intfiction.org

Yes, but you can abbreviate it by defining a template:


Then you can define your individual test scripts simply as:


Which is pretty much as brief at I7.

-- Eric

Good suggestion! The one limitation, based on my attempts to use the template, is that the template can't be defined in the tests.t extension file itself. A template, it appears, has to be defined in an .h file that is #included -- or else in the same file where the template structure is being used.

This is not a terribly difficult thing for the author to manage, it's just something to point out in the comments in the extension, if you decide to make it publicly available.

The inability to provide new templates as part of an extension is one of the few gripes I have with T3. You can work around it if your new classes inherit from existing ones, but that only takes you so far.

I have a couple custom ShuffledList types that bring TADS up to par with Inform 7 - one that provides an equivalent to "as decreasingly likely outcomes" and one that lets you randomize bits of otherwise static ShuffledList items, in approximately the same way as bracketed text and a "To say" rule.

Nothing terribly impressive but perhaps useful to others who cross over from I7. Trouble is they are awkward to use relative to their stock adv3 counterparts without template support. (I don't think I've ever defined a ShuffledList or ShuffledEventList directly, and can't imagine why anyone would want to.)

I thought templates were a core language feature, not tied to any kind of class or object and that you can write new templates with no restrictions.

You're right that templates can be freely defined. They just can't be bundled up with an extension, since they need to be defined in the source file where they are ultimately used - either directly in that file or in a header that the file includes.

It's not the end of the world, but it does add some busywork for authors.

If you're going to use your new template in many source files, you could always hack adv3.h. That's what I'd do.

#including everything you need in your source files is something most programmers find intuitive though. Given that T3 is modeled somewhat after C++, I think having a header file for the extension would seem natural. Only non-programmers would find it a strange requirement. After all, you *are* programming when using T3. Also, having a header file gives you the ability to provide macros to the extension user, which gives you the ability to provide short syntax for otherwise multi-line code. Headers are a nice feature, not something to get annoyed about

Or we could file a new wish at the T3 tracker for templates to be exported.