GARGOYLE(6)

👑 GARGOYLE 💅

okay bestie, welcome to gargoyle(6) — the interactive fiction player, section 6 of the games manual. she lives over at <https://github.com/garglk/garglk> and she is, no exaggeration, that girl. 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

gargoyle [story]
gargoyle -d --dump-config
gargoyle -e --edit-config
gargoyle -m --migrate-config
gargoyle -p --paths [story]
gargoyle -t --themes

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so like, gargoyle is an interactive fiction player and she supports all the major interactive fiction formats, which is genuinely iconic of her. the roster:

• AGT
• Adrift (excluding Adrift 5 — sorry bestie, she's not invited 💀)
• AdvSys
• Alan 2 and 3
• Glulx
• Hugo
• JACL
• Level 9
• Magnetic Scrolls
• Scott Adams
• TADS 2 and 3
• Z-machine

if you hand her a story, she plays it. if you don't? a file chooser pops up so you can go pick one, nbd. 🎀

here's the options menu, queen:

• -d, --dump-config — dumps the default config file straight to standard output. look at it. admire it.
• -e, --edit-config — opens Gargoyle's configuration file in a text editor, and it'll create the file first if it doesn't already exist. so thoughtful.
• -m, --migrate-config — goes hunting for a legacy configuration file and moves it to the preferred location. on Unix systems this generally means renaming $HOME/.garglkrc to $HOME/.config/garglk.ini. a glow-up, honestly. ✨
• -p, --paths — displays the list of configuration file paths and theme paths that'll get used at runtime. and if you pass a story too, game-specific configuration paths get included as well.
• -t, --themes — displays a list of the available color themes. 🌈

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💜 CONFIGURATION 💜

she's highly configurable, but it's all done through a text-based configuration file. very low-key, very demure.

to edit the config file: hit ⟨control-comma⟩ while Gargoyle is running (⟨command-comma⟩ on Mac) and it'll open the config file in a text editor for you. you can also just edit the file directly like a brave little soldier. these locations get tried in order:

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/garglk.ini or $HOME/.config/garglk.ini
• $HOME/.garglkrc

🧚 overrides, because of course 🧚

there are also game-specific and directory-specific overrides. slay.

for game-specific overrides: the game extension gets removed and replaced with ini. so for example, zork1.z3 becomes zork1.ini. if that file exists, it's treated as a configuration file. periodt.

for directory-specific overrides: if the file garglk.ini exists in the same directory as the game, it gets treated as a configuration file.

finally — and this is the main character move — it's possible for a global configuration file to be installed. this is often the file /etc/garglk.ini, but that's configurable at build time, and it may also be disabled entirely. iykyk.

to see exactly which locations are in play, pass the -p or --paths flag to gargoyle.

heads up bestie: this will not include game- or directory-specific configuration files. don't be shocked. 🙈

🫶 they stack, they're additive 🫶

configuration files are additive, and the order matters:

1. first, the global configuration file is parsed.
2. next, the user's configuration file (like $HOME/.config/garglk.ini) is parsed, and all of its provided options replace whatever was specified in the global configuration file.
3. finally, if there's a directory-specific and/or game-specific configuration file, their options replace any existing options.

config files don't need to provide all the options. that means, for example, a game can pick only the colors it wants to use, while respecting all of the user's other choices. it's giving considerate. 💖

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🌟 AUTHORS 🌟

• Tor Andersson
• Ben Cressey
• Chris Spiegel <cspiegel@gmail.com>

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and that's the page, babe — shipped from Debian on November 24, 2022. go play some interactive fiction, you absolute legend. 💅🎀🦋