Taking Items on a Scenery Supporter: There are none at all available!

Authoring Inform 7
1

Hey All–

I have items on a shelf (the shelf is scenery and a supporter). TAKE ALL yields the dreaded “There are none at all available!” message.

What’s the best way to allow players to TAKE ALL from the shelf? I thought I could include something like:


Rule for deciding whether all includes the contents of the shelf: it does.

But Inform doesn’t like that syntax, and I’m not sure whether or not that would work, anyway. Is the problem that the shelf is scenery, so anything on it doesn’t register as a takable item? Can I get a lesson from a guru here?

2

That should work without extra effort. I think you must have something else interfering.

Lab is a room.

The shelf is a scenery supporter in lab.

The book is on the shelf.
The vase is on the shelf.

test me with "take all"
2 Likes
3

Maybe the problem is the generic one when there’s nothing to take:

Lab
On the shelf are a book and a vase.

>take all
book: Taken.
vase: Taken.

>take all
There are none at all available!

What I’ve used for that (and probably found on this forum) is:

[This is to replace the message "There are none at all available!" when "get all"]
Rule for printing a parser error when the latest parser error is the nothing to do error and the player's command includes "get all" or the player's command includes "take all":
	say "There is nothing to take here." instead.

This yields:

Lab
On the shelf are a book and a vase.

>take all
book: Taken.
vase: Taken.

>take all
There is nothing to take here.
1 Like
4

How vexing. I’ve combed over that code and I can’t find anything weird in that area, although it must be there, because this doesn’t happen in other locales. I have check rules on taking everything on the shelf, but that shouldn’t be a problem.

Gah. It may just have to stay weird, since I can’t find the problem.

5

Seems like not the biggest deal to leave it in, but have you tried putting on RULES to see if there’s anything that pops up when you take all in that location, and not in others? It can be a lot to comb through but might flag off there’s a rule that doesn’t seem like it should be firing that’s popping up in a weird place.

3 Likes
6

Another possibility is perhaps your player is inside a container??

7

So it will be a major surprise to everyone here to learn that I had tagged these things as “undescribed,” as I never have this sort of trouble. Those tags were left over from a previous incarnation of the room before I had the shelf, and I never got rid of them. So nothing to see here except idiocy. Clean up on aisle Amanda’s brain, please.

7 Likes