Combined Library Release 2.1 Out

[Denk]

If you have ideas for the next release, let me know here.

I will put all ideas in this post.

1. Improve ambiguity behaviour
Works as intended for e.g. TAKE, EXAMINE and READ but not for DROP.

Example:

Code: Select all

>get books
Ok, you pick up the blue book and the red book.

>drop book
Which book? The blue book or the red book.

>red
Sorry, I didn't understand that command.

2. Make separate tasks for LOOK BEHIND / INTO / UNDER / THROUGH etc.

Examine task for objects should be: (same principles for characters)
[examine/exam/ex/x] %object%
[look/l] {at} %object%

Individual tasks for:
[look/l] [under] %object%
[look/l] [behind] %object%
[look/l] [in/into/inside] %object%
[look/l] [through/out] {of} %object%

Note that I have made "at" optional in the examine tasks, as many still type LOOK 'object* as that was how it was done in many old games. It is a bit similar to e.g. GO HOLE etc. which isn't correct english either, but is common in old text adventures.

Please comment if any of you think something should be different.

[Lazzah]

Makes me cringe: LOOK object or GO HOLE...Urrggghhh!!

[Denk]

P/O Prune proposed to add tasks for "Throw object at character" and "throw object at object". These are good ideas, which I hope to include in the next release.

While looking into this, I realize that the standard library doesn't even have a "throw object" task at the moment!

I am not exactly sure what to do if the player only types "throw object". We could do like Inform, so if you don't specify at what, the game assumes that throw means drop here. Or (inspired by Lazzah's games) we could tell the player to specify what we want to throw the object at.

Your thoughts are very welcome.

[DazaKiwi]

Is it possible to add to this library a correction to when you examine an object which if it has the ability to open and close etc, Adrift will automatically tell the player if the object is open or closed, but it usually outputs this line with an indention of 1 character which looks messy. I can't think off hand if there is other cases like this too?

[Denk]

Is it possible to add to this library a correction to when you examine an object which if it has the ability to open and close etc, Adrift will automatically tell the player if the object is open or closed, but it usually outputs this line with an indention of 1 character which looks messy. I can't think off hand if there is other cases like this too?

I see your point and I agree it looks messy. I looked into this, and it turns out that ADRIFT automatically puts two spaces between alternative descriptions unless there is a line-break.

I think I once read in a post that there should sometimes be two spaces between sentences according to English (UK-English?) rules. If anybody knows about this, please comment.

I would personally prefer to decide myself how many spaces I put between sentences. For me only one space seems right, as there is no such rule in Danish to have two spaces between sentences.

I found a method to avoid having two spaces between alternative descriptions. Simply put <del> at the start of each alternative description. Then you will only have one space between sentences. However, in the transcript there will still be two spaces, but I guess the important thing is what is seen on the screen.

This method can be a problem if the first description displayed is an alternative description starting with <del>. In that case, the line-break following the player input is deleted and thus the description is put on the same line as the player input. However, in the standard library I think there is always a default message before alternative descriptions, so it shouldn't be a problem for the library tasks.

Thus, I intend to apply the above solution in the next release of the Combined Library.

However, it may take some time before I make an update. Until then, you can just make a text override, which replaces two spaces with one. So unless you deliberately want two spaces somewhere in your game, this is an easy work-around. You can also apply the <del> to all alternative descriptions in the standard library if you want, but that is quite a job.

Thank you for bringing this up.

[Lazzah]

I think I once read in a post that there should sometimes be two spaces between sentences according to English (UK-English?) rules. If anybody knows about this, please comment.

I can state quite categorically that there is no such rule that there should be two spaces between sentences. If you look at any English language publication you will see just one space between sentences.

[Denk]

Thanks for clarifying that - I must have misunderstood something in an old post I cannot find.

[Denk]

I managed to find a thread which mentions this:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1714&p=35371&hilit= ... ace#p35371

It sounds like Campbell thinks there should be two spaces and one guy has a theory that it may come from the time of typewriters where two spaces apparently was the norm.

Unless I hear protests I will get rid of the double-space in the next release.

[R2T1]

No protests from the Great South Land either. I never encountered 2 spaces between sentences in over 60 years. Now double spacing between lines was something that typewriting required to make things more readable.

[Lazzah]

No protests from the Great South Land either. I never encountered 2 spaces between sentences in over 60 years. Now double spacing between lines was something that typewriting required to make things more readable.

Again, I know of no rule that states that there should be two spaces between lines. It may make it "easier to read" but in a text adventure it spreads the whole of the text over a larger area and thus you have to scroll the page more often in order to read it all.

[Denk]

I haven't heard about double spacing between lines. However, in IF a blank line between paragraphs seems to be the norm, whereas in books there is normally no blank line between paragraphs. Instead, every paragraph starts with a small indent in books.

Example of book-standard:

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   The budget of the series escalated to
the point that it could have practically
paid for a few seconds of Dallas. If the
show hadn't worked...
   The first episode went out on BBC
Radio 4 at 10.30 p.m. on the Wednesday,
8 March 1978, in a huge blaze of no
publicity at all.

Example of IF-standard:

Code: Select all

The budget of the series escalated to the
point that it could have practically paid
for a few seconds of Dallas. If the show
hadn't worked...

The first episode went out on BBC Radio 4
at 10.30 p.m. on the Wednesday, 8 March
1978, in a huge blaze of no publicity at all.

The book-standard may historically have been chosen to use less paper(?). I am glad that what appears to be the standard in IF is a blank line between paragraphs as it is much more readable.

[R2T1]

I wasn't inferring that double spacing between lines was currently used unless the author had a reason to do so.
I was referring to my school days, some 50 - 60 years ago, before computers, etc. We never used it for writing essays (compositions as they were called then). The only ones who had to were those in the typing classes.

Sorry I mentioned it.

[Denk]

I wasn't inferring that double spacing between lines was currently used unless the author had a reason to do so.
I was referring to my school days, some 50 - 60 years ago, before computers, etc. We never used it for writing essays (compositions as they were called then). The only ones who had to were those in the typing classes.

Sorry I mentioned it.

No need to be sorry

It made me remember that there are different ways to begin a new paragpraph, which perhaps not everyone are aware of.