parchment

What Parchment plays in the browser

Parchment is the Interactive Fiction player for the web. To play a story with Parchment you go to iplayif.com. The project describes itself as a way to play interactive fiction stories without leaving the browser. It is made with the support of a grant from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, and the README points readers to that grant and to the foundation's site for background on the funding. Parchment is not limited to a single story format. The site generator supports any of the formats that Parchment supports, which the README lists as Adrift 4, Glulx, Hugo, TADS 2 and 3, and Z-Code. This range means a single tool can present many kinds of interactive fiction to readers. Because the player runs on the web, authors can share a link rather than asking readers to install a separate interpreter. The README frames Parchment as the standard web player for this category of fiction, and it is referenced by Inform 7 as the built in way to produce playable web versions of stories. The project keeps the player focused on the reading and playing experience rather than on configuration. The README repeats that the player is for the web specifically, so there is no native app to install and no separate interpreter to configure before a story can be opened in a browser.

Using Parchment with Inform 7

Inform 7 includes Parchment, and the README explains how that integration works. When you use Inform 7 you can produce personal websites for your stories, and the README links to the relevant Inform 7 documentation about that process. If you want to update the version of Parchment that Inform 7 uses, the README says to get the newer build from the releases page and unzip it into the Templates subfolder of your project's Materials folder. That is the only action the README describes for keeping the Inform 7 bundled player current. The README does not ask authors to edit code in order to publish. The workflow is to build the story, then place the Parchment files in the Templates location. This keeps Inform 7 users on a known player version while still letting them adopt updates. The README presents this as the path for people already working inside Inform 7, and it treats the site generator as the alternative for everyone else who needs a standalone build. This design means an author using Inform 7 does not need to learn a new publishing tool, because the player files drop into the existing Materials folder structure the author already uses for their project.

Single file and site generator builds

For people who are not using Inform 7, or who can no longer recompile their story file, the README describes two additional ways to use Parchment. The first is the Parchment Site Generator, available at iplayif.com/api/sitegen. The README says it lets you make a single file version of Parchment. The same tool supports the full set of Parchment formats: Adrift 4, Glulx, Hugo, TADS 2 and 3, and Z-Code. The second option is a single file build of Parchment itself, which the README says is suitable for downloading and using offline. That build is downloaded from the releases page. Together these options cover authors who want a hosted single file page and authors who want a fully offline copy. The README links both to the releases page and frames them as the practical distribution methods. The project is MIT licensed, and the README notes that it incorporates several upstream projects, including AsyncGlk, Bocfel, Emglken, and others, each under the MIT license. This reuse of MIT licensed interpreters is part of why Parchment itself can stay MIT. The releases page is the single source for both the site generator output and the offline build, so users do not have to choose between a hosted and a local option at the moment they download.

Editorial conclusion

Parchment is MIT licensed and is developed with a grant from the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. It is written in TypeScript and ships single file and site generator builds from its releases page.