Okay, this is probably silly and it’s probably my fault that I can’t get it to work, but I don’t know how to install extensions. Whenever I’ve needed them in the past, I’ve had to copy/paste them straight into my own source code, but I want to use Default Messages and now the copy/paste thing is getting old.
I have a .i7x file. When I click on “Install Extension…” under File, and then hit “Open” after selecting the .i7x, Inform does nothing. No response and no installation.
I thought about doing “New Extension…” and copy/pasting the Default Messages code into a new file, but when I hit “OK” to create a new extension, Inform does nothing. It just sits there at the “OK” screen.
When I click on “Show Extensions Folder,” Inform does nothing. No window pops up.
I have gone into my library, into the Inform extensions folder, and put the Default Messages.i7x file there by hand, but Inform still doesn’t recognize it.
Am I missing something really obvious? Or is something potentially wrong with my version of Inform? I’m using Inform (1.52/6.33/6L38) on a Mac running 10.6.8. I’ve searched for solutions but I haven’t been able to find anything dealing with this. Everyone else seems to have no problem?
…this isn’t completely responsive to your question, but if you’re using 6L38 you don’t want to install Default Messages. Default Messages gives a way (a hack, really) to replace the library messages in pre-6L02 versions of Inform, but in 6L02 library messages were replaced with responses, so Default Messages doesn’t apply anymore. (I’m pretty sure that it won’t compile if you use it in a 6L project.)
For your general question, though, when you open an uninstalled extension what should happen is that you get a button at the top prompting you to install it. If you click on that, it’ll be installed. Then you can include it in your project by putting this line at the beginning of your source file:
Include In-Line Topical Hints by Andrew Schultz.
You might want to try this just to see if the extensions are already installed. You should be able to get your list of installed extensions just by clicking “Extensions” on the far right of the IDE and then clicking the House icon. “Show Extensions Folder” is supposed to show the extensions folder in the Finder, not the IDE. I’ve never actually used “Install Extension…” so I can’t help you there.
Sorry if this is explaining stuff you already know. I’m using OS X 10.7 so there might be issues with 10.6 that I don’t know about. Also the “New Extension…” behavior may be a known bug, but anyway you shouldn’t have to do that to install an extension that you can get as a separate file
Sometimes when you press the button to install inside an extension when inform is running, it may not show up immediately and you might need to refresh the extensions list or restart inform. Also make sure the file has the .i7x suffix and is not a text file.
The “install extension” dialogue should direct you to merely point at the file-no copy paste involved.
“Install Extension…” does direct me to point at the file, but then once I select it and click “Open,” the selection window closes and nothing happens. That’s why I thought that creating a new extension and copy/pasting might be an alternative, but I can’t seem to create new extensions either.
“Show Extensions Folder” doesn’t open anything in the Finder. I click it and nothing opens anywhere.
I just tried installing another extension, Neutral Library Messages by Aaron Reed. It’s definitely a .i7x file. But nothing happened. I quit Inform and reloaded, and no new extensions were listed. When I click “Extensions” on the sidebar, it shows me the already built-in extensions and says there are no others.
Now, I can use those built-in extensions without a problem. Typing “Include Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short” works fine, and I’ve used that in a few games. It’s just that Inform doesn’t seem to accept new extensions…