Gargoyle

NOTE: This article is about the interpreter. For the ChoiceScript game by Simon, see Gargoyle (game).

Gargoyle is a Glk API library for both the UNIX and MS-Windows operating systems. It was specially designed to optimize the typography of the I/O system. Gargoyle was originally developed by Tor Andersson. It is currently maintained by Ben Cressey.

The name Gargoyle is also used to refer to the set of interpreters (with a common front-end) which Andersson ported to use his Gargoyle library. The interpreters currently (as of June 2009) included in this set are:

for ADRIFT games:
- Glk SCARE 1.3.10

for AdvSys games:
- AdvSys 1.2

for AGT games:
- Glk AGiliTy 1.1.1

for Alan games (v2 and v3):
- ARUN 2.8(6)
- ARUN 3.0alpha6

for Hugo games:
- Hugo 3.1

for Inform & Infocom games:
- Z-code (Z-machine VM):
  - Glk Frotz 2.4.3
  - Nitfol 0.5
  - no version 6 support
- Glulx VM:
  - Git 1.2.4
  - Glulxe 0.4.4

for Level 9 games:
- Glk Level9 4.1

for Magnetic Scrolls games:
- Glk Magnetic 2.3

for TADS 2 and TADS 3 games:
- TADS 2.5.12/3.0.16
- HTML TADS is not supported yet.

for Quest games:
- Geas 0.4

for JACL games:
- JACL 2.3.14

Specifics

Gargoyle is intended to care about typography, that is, to render the IF in a way most comfortable for reading. Features include specially chosen fonts, kerning, ligatures, text justification and many others. The options can be finetuned in the simple text file 'garglk.ini'; for example, using Notepad on MS Windows, the text justification can be turned on by changing the line containing:

justify		0	# 0=ragged-right 1=justified

to

justify		1	# 0=ragged-right 1=justified

See also: Spatterlight, a similar program for MacOS X.

Links

Gargoyle - Gargoyle's homepage.
Updated version - Supports Unicode. Updated by new developers.
- New features in the 25 August 2009 release include color support for Frotz/Z-Machine, copy/paste support to and from the text buffer, and Glk hyperlinks support.
Modified Gargoyle (description is in Italian though)