Ask ... about "[any thing]"

Hello,

It took me a while to figure out a problem I had trying to use ASK SOMEONE ABOUT “[THING]” topics -using things in brackets as topics- and I finally found out that I can simply not ask about things that are not accessible at the moment of the asking. For example:

[code]The Studio is a room. Tim is a man in the studio.

The box is an openable and closed container. It is in the studio.

The box contains some chocolate.

After asking Tim about “[chocolate]”, say “‘So nice of you to bring me candy,’ says Tim.”

Test me with “ask tim about chocolate / open box / ask tim about chocolate / close box / ask tim about chocolate”.
[/code]
I tried to use “any” (not that it makes any sense, as there is only one thing called chocolate), but the following code produces an error message (with Inform advising me to report this as a bug, which I don’t know how to do). I can understand this, as “any” applies -I guess- to kinds of objects and not specific ones.

[code]The Studio is a room. Tim is a man in the studio.

The box is an openable and closed container. It is in the studio.

The box contains some chocolate.

After asking Tim about “[any chocolate]”, say “‘So nice of you to bring me candy,’ says Tim.”

Test me with “ask tim about chocolate / open box / ask tim about chocolate / close box / ask tim about chocolate”.
[/code]
On the other hand, the code works if I define a kind of thing as “candy” and then ASK ABOUT “[any candy]”:

[code]The Studio is a room. Tim is a man in the studio.

The box is an openable and closed container. It is in the studio.

Candy is a kind of thing. The chocolate is candy.

The box contains the chocolate.

After asking Tim about “[any candy]”, say “‘So nice of you to bring me candy,’ says Tim.”

Test me with “ask Tim about chocolate / open box / ask Tim about chocolate / close box / ask Tim about chocolate”.[/code]
Is there really no way of doing this other than creating a kind of thing for it?

Thanks!

As far as reporting a bug goes, you can go to inform7.com/mantis, register an account, and fill out a bug form. But there’s no need in this case, because it’s already reported.

Last time this came up a solution involved an extension called Objects Matching Snippets. But that might not work for your use case. The original poster there said it worked and they understood how it worked, which puts them several steps ahead of me, because I don’t understand how that worked or how a working copy of the extension wound up on my computer when it hadn’t been available anywhere else. But you might want to take a look!

You can quietly slip the chocolate into scope when conversing with someone:

[code]Test Chamber is a room. Next Door is a room.

A man called Gordon is in the Test Chamber.

The chocolate is in Next Door.

Rule for deciding the scope of the player while asking Gordon about something:
place the chocolate in scope.

After asking Gordon about “[chocolate]”:
say “‘I’m deathly allergic to it. Why do you ask?’”

Test me with "x chocolate / ask gordon about the chocolate ".[/code]

Hi mike,

This is perfect! Scope is the magic word!