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§4.7. New either/or properties

Properties can't be handed out completely freely. In the previous chapter, we saw that we were allowed to make a chair "portable" and to make a room "dark". But if we try this the other way round, Inform produces a Problem message. This is because every property must be created in a way which lays out what values are allowed to have it. The Standard Rules built into Inform say that

A thing can be fixed in place or portable.

and as a result it won't allow "The Savannah is portable" because the Savannah is a room, not a thing.

We must do the same. To go back to our example "dead end" kind:

A dead end is either secret or ordinary.

This creates just one new property, not two. The names are taken as the two states of a single either/or property: secret means not ordinary, ordinary means not secret. Alternatively, we could just say:

A dead end can be secret.

in which case the opposite of "secret" would be "not secret".

Now we have a property which can be given to any value of the kind "dead end". We're also free to add to the definitions of kinds which already exist, including those built into Inform: for instance,

A room is either indoors or outdoors.

If we make the above definitions then all dead ends will be "ordinary" and all rooms "outdoors" unless the source text says otherwise. That is, in the absence of other information it's assumed that an either/or property is not true. We could reverse by writing:

A dead end is usually secret. A room is usually indoors.

A property can be used by several kinds at once. For example, the built-in either/or property "open" is used by both doors and containers, even though door isn't a kind of container and container isn't a kind of door. In fact, although it's more usual to declare properties for whole kinds, they can actually be given to single values one at a time, if we like:

The umbrella is carried by the player. The umbrella can be open.

And now the umbrella, which is a thing and not a door or container, can also have the property.


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**ExampleChange of Basis
Implementing sleeping and wakeful states.