i7 allows the creation and compilation of Interactive Fiction works
written in the Inform 7 programming language by Graham Nelson.

    Installation
        The default inform7 installation, as performed by root (see
        the file INSTALL in this directory), will put the Inform 7
        system under /usr/local.  However, this location can be
        changed by specifying the --prefix option to the
        install-inform7.sh script.  Administrative privileges are
        required to install Inform 7 into a system directory such as
        /usr/local.  However, it can be installed under a user's home
        directory without privileges and will function just fine.

        As with the project directory (described below), be slightly
        cautious with installation path names.  Spaces in the name are
        fine, but single or double quotations, the pipe character, and
        shell metacharacters such as "?" and "*" will very likely
        cause the i7 program to break in bizarre ways.

        If inform7 is installed to somewhere in the user's $PATH
        environment variable, then it may be invoked simply as "i7".

        If it is not, specify /path/to/prefix/directory/bin/i7 to
        invoke the Inform 7 system.

        Likewise, if Inform 7 has been installed to a system
        directory, "man i7" will produce the manual page.  If not,
        "man -l /path/to/prefix/directory/man/man1/i7.1" will bring it
        up.


    Interactive Invocation
        i7 [ -f story-dir ]

        Invoke "i7" with no options, and then choose whether to begin a new
        story or to work with an existing story. You will be prompted for
        the name of the directory that is the root of your story project.
        Don't go too crazy with the name of the directory: spaces are fine,
        but quotation marks, the pipe character, and shell metacharacters
        like "*" and "?" are not a good idea.

        If you supply the -f option and then the name of a directory
        (typically ending in .inform) that contains your story file, Inform
        will behave as if you selected to work with that directory as your
        existing story location.

        If a new story is chosen, the appropriate directory structures and
        UUID will be created for the story file. For an existing story, the
        directory given will be checked for the UUID file, and if it is not
        found, i7 will complain.

        Once a story directory has been set, i7 will move on to its main
        screen. From here you may change story settings (unfortunately,
        settings are not yet saved, so you have to do this on each i7
        invocation), compile your story, or release it.

        From here, you should edit your story file
        *project-directory*/Source/story.ni as you desire.

        If you have your VISUAL or EDITOR environment variables described,
        or /usr/bin/editor exists, or /bin/ed exists, or you set your
        preferred editor from the IDE preference panels, then the Inform 7
        environment will allow you the ability to edit your story from the
        i7 interface. Otherwise, just open the story in your favorite
        editor.

        Save your story and then choose Compile. i7 will tell you where the
        output is (*project-directory*/Build/output.*suffix*, where *suffix*
        is usually "ulx", but may be "z5", "z6", "z8", or "ulx" depending on
        compilation options.

        If you prefer, you can Go, which compiles and then runs your story.
        The interpreter invoked has no dependencies other than stdio, which
        makes it very portable, but if you want your game to look nice, you
        can play it in any other interpreter as directed by the Compile
        option, or you can set other interpreters in the IDE preference
        panel.

        You can toggle blorb compilation for both Go and Compile if you
        like, and a blorb file will be created next to the zcode/ulx file.

        When you are ready to release your story, choose Release, and i7
        will tell you where the blorb (or zcode/ulx, if you chose "Do not
        package as Blorb" as a setting) output can be found.

    Noninteractive Invocation
        i7 [-h] [-v] [-p prefix] [-s setting1=value1[,s2=v2...]] -c
        story-directory

        i7 [-h] [-v] [-p prefix] [-s setting1=value1[,s2=v2...]] -r
        story-directory

        If invoked with the -h option, i7 will display this help message and
        then exit.

        If invoked with the -v option, i7 will display the version number
        and then exit.

        If invoked with the -c or -r options, i7 will compile or release
        your story noninteractively. If you installed Inform 7 somewhere
        other than /usr/local/share/inform7, you can specify the
        installation location with the -p option; if you want to set any
        compilation settings, you can do so with the -s option.

        Supported settings are "blorb" with options of "1" or "0" (that is,
        do or do not package the output with blorb), and "zcode" with
        options of "5", "6", "8", and "256" or "g" (meaning compile to z5,
        z6, z8, or Glulx).

        It is hoped that noninteractive modes will be useful to authors of
        Inform 7 IDEs. A return code of 0 means that the compile or release
        succeeded; anything else signifies failure.

    What i7 is
        I7 is intended as an utterly barebones Inform 7 development system.
        All it really does is generate a UUID for the project and invoke the
        appropriate compilers when asked.

        Philip Chimento provides a GNOME port of I7, which is much to be
        preferred in the likely event that you are using an x86 or
        x86_64-based Linux system.

        This port of Inform 7 is deliberately intended to have minimal
        requirements. A Perl interpreter is needed to run the i7 shell. It
        is presumed that "uuidgen" is present somewhere on the user's path;
        uuidgen is part of the e2fstools package and should be present on
        almost every Linux system. Other than that, the actual compilers
        invoked are statically linked, and require only stdio for input and
        output, as do the bundled z-code and Glulx interpreters.

    What is implemented
        Compilation and Release are fully implemented.

        The Index is built and is available as files in
        *project-directory*/Index (and can be reached via the (I)ndex
        function if a browser is appropriately set, although since the
        inform: URL type is not implemented, the icons will all be missing,
        and since the source: type is not implemented either, links to
        portions of the source text also will not work).

        Any problems during compilation can be found in
        *project-directory*/Build/Problems.html.

        Story preferences are saved, and will be respected if you move your
        game to a different platform. IDE preferences are saved globally,
        but are not respected on other platforms (which generally use their
        own built-in editors and interpreters in any event).

    What is not implemented
        The Skein and the Transcript are not implemented at all. There is no
        "Replay" function. Although preferences are saved, the preference
        save files are not understood by other Inform 7 ports; nor does this
        port understand their preferences file.

        Only Inform 7 story projects are implemented. You will have to put
        your own "begins here" and "ends here" markers around extensions you
        write, and there is no support for Inform 6 story creation.

    License
        The i7 interface for Linux CLI is licensed under the GPLv3:
        https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

    Problems, Suggestions, and So Forth
        If you have difficulty installing i7 for Linux, please feel free to
        write to Adam Thornton at "athornton@gmail.com". Likewise, if i7
        chokes at some place other than compiling your sources, let Adam
        know.

        If you need help with the Inform 7 language, the newsgroup
        rec.arts.int-fiction is the right place to start.

        If you feel that the interface for i7 is horrifically bad and ought
        to be scrapped, you're exactly right. There's no need to tell Adam:
        he knows. Now that you have the native command-line tools, though,
        there's no reason for you *not* to implement an interface that's the
        functional equivalent of the Mac OS X, Windows, or GNOME versions.
        Please feel free to do so!

