GUI Party Dialogue Journal

[msyblade]

credit: mahric (wrote the actual script off a concept I pm'd him).
Wordsworth and Xanathar: Not banging their head on the desk while trying to help me understand, and implement the combining function for ease of use. msyblade:Duct tape and elbow grease.

Okay, got a new little widget that I think is ready to release for everyone to use in any dialogue/story intensive mod. Mahric drew it up for me awhile back, because I have so much dialogue, much of it hint based, that some can be easily missed in the specific 6 second window that it can be read (or remembered!) Its a journal that opens/closes with the c key and messages are added to it in much the manner that messages are added to scrolls. It has an onDraw hook to place in the init.lua, then a couple of SE entries, and its ready to go. I use it to copy hudPrints exactly, and timestamp to seperate convo's/time. Another use would be, as an actual journal, instead of a "log" (as it is when using it the above way). What I mean is, you could use the "mdCoversationList.addItem", AFTER the convo, to paraphrase what you like. So instead of direct quotes, you would have some thing like "Need to check the Water fountain on level 6" or "Avoid the "Dark" passage." The use is just like hudPrint, except it goes to the players journal.

Also included in the zip, are instructions to create your own function that will both hudPrint and add to the journal, with one command, instead of duplicating every hudprint for the journal. Useful for converting an entire existing dungeon with ease, and to save 50% of the coding when starting fresh. I put a bunch of pieces together over a period of time before writing the instructions just now, so I may have missed something (I know, I am shocked as you are!). If so, let me know any issues you are having,and I will address it until you get it working. It's just called LoG Journal, and you can get it here:

http://grimrock.nexusmods.com/mods/269/?#

Hope it's useful to somebody!

[undeaddemon]

Hmmf -
I am gonna have at this - see if I can get it installed. This is actually something that aligns with what I was trying to do...
Look forward to asking you a million questions!
Thanks so much for sharing this!
UD

[msyblade]

It's really not as complicated as I make it sound. I had a post 3 times that size with specific instructions, etc. and decided to trim it down, and have the intructions ,with some examples in the readme. It's really just two SE's in the editor, a party hook in the init, and some textures. Then adding lines is as easy as hudPrinting.

[undeaddemon]

Was there screen shots of the GUI on the nexus...? I didn't seem to see - what I was expecting I guess??

[msyblade]

I'll make it up a nice dedicated page with screenshots tonight

[undeaddemon]

U Da SupaManDango!!
Thank you!!

[msyblade]

Done, original post updated. Here ya go! :

http://grimrock.nexusmods.com/mods/269/?#

[msyblade]

Okay, Xanathar has decided to further aid this project with his ninja scripting skills, and is adding :
-slight optimization of placement.
-Ability to drag and drop the scrollbar.
-Wordwrap! Actually a very needed component to ease some of the restrictions on the designer.
-possibly create different sizes/display modes for multiple uses. ie: dialogue box, quest window, etc. . .

Just a heads up, in 2 or 3 days this will be quite a bit niftier. It will be a simple update however, if you want to get it now and start tinkering.

[undeaddemon]

Cool - I can wait - I'll address other work in that Dungeon that needs attention....

[Ryeath_Greystalk]

Tried playing with this but I am getting an error before it prints anything.

(The journal comes up fine if there is no writing in it.)

Code: Select all

function getListContent()
	local s = ""
	for i = _topItem, _topItem + _maxShown - 1 do
		if i <= #_list then
			s = s .. _list[i] .. "\n"  (<---- attempt to concatenate a table value  error here)
		end
	end
	return s
end

I tried using short sentances to avoid concatenating but it still gave me the error.