12.1. Typography

| Chapter 12: Typography, Layout, and Multimedia Effects |

| 12.1. Typography

Story files produced by Inform tend not to contain elaborate typographical effects. They would only distract. Like a novel, a classic work of IF is best presented in an elegant but unobtrusive font. Inform does, however, provide for italic and bold-face, and also for a typewriter-style fixed pitch of lettering:

> "This is an [italic type]italicised[roman type] word."
> "This is an [bold type]emboldened[roman type] word."
> "This is a [fixed letter spacing]typewritten[variable letter spacing] word."

Authors making very frequent use of these might like to borrow the briefer definitions in Chanel Version 1.

A very wide range of letter-forms is normally available (and even more in quoted text), so that the writer seldom needs to not worry whether, say, a sentence like

> A ticket to Tromsø via Østfold is in the Íslendingabók.

will work. The Über-complète clavier is an exhaustive test of such exotica.

Coloured type is trickier, and its availability depends on the story file format. For a Z-machine game, Garibaldi 2 demonstrates this.

Finally, Tilt 3 combines unusual letterforms (suit symbols) with red and black colours to render hands of cards typographically.

443
| Example Chanel Version 1 Making paired italic and boldface tags like those used by HTML for web pages. |
WI

70
| Example The Über-complète clavier This example provides a fairly stringent test of exotic lettering. |
WI

The following example puts Inform's support for exotic lettering through its paces. It was useful in testing Inform but is not a very instructive read: still, it does provide a test story file for interpreters, so we are including the source here as an example. "The Über-complète clavier" The story headline is "Pushing the Limits of Unicode in IF". The story description is "This is a demanding test for Unicode compliance by Z-machine interpreters." Include Unicode Character Names by Graham Nelson. Include Basic Screen Effects by Emily Short. The Château Bibliothèque Français is east of the Deutsche Universität Bücherei. "From this Borgesian construction, doorways lead into anterooms in each of the four cardinal directions." South of the Bibliothèque is the Miscellany Mañana. North of the Bibliothèque is the Íslendingabók. East of the Bibliothèque is Alphabet Soup. A framed photograph of Icelandic Prime Minister Halldór Ásgrímsson, a ruler measuring Ångströms, a Bokmål-Lëtzebuergesch Lëtzebuergesch-Bokmål dictionary and a ticket to Tromsø via Østfold are in the Íslendingabók. A paper by Karl Weierstraß, a general feeling of Ärger, an old Österreich passport and the Bach Clavier-Übung open at the fugue à 4 are in the Bücherei. The painting of École normale superiéure students singing Ça ira, the frankly lesser-known journal of Niccolò Polo, Così fan tutte on CD, an extract of Herodotus concerning Artaÿctes and the exit sign reading À BIENTÔT are in the Bibliothèque. A wicker basket marked CHLOË is in the Bibliothèque. A ginger cat is in the basket. A guide to Æsop for naïve æsthetes, Lönnrot's Kalevala, a creed according to the Bahá'ís, FALARÃO magazine, an Estonian poem by Tõnu Trubetsky, a Portuguese-Italian recipe for macarrão, a stripy hanging CANDY PIÑATA bag, a ¿¡Punctuation Turned Upside Down¿¡ pamphlet, an Italian brewers' anti-violence poster declaring BÓTTE NON BÒTTE, a map of È and a dusty book titled The Parnasum of Luís Vaz bearing CAMÕES on its spine are in Miscellany Mañana. The description of the map is "È is a province in the People's Republic of China." In Mañana is something called ÂÊÎÔÛ - The Official Journal of the Society for Vowels bearing Circumflexes. In Mañana is something called âêîôû comic - the youth edition. The description of Alphabet Soup is "A bewildering place of glyphs, sigils and signs. The Library proper leads back west: steps lead upwards to an Observatory, or downwards into what seems to be a dangerous area. A gaming lounge lies to the south." The Greek Alphabet, the Cyrillic Alphabet, the Hebrew alphabet, and the embossed plaque are in Alphabet Soup. The description of the Greek alphabet is "αβγδεζηθικλμνξοπρςστυφχψω.". The description of the Hebrew alphabet is "אבגדהוזחטיךכלםמןנסעףפץצקרשת.". The description of the Cyrillic alphabet is "абвгдежзийклмнопрстуфхцчшщъыьэюя.". Instead of examining the plaque: say "It seems to be a sign in Braille: "; say unicode Braille pattern dots-24, " (I), ", unicode Braille pattern dots-1345, " (N), ", unicode Braille pattern dots-124, " (F), ", unicode Braille pattern dots-135, " (O), ", unicode Braille pattern dots-1235, " (R), ", unicode Braille pattern dots-134, " (M)." The Gaming Lounge is south of Alphabet Soup. The chess position and the book of puzzle canons are in the Gaming Lounge. The Georges de la Tour painting Le Tricheur is in the Gaming Lounge. "Hanging on one wall is Georges de la Tour's masterpiece Le Tricheur (the card-sharp). Visible are 8[unicode black diamond suit], 9[unicode black diamond suit], A[unicode black diamond suit], A[unicode black spade suit], 6[unicode black club suit] but not one of them has a [unicode black heart suit]." The description of Le Tricheur is "If they'd been dice-players instead, they might have thrown [unicode die face-1], [unicode die face-2], [unicode die face-3], [unicode die face-4], [unicode die face-5] or[unicode die face-6], but as it is they stick to cards. Just as well: under Mac OS X, some of those dice have the wrong number of dots!" The description of the book of canons is "A typical fugue is no. 13 (Tovey: [unicode eighth note] = 110) in F[unicode music sharp sign] minor, but you can also make out keys like A[unicode music flat sign] and G[unicode music natural sign]." The empty square text is text that varies. To say empty: say the empty square text. To display the board: say empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, empty, unicode black chess king, empty, line break; say empty, empty, empty, unicode black chess queen, empty, empty, unicode black chess pawn, empty, line break; say unicode black chess pawn, empty, empty, unicode black chess bishop, unicode black chess pawn, empty, empty, unicode black chess pawn, line break; say empty, empty, empty, unicode black chess pawn, empty, unicode black chess rook, empty, empty, line break; say empty, unicode black chess pawn, empty, unicode white chess pawn, unicode black chess pawn, empty, empty, empty, line break; say empty, empty, empty, unicode black chess bishop, unicode white chess queen, empty, unicode white chess pawn, unicode white chess pawn, line break; say unicode white chess pawn, unicode white chess pawn, empty, unicode white chess bishop, empty, unicode black chess rook, unicode white chess bishop, empty, line break; say empty, unicode white chess knight, empty, empty, unicode white chess rook, empty, unicode white chess rook, unicode white chess king, line break. Instead of examining the chess position: say "Fritz Saemisch - Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen 1923: the Immortal Zugzwang Game. Nimzowitsch (black), observing that white will very soon have to play a terrible move, has just advanced his h pawn for no reason other than to wait. So it is white to play..."; say "[fixed letter spacing]......k. [line break]...q..p. [line break]p..bp..p [line break]...p.r.. [line break].p.Pp... [line break]...bQ.PP [line break]PP.B.rB. [line break].N..R.RK [variable letter spacing][line break]"; say "'White must, willy-nilly, eventually throw himself upon the sword', in Nimzowitsch's commentary. "; say "We will now try to display the same position using chess-piece symbols in a Unicode font."; say fixed letter spacing; now the empty square text is " "; display the board; say variable letter spacing. The Astrological Observatory is above Alphabet Soup. The planets are in the Observatory. "Diagrams of the planets are scattered across the dome: Sun [unicode Sun], Mercury [unicode Mercury], Venus [unicode Female Sign], Earth [unicode Earth], Moon [unicode First Quarter Moon] and [unicode Last Quarter Moon], Mars [unicode Male Sign], Jupiter [unicode Jupiter], Saturn [unicode Saturn], Uranus [unicode Uranus], Neptune [unicode Neptune], Pluto [unicode Pluto] and one or two comets [unicode Comet]. Fainter, but all around, you see stars black [unicode black star] and white [unicode white star]." The constellations are in the Observatory. "Ringing the dome are the constellations: Aries [unicode Aries], Taurus [unicode Taurus], Gemini [unicode Gemini], Cancer [unicode Cancer], Leo [unicode Leo], Virgo [unicode Virgo], Libra [unicode Libra], Scorpius [unicode Scorpius], Sagittarius [unicode Sagittarius], Capricorn [unicode Capricorn], Aquarius [unicode Aquarius], Pisces [unicode Pisces]." The weather almanac is in the Observatory. The description of the almanac is "Here nightly observers scrawl in hasty abbreviations for the current weather conditions: clear weather [unicode Black Sun with Rays], cloudy [unicode cloud], rain [unicode umbrella], snow [unicode snowman], lightning [unicode lightning], thunderstorm [unicode thunderstorm]." The Danger Zone is below Alphabet Soup. The printed name of the Danger Zone is "[unicode skull and crossbones] Danger Zone [unicode skull and crossbones]". The warning signs are in the Danger Zone. "A variety of international-standard warning standards suggest that this may not be the safest place: [unicode skull and crossbones], [unicode caution sign], [unicode radioactive sign], [unicode biohazard sign]." This example text was used to produce a story file which has been tried against both Zoom for Mac OS X and Windows Frotz. The Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and Hebrew text all functioned perfectly on both, but a point of difference showed when writing the Hebrew alphabet: Zoom wrote this right-to-left, Windows Frotz left-to-right. The exotic symbols displayed on Zoom (though others not mentioned above, such as "[unicode staff of hermes]", did not): but most appeared only as black squares on Windows Frotz, exceptions being the astrological signs for Venus and Mars and the musical note.

69
| Example Garibaldi 2 Adding coloured text to the example of door-status readouts. |
WI

439
| Example Tilt 3 Displaying the card suits from our deck of cards with red and black colored unicode symbols. |
WI

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