12.2. The Status Line

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

| 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

373
| Example Blankness Emptying the status line during the first screen of the game. |
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402
| Example Capital City To arrange that the location information normally given on the left-hand side of the status line appears in block capitals. |
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115
| Example Centered Replacing the two-part status line with one that centers only the room name at the top of the screen. |
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442
| Example Status line with centered text, the hard way A status line which has only the name of the location, centered. |
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Making major changes to display features, such as the construction of the status line, sometimes requires that we rely on Inform 6 in bulk; here is how we might produce the Trinity-style status line, with the location centered at the top center of the screen. "Corner of No and Where" No is a room. Where is west of No. Rule for constructing the status line: print the location in the center of the status line; rule succeeds. To print the location in the center of the status line: (- PrintCenteredStatus(); -). Include (- Array printed_text --> 64; [ PrintCenteredStatus i j; @set_cursor 1 0; i = 0->33; spaces(i); @output_stream 3 printed_text; print (name) location; @output_stream -3; j = (i - (printed_text-->0))/2; @set_cursor 1 j; print (name) location; spaces j-1; ]; -) Test me with "w / e". In fact, as we've already seen, many extra modifications to the display behavior are possible using Basic Screen Effects.

336
| Example Ways Out A status line that lists the available exits from the current location. |
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337
| Example Guided Tour A status line that lists the available exits from the current location, changing the names of these exits depending on whether the room has been visited or not. |
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114
| Example Politics as Usual Have the status line indicate the current region of the map. |
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