suppressing listings in room descriptions (adv3Lite)

Authoring TADS
1

I have a taxi parked at a street corner. The taxi driver (an NPC) is in the taxi.

When I enter the street corner Room, the library tells me the taxi is at the corner, and the taxi driver is in the taxi.

I want to block the display of the text that says the driver is in the taxi.

a) It’s overkill, calling undo attention to the taxi, which is an option but not the only option for the game player and I don’t want to give it such prominence;

b) I think it a reasonable assumption that the driver is in the taxi unless told otherwise, so it’s unnecessary to point it out here, in this context; and

c) I want to describe the taxi in my own words.

I’m okay with the library notification of the taxi being at the street corner, just not the driver.

But I can’t figure out how to suppress the notification.

Well, not quite true, I know <> in the room description does work, but the taxi can appear at multiple locations in the real game and I don’t want to have to keep updating various room descriptions as I add rooms and decide later that one or another of them is a reasonable taxi location.

I’d rather find a way to do it once, for all possible locations.

Something like isListed = nil on the taxi driver Actor object, or contentsListed = nil on the taxi object, both of which sound like ideal candidates when I read about them in the Library Manual but neither of which works.

Any suggestions?

Here’s a test-bed implementation…

[code]#charset “us-ascii”

#include <tads.h>
#include “advlite.h”

versionInfo: GameID
IFID = ‘445C38A3-AD1B-4729-957A-F584600DE5C1’
name = ‘test’
byline = ‘by Jerry Ford’
htmlByline = ‘by
Jerry Ford’
version = ‘1’
authorEmail = ‘Jerry Ford jerry.o.ford@gmail.com’
desc = ‘Testing item listed in room description.’
htmlDesc = ‘Testing item listed in room description.’

;

gameMain: GameMainDef
initialPlayerChar = me
paraBrksBtwnSubcontents = nil

;

me: Actor ‘me’ @room
“The main man.<.p>”
isHim = true

person = 2

;

room: Room ‘room’
“The room.<.p>”
west = streetCorner
;
streetCorner: Room ‘street corner’
“The street corner. <.p>”
east = room
;

  • taxi: Booth ‘taxi’
    “The taxi. <.p>”
    contentsListed = nil
    ;

taxiDriver: Actor ‘taxi driver’ @taxi
“The taxi driver. <.p>”
isListed = nil
;[/code]

Jerry

2

Try defining your taxi driver like so:

taxiDriver: Actor 'taxi driver' @taxi
    "The taxi driver. <.p>"
    isListed = nil
    useSpecialDesc = nil // ADD THIS
;