Automap: command to recognize a room name

[dfabulich]

I was attempting to automap Cragne Manor, but it failed to recognize the names of certain rooms, e.g. "Exterior of Train Station (Emily Short with additions from Graham Nelson)" and "Town square, Backwater, VT (Marco Innocenti)"

Here's the transcript, for the record

Start of a transcript of

Cragne Manor
An Anchorhead tribute by various authors
Release 10 / Serial number 181208 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.33 lib 6/12N) 
Identification number: //1A586AF4-661C-4879-ADFF-7DDE35836AF1//
Interpreter version 2.1.6 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 080126
Standard Rules version 3/120430 by Graham Nelson
Cragne Suite version 2 by Ryan Veeder (including Basic Screen Effects and Modified Exit by Emily Short, as well as modifications by Andrew Plotkin of Epistemology and Conversation Framework by Eric Eve)

Plus modified versions of:
Optimized Epistemology by Andrew Plotkin
Conversation Framework by Eric Eve

>look
Railway Platform (Naomi Hinchen)
The platform is open to the outdoors, but has an overhanging roof with a rusted sign hanging from it. At the back of the platform, to the south, is the entrance to the lobby. Train tracks stretch off into the distance to the east and west; on the other side of the track is a graffitied brick wall. The only other living creature in sight is a rat fixing you with its beady black eyes.

The clock overhead gives the time as 6:20 pm; beneath the clock is a schedule board listing train arrival times. On the platform itself are a wooden bench, a storage locker, and a vending machine.

>w
It's dangerous to walk along railroad tracks.

>e
It's dangerous to walk along railroad tracks.

The rat scurries across the tracks.

>s

Train Station Lobby (Shin)
The evening light trickles through the dirty, cobweb-covered windows on either side of the station exit to the south, dimly illuminating your surroundings. To the north is the platform on which you arrived. To the east, a large mirror decorates the wall next to a green door. To the west, there is a brown door. The overall appearance is one of general neglect and decay. You regard your surroundings with a deep sense of foreboding.

A styrofoam coffee cup sits on the floor next to the entrance to the bathroom.

>w
(first opening the brown door)

Train Station Restroom (David Petrocco)
As you enter the restroom you hear creak of a faucet being turned off and the rough scraping of metal upon metal from the far end of the restroom. Finally the automatic lights kick on revealing the restroom but there's no sign of who, or what, could have caused the noise.

A harshly lit pay restroom. Dust and grime mar the once white tiles and marble of the facilities: A small shower stall with the curtain closed, a bathroom stall with a single dirty toilet (there are mounts for a door, but it is nowhere to be seen), a small storage closet for janitorial supplies, a four by four row of small lockers, and an extremely dirty dual basin sink.

The train station is EAST.

>e

Train Station Lobby (Shin)
The surroundings are as dim and dingy as ever. The platform is to the north. The dirty, cobweb-covered windows and the station exit are to the south. The large mirror and the green door are to the east. The restroom door is to the west. You are unsure what you should do.

A styrofoam coffee cup sits on the floor next to the entrance to the bathroom.

>s

Exterior of Train Station (Emily Short with additions from Graham Nelson)
To the north is the cyclopean windowless bulk of the train station. A metal trash can squats beneath its carved facade. The town itself is downhill, on the other side of a ravine. Somewhere down there, you can get a bath and a meal.

A woman stands in the center of the bridge, preventing traffic in both directions.

>open can
You open the trash can and peer into its stygian depths. Within you discern a pull-string doll and a dog-eared book.

>n

Train Station Lobby (Shin)
The surroundings are as dim and dingy as ever. The platform is to the north. The dirty, cobweb-covered windows and the station exit are to the south. The large mirror and the green door are to the east. The restroom door is to the west. You are unsure what you should do.

A styrofoam coffee cup sits on the floor next to the entrance to the bathroom.

>w

Train Station Restroom (David Petrocco)
A harshly lit pay restroom. Dust and grime mar the once white tiles and marble of the facilities: A small shower stall with the curtain closed, a bathroom stall with a single dirty toilet (there are mounts for a door, but it is nowhere to be seen), a small storage closet for janitorial supplies, a four by four row of small lockers, and an extremely dirty dual basin sink.

The train station is EAST.

>open closet
You open the closet.

A small storage closet containing a mop, pail and a few jars of liquid.

A small note taped to the wall says Locker 3 7113.

>set lock to 7113
The lock slides open. You remove it from the hinges of the locker and open it to find a glass jar containing an insect.

>get insect
Taken.

>e

Train Station Lobby (Shin)
The surroundings are as dim and dingy as ever. The platform is to the north. The dirty, cobweb-covered windows and the station exit are to the south. The large mirror and the green door are to the east. The restroom door is to the west. You are unsure what you should do.

A styrofoam coffee cup sits on the floor next to the entrance to the bathroom.

>s

Exterior of Train Station (Emily Short with additions from Graham Nelson)
To the north is the massive windowless bulk of the train station. A metal trash can squats beneath its carved facade. The town itself is downhill, on the other side of a ravine. Somewhere down there, you can get a bath and a meal.

A woman stands in the center of the bridge, preventing traffic in both directions.

>get all from can
pull-string doll: Taken.

a dog-eared book: Taken.

>rotate head
You rotate the doll's head. Its alternate face appears, scowling fiercely.

>pull string
A voice comes from within the doll's body, faint and gravelly: "Shun the clouds! Green is the color of poison and untamed growth!"

"What hazard is this?" With a concerned look, the woman leans towards the doll as if to pay closer attention.

>g
The doll intones: "Flee the glass jar containing an insect! It is displeasing to the eye!"

The woman looks alarmed.

>show insect to woman
The woman goes white. From behind you on the tracks comes a curious noise, mechanical and screeching, as though something were coming along the tracks. When you turn back, the woman has gone.

>s
You pass over the bridge.

Milkweed (Caleb Wilson)
It is possible to feel claustrophobia out of doors. Sunlight fills the sky but somehow doesn't reach you here. Steep banks of bramble rise to the east and west, trapping you within a gloomy trough a dozen yards wide. A poorly-surfaced road leads north and south along the trough's nadir. Just west of it, camouflaged with rust, is the train track.

A tremendous patch of milkweed, the stems abnormally thick and tall, grows on the east side of the road beneath the thorn bank.

A giant milkweed leaf dangles just within reach from the mass of stems.

Almost hidden within the milkweed is a dilapidated shack built more of splinters than of planks.

>e
You're too tired for bushwhacking; better stick to the road, which runs north and south.

>w
You're too tired for bushwhacking; better stick to the road, which runs north and south.

>s

Church Exterior (Andy Holloway)
The gravel road curves here past the doors of an old stone church, which squats defeatedly amid a few straggly trees. Behind it, to the northeast, you can see the first few stones of a modest graveyard. To the east the road narrows to cross a small bridge into the village proper; to the north, it crests the hill toward the train station.

>e

Town square, Backwater, VT (Marco Innocenti)
The first thing you notice, when entering the open yards of the town square, is the soft breeze that relentlessly caresses the buildings. It is so unlike the warm, salty air you were used to back home that you finally realize how long your trip has been, and how far removed you are now from everything you once knew.

The large, hexagonal-shaped square is paved with big, white stones, polished by rain and wind over the decades; around it, low red-brick buildings look like watching peasants. One single street leaves the square to the north, while less accommodating paths lead west, in the direction of a towering church, and southwest.
Due east, an iron bridge crosses the river, and southeast, a walkway leads down to its bank.

The swollen, slate-colored clouds that blanket the sky are reflected in the shiny, circular shape embellishing the center of the square, muttering ominous portents amongst themselves.

Ominous portents, you murmur to yourself.
Since that day, twenty years ago, when you first read them in a Lovecraftian novel during that uneventful summer vacation, you've been waiting for the occasion to use these words yourself. Another cold, harsh gust of wind interrupts you before you can decide whether this was a coincidence worth being happy... or scared about.

A man is leaning on the bridge rail, staring intensely at you with his only eye.

>n

Outside the Library (Gavin Inglis)
A short street terminates here. To the south it opens into the town square. To the east, a few worn steps rise to the entrance of the public library, and to the west you can see a real estate office. A gloomy path leads northwest, towards the woods.

You can see a notice board here.

>

Failing to detect room names is understandable; room detection is a hard problem.

But I wish there were a tb command I could use, e.g. tb room Exterior of Train Station (Emily Short with additions from Graham Nelson) which would then signal to the automapper that this is a room name, so it should be added to the map, and tell the automapper that this is my current room, so if I then return north, it could add the relevant two-way connection to the previously detected room.

As it currently stands, when the automapper fails to detect a room name, it entirely fails to detect a room transition, so if I try to manually add "Exterior of Train Station" to the automap south of Train Lobby, it doesn't know that I'm currently in that room. When I go south of Exterior, it thinks I'm still in the Train Lobby, and so it thinks Milkweed is also south of Train Lobby, prompting me whether I want to "keep" Exterior, Milkweed or both.

Overall, it's just a lot of fiddly manual effort to fix automap when it fails to detect a room name, and I think just a little bit of transcript hinting would help a lot.

[JasonLautzenheiser]

Thanks for the report of this issue. The automapper has been neglected some over the years, at least since I've taken over maintenance, so there is plenty of room for improvements. Thanks for the suggestions!

[JasonLautzenheiser]

One other thing I'm thinking about doing, perhaps as part of a general rewrite of this, is to open up the a lot of options (with smart defaults). There is a lot of code with "magic" rules on what constitutes a room name (capitalization, word length, ...) If I open these up for adjustment by the user, you could make trizbort read a particular map better.

This combined with the commands mentioned above would give the user better control and allow Trizbort to learn as it goes.

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