Guard Fields & Conditions in the 1992 Mac Edition of afternoon
On the illustration above the Browse Links panel of a lexia called “I want 2”, from the introductory sequence of afternoon.a story, presents all destinations available from this particular text space. Five out of six destinations have conditions under which reader can access them. Conditions are scripted in dedicated fields called Guard Fields. The bottom row of the panel gives access to the editing mode of the guard field. Conditional rules are set by simple mark-up signs, such as “&”,”!” and “~" that determine in what circumstances a link destination can be reached.
In the case depicted, above, readers are allowed to go to "I want1" only if they have already visited "blacktop" and not yet visited "teufel" and "Bimmie". Such elaborate conditions need to be migrated to any future editions in order to preserve the narrative discourse of the work.