I have a transparent scenery container, which by default is not listed in the room description. This is fine, as I don’t want it to be listed separately. However, if something is inside the container, I want that to be described in the room description. I already have “writing a paragraph about” rules for certain things that might be inside the container, but because the contents of the container are never listed in the room description, those rules never fire.
At the same time, I don’t simply want to list the contents of the container in a separate paragraph at the end of the room description, as that (I don’t think, at least) won’t trigger the “writing a paragraph about” rules that I have for things.
I’ve tried looking through the manual, but I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for, so I haven’t been able to come up with a solution. But I’m pretty sure this is just another one of those things that is made difficult only by my lack of knowledge and understanding.
I’m not quite sure what effect you’re aiming for. But you could try something like this, which is supposed to write paragraphs about the contents of the container just like the other contents of the room (so hiding the existence of the container from the player).
The Gallery is a room.
The glass cabinet is a transparent container in the gallery.
Rule for writing a paragraph about the glass cabinet:
repeat with the exhibit running through things in glass cabinet:
carry out the writing a paragraph about activity with the exhibit.
Before listing nondescript items:
now the glass cabinet is not marked for listing.
The last rule is there because otherwise the cabinet will get listed if it happens to be empty. Apparently a “rule for writing a paragraph about” doesn’t prevent a thing from being nondescript unless it actually prints something.
edit: having done some testing on this, I suspect you may have some difficulties getting the line breaks right.
I think I might have found an easier solution, though: I just wrote an after rule for looking in that location that carries out the writing a paragraph activity for something if it is in the container. It does exactly what I was looking for. Not sure why I didn’t think of this last night. When I posted my original message, I was absolute befuddled, but I was just eating lunch and I thought, “Oh, wait, all I need to do is write a simple after rule.”
I was hoping to try it and out and get back here before I wasted anybody’s time, but alas, I was too late. At any rate, I do appreciate the tip, especially the bit about nondescript items, which I did not know.
Or, within the room description, you can write—
“…[if there is something inside the transparent scenery container]Inside of the transparent scenery container, you can see [list of things which are inside of the transparent scenery container].[end if]…”
–or some such thing. You can put this anywhere within the room description.
Yes, that would be an option, and in a bare bones situation I would probably do something like that. In my case, though, I already have a complex “writing a paragraph about” rule that describes the things that may or may not be inside the container, depending on environmental variables. So it ends up being easier to just have an after rule trigger that activity, rather than duplicate everything in the room description.