod in keypress detection. But, is this okay with the authors of those systems?
Before you jump into hacking these interpreters, can I ask: why do you need to hack Quixe to provide keypress input? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use the keypress input that’s built into Inform/Glulx?
–Erik
Woah, guess I’m behind times. I totally didn’t realize such a thing existed.
/looks for documentation for that
EDIT:
Facepalm epically.
You facepalm rather epically when you realize that the documentation was RIGHT THERE.
It’s built into the I6/Glulx Inform library, but not implemented at the I7 level. You can get basic functionality with the Basic Screen Effects extension, but you’ll probably need to program in Glulx to get what you want.
I put up a Nethack-inspired example a little while back:
http://glimmr.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/an-experiment-with-keystroke-input-in-if/
–Erik
So would it be possible to be like, “Okay, he pressed s, so make him go south”? (Without waiting for enter to be pressed.)
Yes, you’ll see that if you follow the link I posted to play the example.
I looked at it, but not very closely. It seemed like it might only have been able to manipulate the input string.
Which actually makes no sense but w/e.
I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying, and that’s probably why you said it made no sense 
You can do anything you want with a keypress. That example takes a keypress, converts into a command or partial command, and then parses it using Inform’s parser (as if the player had actually typed it as line input).
But you could also cut out Inform’s parser entirely and parse the commands yourself, e.g. through a table that keys keypresses to stored actions. That becomes more difficult, though, if you want to parse anything other than a single-word command.
–Erik
Actually, after a bit of thinking, I thought of a better way to do what I’m aiming for.
Is it possible (without hacking the interpreter) to have links on your page that are equivalent to typing something? (eg. a button that has the same effect as typing “s” and pressing enter) And, can you output HTML?
Let me explain what I’m trying to do: There are battles in this game which are fought out on a “battle grid”. I’m thinking of outputting the grid as HTML: img tags for the individual tiles, a tags (a = anchor = what’s commonly called a “link”, if you don’t know - I don’t know you at all so idk 
) around the grid tiles that you can move to that move you to that tile when clicked, and other links/text on the sides/bottom for stats and actions and stuff. I’ll also use JavaScript to display extra information about stuff you mouse over.
tl;dr without modding the interpreter, can you output HTML, and can you make links that give commands to the interpreter as if the player had typed them?
EDIT: And I’m sorry if it was rude to assume that you didn’t know HTML. I was just tryin’ to avoid confusion.
EDIT2: al2o sorry for being a complete and utter noob. >.>
Allowing the online interpreters to receive instructions directly from the game is planned for both Quixe and Parchment. I believe that there is a prerelease version of Parchment that incorporates the capability, whereas Quixe support is still a few months away, I would guess.
–Erik
I can’t wait a few months… I’ll code it myself, then!
;D
See https://intfiction.org/t/parchment-experimental-extensions/1425/1
With that you can output any Javascript code you want with Parchment. You can’t currently return data to the Z-Machine however.