Highlights

A highlight is a word or phrase you want to stand out. Every time it appears in the game text, Merlin marks it, so you can spot it at a glance instead of reading every line.

Find your highlights in Settings > Highlights.

Add or remove a highlight

1. Go to Settings > Highlights.
2. Type the text you want marked in the empty row.
3. To add another highlight, press Enter. A new blank row opens at the top of the list.

The highlight appears right away, on lines already on your screen and on new ones. It even updates as you type.

Merlin saves each highlight as you type. Highlights are listed alphabetically. A new row moves into place when you click away from it. If you leave a new row empty, it disappears when you click away.

To remove a highlight, clear its row and click away, or click its More button and choose Delete.

Turn all highlights on or off

Use the Enable Highlights switch at the top of the pane. When you turn it off, all your highlights stop showing. When you turn it back on, they all return. Your list doesn’t change either way.

Note: The switch is saved on this computer only. If you use Merlin on another computer, that computer has its own switch.

How text is matched

• Whole words, anywhere in the line. A highlight of rat leaves You take a bite of your hard rations. alone, because rat is only part of rations.
• Plurals are separate words. A highlight of hound marks hound in The dark hound claws at you!, but not hounds in 2 dark hounds just wandered in behind you at 3 UDs!
• Numbers count as words. A highlight of 10 doesn’t match 10th.
• Capitalization matters. A highlight of Taath doesn’t match taath.
• Spaces matter. A highlight of Tam followed by a space marks the word and the space after it. Tam alone marks only the word.
• Color doesn’t matter. Text still matches when its color changes within the line.

Mark changing text with a star

A star (*) matches changing text within a line. Use it for parts such as names, numbers, or weapons.

What you can type

• Taath marks that word wherever it appears.
• Your*breaks marks from Your to breaks, whatever is between them.
• Tam* marks Tam and the rest of that line.
• \* matches a real star the game printed.
• SHOP|TRAIN marks either word, wherever it appears.
• \| matches a real bar the game printed.

Where you put the star

How much a star marks depends on where you put it. The match includes the text you type as well as the text matched by the star.

For example:

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Belka waves at Tam and Tam waves back

What a star can’t do

• It needs the text after it. If that text isn’t present, there is no match.
• It matches to the end of the line, not the end of a word. hound* marks hound and everything after it. To mark hounds too, add another highlight.
• It stays on one line. To mark several lines, see Mark a block of lines.
• Several stars count as one. *** is the same as *.

Match any of several phrases

A bar (|) means “or.” Use it to match any of several phrases with one highlight.

For example, SHOP|TRAIN marks either word. Each side of the bar works as a highlight of its own, with its own stars and its own whole-word matching. Use \| to match a real bar the game printed.

Escape stars the game prints

Use \* to match a real star printed by the game.

For example:

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 ** Belka just arrived in the world.

You might try this highlight:

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 ** *just arrived in the world.

That doesn’t do what you want. The two real stars become wildcards too. The highlight may still mark the intended line, but it can also match other lines and take longer to check.

Escape the stars the game printed instead:

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 \*\* *just arrived in the world.

Now only the final star is a wildcard for the name.

Tip: If a highlight seems slow, check for real stars that need to be escaped.

If Merlin turns off a slow highlight

If a highlight takes long enough to slow the window, Merlin disables it for the rest of the session and tells you which highlight it was.

To fix it:

• Escape real stars the game printed.
• Add more fixed text so each star has less text to match.

Merlin tries the highlight again after you change it. If it’s still too slow, Merlin disables it again. Restarting Merlin also enables the highlight until it proves slow again.

Mark a block of lines

After the text for the first line, add the number of following lines to mark between double stars.

For example:

1
2
3
4

The following are online:
  Belka
  Tam
  Marcus

This highlight marks the first line and the three lines after it:

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The following are online:**3**

• The number can be up to 20. You give a number instead of an ending phrase because the last line of a block often isn’t something you can name.
• The lines don’t have to arrive together. After the first line matches, Merlin marks each following line as the game sends it, until the count is used up.

Organize highlights into groups

1. Click the More button for a highlight, then choose Move to group.
2. Choose New group and enter a name, such as Combat, or choose an existing group.

The highlight appears under the group heading.

• To expand or collapse a group, click the arrow next to its heading.
• To rename a group, click the pencil on its heading.
• To remove a highlight from a group, choose More > Move to group > No group.

Ungrouped highlights appear below the group headings. Highlights within a group are listed alphabetically.

Groups don’t affect matching. A highlight marks the same text whether or not it belongs to a group.

Starter highlights

Merlin’s starter highlights appear under two headings:

• Intro: For the login screens, listed in the order the game shows them.
• Game: For the room text.

Change how a highlight looks

A new highlight uses the Invert style and Auto color. Together they put a block of color behind the words using the color the words already have. This works in every theme, keeps the meaning of the game’s colors, and stays readable for people who are color blind.

Each highlight has two settings: a style and a color.

Choose a style

Choose a style from the menu beside the highlight:

Choose a color

Click the Highlight color button (the droplet beside the style menu), then choose a color. The droplet shows the color the highlight uses now.

Where the color goes depends on the style: Outline colors the frame, Invert colors the block, and Bold and Regular color the words.

How highlights work with gags and substitutes

When Enable Highlights is on, highlights take priority over gags and substitutes.

• Gags: If a highlight and gag match the same text, the highlighted text remains on screen. For example, with a highlight of Belka and a gag of Belka*, Belka remains marked in Belka waves at Tam and Tam waves back, while the rest of the line is removed.
• Substitutes: If a substitute would change any highlighted text, the substitute doesn’t run because it can’t replace only part of what it matched.

When Enable Highlights is off, gags and substitutes treat that text normally.

Highlights also appear in the Game panel, which gags don’t affect. A highlight hides nothing, so it’s safe there.

Edit the highlights file

Highlights are stored one per line in the plain-text file highlights.txt. You can edit the file by hand.

Find it in the game’s Config folder inside your Merlin folder:

A group appears at the end of its line in braces:

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#highlight {Your*takes*damage!} {bold} {ansi 9} {group=Combat}

Highlights are stored separately for each game, preventing text from one game from marking text in another.