These Gallery pages are a short guide to the visually presented tools built into Inform’s window. Pictures are from the Mac OS X version of the application: the Windows application is similar.
When a new project is created, Inform asks for a name and then opens its window like so. The left-hand panel now shows the Source, the tab which is selected in blue in the line of tabs running down the side of the panel. At this stage, the Source is a like a blank page of typing paper, except that Inform wrote in the title and author automatically. (It takes the author's name from the current user-name of the person using the computer, but this can be changed in the application Preferences.)
 
Memoirs of India 1-3
Gallery
1
The small example used in this slideshow is a very small piece of IF called "Memoirs of India". This is the first of the source text to be typed in: there is a part heading - which Inform automatically set in boldface - and then a paragraph which tells Inform to create a "room" - a location in which the action can take place - and supplies a description for it.
The quoted text is tinted in blue, again automatically (this is a feature which can be customised or turned off), and Inform is able to guess that it must describe Paternoster-Row from context.
 
2
Small and lacking detail as that source text is, it can already be "translated" (or compiled) into a working game. The only step required is to click the Go! button, which automatically saves the project, carries out the necessary translation, starts the translated game working and switches the right-hand panel of the window to show it in action.
The Game panel shows what a typical IF interpreter might display when playing this minimal game. As is traditional, the white-on-black "status line" at the top shows the player's current location, and 0/1 signifies a score of 0 in 1 turn. (All this can be changed: many modern games have no notion of scoring, and after all not everything in life is a competition.) The game is not much fun, since there's really nothing to do yet except LOOK, perhaps, or WAIT.
 
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