And just to add to the confusion, in your Before, Instead, Check etc. rules you need to use a different placeholder: ‘it’ won’t work.
So not
Instead of brushing it with:
but
Instead of brushing something with:
or
Instead of brushing something with the broom:
or
Instead of brushing the front step with something:
or just plain:
Instead of brushing:
etc.
Note that
Instead of brushing something:
will be rejected.
EDIT: the above is not quite correct/complete. The 7 accepted action patterns for ‘brushing it with’ are:
brushing [all these first 3 are equivalent variations with both parameters unspecified¹]
brushing with
brushing it with [this is the only pattern allowed to use ‘it’ and restates precisely the action definition²]
brushing something with [2nd parameter unspecified]
brushing with something [1st parameter unspecified]
brushing something with something [both parameters specified]
¹ although the first three patterns may appear redundant, they may be useful for distinguishing the intended action from others whose name begins with ‘brushing’ or ‘brushing with’
² as flagged by @Zed currently (Ver 10.1.2 and previous) this pattern (bizarrely) only compiles in the specific (Check, Carry out and Report) action rulebooks and not in Before, Instead, After. Or, indeed, in conditions- so ‘Every turn when the current action is brushing it with: do nothing.
’ won’t currently compile.
NB ‘something’ in an action pattern only matches things- ‘an object’, ‘a number’, ‘a topic’ etc. allow you to match with other elements of the Inform world.
Leaving a parameter unspecified imposes no restrictions on matching. So 'brushing'
is not quite the same as 'brushing something with something'
as the former will match ‘brushing the kitchen with the broom’ whereas the latter will not (because the kitchen is (presumably) not a thing, but a room).
NB2 if there are other words between the initial verb word and the first token in your action definition, declaring it as ‘abbreviable’ allows you to truncate or omit (all of) them in action patterns which don’t include anything beyond those words. e.g.
Writing on the back of it with is an action applying to two things and requiring light and abbreviable
allows you to then write:
Instead of writing:
Instead of writing on:
Instead of writing on the back:
(but not)
Instead of writing on something
This option (abbreviable) is used in the Standard Rules (solely) for the Listening to
action so one can write
Instead of listening:
as well as
Instead of listening to:
NB3
Beware: if there is another action simply called writing
then
Instead of writing:
will apply only to that and this rule will never fire for your abbreviated writing on the back of it
action