Unexpected file dialog behavior in GNOME version of Inform 7 GUI

I’ve occasionally experienced intermittent strange behavior relating to the project-opening dialog in the GNOME (Linux GUI) port of Inform 7. Occasionally, when I start Inform, the “reopen last project” button is disabled, and when I try to manually open the project, I find that folder names in the file list in the open dialog are also all disabled. Usually, this means that I can’t open a project at all, since though a complete system restart or three seems to fix the problem eventually.

I’ve gone ahead and posted a quick screencast of the problem to illustrate, in case what I’ve just said is unclear: https://youtu.be/tzLWvZX7YXQ

Note that at the end of the screencast, I manage to find a trail of non-disabled folders on which I can click to reach the project and open it. I believe this is the first time that’s happened: normally, on the occasions when I’m seeing this behavior, I can’t manage to usefully interact with the file system in the file-open dialog box at all.

I’m running Linux Mint 19.1 and using the OpenBox window manager in this video, though the problem also occurs when using other window and desktop managers. As you can see in the screencast, Inform isn’t kicking out any error messages to the terminal from which I invoked it.

I am of course happy to provide any other relevant information or to be a guinea pig for debugging purposes.

We’ve discussed this issue a bit here:

There is a way to fix this in the source (I’m not sure why it wasn’t a problem before, but the open dialogue doesn’t (easily) let you open a folder without the .inform extension).

An easier workaround is to go to file system in the open dialogue, press ctr-l and then type in the path of your project.

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Ah, that makes sense. Thank you for the quick response! I appreciate your help.

I have been working through a several problems affecting gnome-inform7. The grey out dialog box issue is one of them. I created deb and rpm builds for both ubuntu 16.04, 18.04 and fedora 29 if you would like to try the package, I could use some help testing them out. More details here: Gnome-inform7 6L38 IDE now running on ubuntu 18.04 and fedora 29 (rpm & deb link in thread)

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That’s excellent news! I’ll try it out now.

Wait – the .debs seem to be Inform 7 version 6L38, whereas the Fedora packages are 6M62? Is that correct?

Went to install new version and gdebi tells me I already have a newer version installed. I’m running Linux Mint 19.1 on x64.

Hey Patrick, yes that is correct at the moment. Am trying to get a 6M62 for deb going as we speak :grin:

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Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying, and thanks for taking this on!

I have an initial test deb for 6M62 I will post shortly if you really prefer 6M62. Give about 30 mins.

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Just posted a 6M62 deb build should be good for 16.04 or 18.04. Let me know how it works or if you hit any issues.

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It installs fine and fixes the “can’t open” problem by restoring normal functionality to the dialog! I’m back to bashing my head against the same bit of I7 syntax that I was bashing my head against before I installed it.

One minor quibble, which may or may not be worth fixing: gdebi-gtk, which I normally use to install .debs, thinks that I had the same version installed, so probably other packaging software does, too. This isn’t so bad – manually uninstalling before installing a new version isn’t much to ask – but if there’s a minor version number that could be incremented, that might be helpful.

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Hey Patrick which package are you using? I might be able to update the dot revision, will take a look. I just checked in all of my final stable “test” packages for 6L38/6M62 for Fedora and Ubuntu (note: these are not ‘official’ builds) here in my repo stable branch:

Oops! Should have been more specific. Thank you for your patience.

I’m using gnome-inform7_6M62-ubuntu-16_04_or_18_04_64bit.deb.