SuggestedTopicTreeclass

A suggested topic that applies to an entire AltTopic group.

Normally, a suggestion is tied to an individual TopicEntry. This means that when a topic has several AltTopic alternatives, each AltTopic can be its own separate, independent suggestion. A particular alternative can be a suggestion or not, independently of the other alternatives for the same TopicEntry. Since each AltTopic is a separate suggestion, asking about one of the alternatives won’t have any effect on the “curiosity” about the other alternatives - in other words, the other alternatives will be separately suggested when they become active.

In many cases, it’s better for an entire set of alternatives to be treated as a single suggested topic. That is, we want to suggest the topic when ANY of the alternatives is active, and asking about any one of the alternatives will satisfy the PC’s curiosity for ALL of the alternatives. This sort of arrangement is usually better for cases where the conditions that trigger the different alternatives aren’t things that ought to make the PC think to ask the same question again.

Use this class by associating it with the *root* TopicEntry of the group of alternatives. You can do this most simply by mixing this class into the superclass list of the root TopicEntry:

AskTellTopic, SuggestedTopicTree, SuggestedAskTopic
// …
; ++ AltTopic … ; ++ AltTopic … ;

This makes the entire group of AltTopics part of the same suggestion. Note that you must *also* include SuggestedAsk, SuggestedTellTopic, or one of the other specialized types among the superclass, to indicate which kind of suggestion this is.

class SuggestedTopicTree : SuggestedTopic

Superclass Tree (in declaration order)

SuggestedTopicTree
SuggestedTopic
` object`

Subclass Tree

SuggestedTopicTree
SpecialTopic

Global Objects

(none)

Summary of Properties

Inherited from SuggestedTopic :
associatedTopic curiositySatisfied fullName location name suggestionGroup suggestTo timesToSuggest