Description of thing without looking

Hi everyone! So I’ve known about I7 at least a few years, and have downloaded it on a couple of my machines in the past, only giving it very minimal attention and then forgetting about it. Having never learned to program and not being ready to jump into one, it was always something I looked forward to at some point but no commitment could be made at the time. Recently I’ve been taking a look at languages like Python and CoffeeScript, but honestly I feel like Inform 7 would be a great first run because of its orientation. I would not be learning small pieces of code to make simple, dull little programs and scripts, like they teach in most books or online courses. With Inform 7, while it has its limitations on what I can actually produce with it, it’s a dedicated platform in which everything I learn contributes to the same ultimate goal and I think that is frankly just awesome.

Anyhow, I’ve been reading the first manual (just around 51 pages into it) and this is the best introduction to a computer language I have ever read any portion of. I do think the repetitive nature and simplicity of the tasks do help a lot to make Inform 7 the ideal first step for me. It feels not much harder than using HTML and CSS (but more flexible), and I have never felt even remotely close to saying that about any programming language.

Onto my question:

So, I have begun my IF story with the player inside a car inside a garage. I have offered a description for each. The game runs and it gives the description of the garage. All fine and good, but I would like also for the description of the inside of the car to display, and preferably before the description of the garage. Since my player is in the vehicle upon game start, that should logically be the first description to show.

So is there a way to pull the description of a thing without using the look command in-game, and displaying that automatically on start?

Perhaps I might need to add the description to the garage room and once I leave the garage and come back, that part of the description no longer shows? Can I do that? Or would there be a better way?

Since it’s only the beginning of the game, the easiest way would probably just be to make it so what you want to say about the car prints at the start, rather than trying to change the car’s description itself. Something like:

When play begins: say "THE DESCRIPTION OF THE INSIDE OF THE CAR."

Hmm, that is easy. It might just be the perfect solution, I could add some more narrative to spice it up a bit. Then if I decide to, the actual description of the inside of the vehicle could reveal something new that wasn’t given in the “When play begins” description; this, assuming you can put something other than the player inside of a vehicle, which I can figure out for myself.

Thanks for the tip. I’m going to get back to reading the manual now.