inform-mode Homepage

This is the homepage for inform-mode, a major mode for emacs used to edit programs written in the Inform programming language.

inform-mode supports the usual program mode functions: automatic indentation, moving over expressions, comment and string filling, font locking, tags-file support, starting compiles and parsing errors. It should work on GNU Emacs (v20/21) or XEmacs (v20/21) on any supported platform.

• Download
• Latest Version
• Installation
• Links
• Author, License and Reporting Bugs

You can download the latest version of inform-mode here. It is also available at the Interactive Fiction archives: see the links section.

Version 1.5.8, released 3 September 2002

New feature:

• inform-run-project (C-c C-c) runs an interpreter on the z-code file for the current project. This allows you to test games from within the development environment.
  If 'inform-interpreter-command' is a string (eg "frotz") then it will be run as an external program. This program can either be a standalone program like xzip or winfrotz, or it can be a character-based application like frotz or jzip: in the latter case, set 'inform-interpreter-is-graphical' to nil and inform-mode will run it in a terminal window using 'term' mode.
  If 'inform-interpreter-command' is a symbol then inform-mode will call it as an Emacs Lisp function, which is useful if you want to run malyon on it or have a custom function you want to run on the story file.

Bug fixes:

• Don't fontify semicolon after keyword.
• Fontify double-quoted dictionary words properly.
• Expand filenames sent to inform-project-file-list.
• inform-retagify should now work on NT systems.
• Don't move point unnecessarily in inform-indent-line.

The following obsolete function has been removed:

• inform-convert-old-format

Version 1.5.7, released 2 April 2002

• Fixed bug in fontification on GNU Emacs 21

Version 1.5.6, released 17 December 2000

• Recognise 'private' keyword
• Fontify object name after '->' properly
• Fontify dictionary words containing '-' properly
• Fontify 1-character dictionary words properly
• Fontify 'with name' properly
• Correct fontification of char before attribute/property name
• Allow imenu to recognize objects with -> in their header

Version 1.5.5, released 4 September 2000

• Strings with '^' and '//' are now fontified properly
• Non-directives ending with directive names (eg 'JObject') are now fontified properly
• Comment line-up (ie with inform-comments-line-up-p non-nil) is no longer confused by '!' in code
• Multi-line switch labels indented properly
• Indentation of multi-line strings now handled by inform-strings-line-up-p

Version 1.5.4, released 4 July 2000

• Dictionary words are now fontified using inform-dictionary-word-face, as font-lock-constant-face is not available on all Emacsen.
• Actions (eg ##Examine) are indented properly.

Version 1.5.3, released 23 May 2000

• Dictionary words are fontified using font-lock-constant-face.

Version 1.5.2, released 15 December 1999

• Objects that start with a class line should now be indented properly.
• You can now spell-check all double-quoted strings in the buffer using the keystroke 'C-c C-s' (inform-spell-check-buffer). This assumes that you have the GNU 'ispell' program on your system.
• If you set the variable 'inform-comments-line-up-p' to non-NIL, comments spread out over several lines will start on the same column as the first comment line.
• '#ifdef'/'#endif' blocks should be indented properly.

Version 1.5.1, released 5 December 1999

• Byte-compilation should work on GNU Emacs
• Indentation bug in first property of class or object fixed.

Version 1.5.0, released 27 Novemver 1999

In detail, the changes are:

• Understands all Inform 6.21 directives and library 6/10 attributes and properties.
• Indents if-else blocks correctly,
• Font locking for Inform routine code as well as object/class definitions.
• New keywords can be added easily as font locking regexps are calculated at mode eval time.
• inform-indent-line (TAB) moves point in a similar way to other major modes.
• When filling strings, backslashes are no longer added.
• Tags files can now be created on non-Unix platforms.
• More object and routine definitions are now identified properly when creating tage files.

To run inform-mode, you need the regexp-opt library, which should be installed on most newer emacsen. If you are running Xemacs with packages, make sure you have the xemacs-base and xemacs-devel packages loaded.

When you have downloaded the inform-mode.el file, copy it to somewhere on your emacs load-path such as the site-lisp directory. If you put the file in a non-standard place, tell emacs where to find it by putting a line like:

(setq load-path (cons (expand-file-name "/path/to/file/") load-path))

in your .emacs.

To speed up the operation of inform-mode, I recommend that you byte-compile it: start up emacs, type:

M-x byte-compile-file

and enter the filename for inform-mode at the prompt. Ignore any byte-compilation errors.

Finally, to enable inform-mode add the following to your .emacs:

(autoload 'inform-mode "inform-mode" "Inform editing mode." t)
(autoload 'inform-maybe-mode "inform-mode" "Inform/C header editing mode.")
(setq auto-mode-alist
      (append '(("\\.h\\'"   . inform-maybe-mode)
                ("\\.inf\\'" . inform-mode))
               auto-mode-alist))

To turn on font locking add:

(add-hook 'inform-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)

• GNU Emacs page
• XEmacs page
• The Inform programming language.
• The Interactive Fiction Archive

inform-mode was originally written by Gareth Rees and was previously maintained by Michael Fessler. It is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

Rupert Lane is the current maintainer of inform-mode. If you find any bugs or have any comments about the mode, please email rupert@rupert-lane.org.

Last modified: Tue Sep 3 15:00:13 BST 2002