Authoring with Vorple in Inform 6

After downloading the extensions, you can start using them! The rule is simple: you need to include Vorple twice: once before including the parser, and once after including the verblib. (Those are usually defined together anyway.) Don't worry, Vorple will handle everything correctly; it's just that some things need to be defined before including the parser and others after including it. So your code would look like:

Include "vorple.h";
Include "parser.h";
Include "verblib.h";
Include "vorple.h";
! and then write your game

If you are using another extension relying on Vorple (say, vorple-notifications.h), you need to include the extension after including the parser, but don't forget to include Vorple! So your code will be:

Include "vorple.h";
Include "parser.h";
Include "verblib.h";
Include "vorple-notifications.h";

In either case, the other thing you need to do is initialise Vorple, which you do in your Initialise routine:

[ Initialise ;
    location = room;
    VorpleInitialise(); ! this initialises Vorple
];

Time to do a quick example: type the following source code:

Constant Story "My story";
Include "vorple.h";
Include "parser.h";
Include "verblib.h";
Include "vorple-notifications.h";
Include "grammar.h";

[ Initialise ;
    location = room;
    VorpleInitialise();
    VorpleNotification("Welcome to Vorple!");
];

Object room "The Room"
    with description "You're in a nondescript room.",
has light;

After compiling it, you should have a .ulx file. If you run it in a standard interpreter, it likely won't support Vorple — but it won't crash, and your game will still be playable. However, we have a web interpreter that will run the Vorple effects correctly!

In the download package there is a file called "play.html". If you edit the file you should see a line that looks like like

// URL to the game file
story: "test.ulx"

Just replace "test.ulx" with the name of your story file. You then need to install a local server on your computer to be able to test your game. After this is done, open a web browser and type http://localhost/play.html (Windows with nginx) or http://localhost:8000/play.html (Mac/Linux with Python) to the address bar.

Technical note about I6 stubs

Vorple defines the stub "VorpleStartup", that allows you to do things while Vorple is initialising (i.e. during VorpleInitialise). This is useful mostly for one thing, which is queueing commands so that they are parsed and executed before the game even starts. Note that you can also use the VorpleInterfaceSetup rulebook (see the section on user interface) to add code to be executed at startup.

Vorple also defines the "MyVorplePrompt" stub, if you want to define your own prompt rather than the standard one. An alternative is to modify L__M(##Prompt) directly in the grammar file; but do not use LibraryMessages to change the prompt, as it will not be taken into account.

Finally, Vorple replaces Banner and L__M in order to add a little bit of code and some important Vorple functionalities. If this creates a conflict with your code (for instance because you replaced them too), define the constant VORPLE_NO_REPLACES; you then have to add the Vorple behavior to your routines manually.