§12.2. The Status Line
The status line is the reverse-coloured bar along the top of the window during play, which conventionally, but not necessarily, shows the current location, the score (or sometimes the time of day) and the number of turns so far. It has been highly traditional since the early 1980s (Infocom's customer newsletter was for many years called "The Status Line"): it has become the visual identifier of IF. It plays the same role for IF that a header with chapter name and page number plays in a printed book.
The status line is ordinarily printed from two named pieces of text, the "left hand status line" and the "right hand status line". These can be changed during play, so for instance,
When play begins, change the right hand status line to "Time: [time of day]".
The examples below offer miscellaneous alternatives, and are fairly self-descriptive.
See Viewpoint for a way to make the status line list the player's current identity
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It may sometimes be helpful to prompt the player with a list of exits printed up in the status line. For instance, here is a status line that will print the names of nearby rooms, as well as all the doors the player can see:
Of course, we may not want to tell the player what glories are to be found in locations he hasn't yet explored.
Even when we have seen a room, we might still want a reminder about how to get there:
We may also find that printing out full directions makes the status line unpleasantly crowded. Fortunately, it isn't hard to provide a set of abbreviations to use in this context:
Everywhere else, the names of directions will still be printed out in full in the usual way. And now we give it a little map to work with:
Note that while this looks fine in some places, other locations exceed the limits of what the status-line can hold: if any given room is going to have a large number of exits, this kind of listing will almost certainly not fit. So apply cautiously. |
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It may sometimes be helpful to prompt the player with a list of exits printed up in the status line. For instance, here is a status line that will print the names of nearby rooms, as well as all the doors the player can see:
Of course, we may not want to tell the player what glories are to be found in locations he hasn't yet explored.
Even when we have seen a room, we might still want a reminder about how to get there:
We may also find that printing out full directions makes the status line unpleasantly crowded. Fortunately, it isn't hard to provide a set of abbreviations to use in this context:
Everywhere else, the names of directions will still be printed out in full in the usual way. And now we give it a little map to work with:
Note that while this looks fine in some places, other locations exceed the limits of what the status-line can hold: if any given room is going to have a large number of exits, this kind of listing will almost certainly not fit. So apply cautiously. |
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