One of my favourite activities when writing IF is obsessing about the order in which objects are listed in the room description. After defeating the Inform docs in a pitched search-fu battle, I understand that I need to use a property (or is it something else?) called the locale priority.
Naively adding “The locale priority of some guy is 10.” to my code fails, so I gather I have to do something extra - although it’s tough to tell what, because the documentation mixes it up with an example of how to “check the [priority?] table for debugging purposes”, which I have no interest in.
I think the code I need is something like this:
After choosing notable locale objects:
set the locale priority of the early bird to 1; [list before everything else -- this would work with any number lower than 5 and higher than 0]
set the locale priority of the unseen object to 0; [don't list at all]
set the locale priority of the late edition to 10; [list after everything else -- this would work with any number larger than 5]
Or maybe this:
Rule for choosing notable locale objects for the Misty Moorlands:
repeat with item running through large things in the Misty Moorlands:
set the locale priority of the item to 5.
Which, if it’s how it’s done is how it’s done (although doing this for every single room with notable objects seems like a huge bloody pain - assuming that notable objects means objects with initial descriptions, which is all I care about).
But, the number one thing I care about at this stage is ensuring that my NPC sidekick is always listed last out of the objects and people in the room (since he will be the least surprising thing to encounter in any location). I tried:
After choosing notable locale objects:
set the locale priority of this bloke to 10.
And this:
Rule for choosing notable locale objects:
set the locale priority of the handsome fellow to 10.
But now he shows up everywhere, even where he’s not.
Also, why is the syntax “set the locale priority to” and not “now the locale priority is”? Searching the docs for “set the”, it only seems to be used by locale priority.
Basically, you know, help please.