Objectives Display Gui

[Gildoran]

I agree with Springheel about objectives being a meta-gameplay element and not an in-game item. I too would like to see maps function similarly to portable readables.

[Ishtvan]

@Napalm:

 

How is the GUI going? Do you need any support from the SDK code?

[Napalm]

it's going alright, I've had a couple things that I've had to wrok around but everything seems to work out as planned so far. As far as the SDK goes, without the support there is really no functionality o my code, so it's very hard to test to make sure everything works. The sooner we have SDK function the better.

[Ishtvan]

What SDK function do you need? One to bring up an arbitrary GUI? If that's the case, I'd send a PM to Gildoran and ask him how to call his code with a console command or something, because he already put that in the SDK for the readables.

 

If you're talking about the objectives code to set the gui variables, then please put up the GUI on CVS so I can take a look at what variables it needs and have the objectives code set them.

[Napalm]

Well The console command would be nice. As for the objective code, I'll put it on the FTP as soon as I finish, but I do not have CVS access

[Ishtvan]

@Napalm:

Okay, well feel free to put up even a WIP version on the FTP. Then I can look at it and make sure I can do what you need with the SDK code, and let you know if for some reason we can't do it in that way.

 

I still don't quite see how a console command to bring up a GUI is different from using "testgui" at this point, since none of the code is linked in to the gui vars yet. When everything is ready we can put in a keybind to bring it up ingame.

 

@Others: Did we ever decide if we're doing a map + objectives menu, which means the keybind should be labeled map + objectives, or is the map going to be done with an ingame GUI that your character holds?

[Napalm]

With a command key, I can link the close button, its not a big thing but it's onemore thing I can get done if you have the time to do it. I want to make sure I have all the vars I'll need in use before I'll put it ont he FTP, It should be good enough by tommorow

[Ishtvan]

Sweet, sounds good.

 

So with a command key, you would know the game was definitley running, and you could link the close button to exit back into the game? Is that what you're saying? Sorry for the misunderstanding, I don't know much about GUIs.

[Springheel]

Any progress here?

[Ishtvan]

Yeah, it would really help me with the debugging I'm doing right now, so the sooner the better.

[Napalm]

I'm very close I need to solve one bug thats stopping everything from functioning, and it will be ready to go

[Ishtvan]

Great! Feel free to post up the GUI code here if you want. Some of our other GUI coders might be able to help find the bug.

 

Question for the art dept. / about the next version of this: I added the ability for some objectives to only be able to be completed after another objective is completed. Do you think we need to indicate this in general in the GUI? Personally I don't think it needs to be indicated in general in the GUI. I think it can be indicated in the text description, like "Once you've stolen the diamond, get to the roof of the mansion" or something.

[Springheel]

If you're asking whether we need a visual indicator, I would say no.

[Napalm]

I fixed the bug, it was just a stupid incorrect reference. I'll try to get the code posted on the FTP by tonight, but it may take till tommorow. On a seperate note, I have to problems with the Display modifiers. With the strike-though, I was having problems with getting the line to fit with length variations of the text. It is much easier simply to gray out cancelled objective. Also, how will the "new" objective be set, I am assuming that will be on the SDK side? I can do it in the gui, but it will require a extra set of time parameter scripts to be written in.

[Springheel]

The linethrough may not fit the text length exactly, but it shoudn't have to. Or is it figuring out how to repeat it along the length of the text that is the problem?

[Ishtvan]

Also, how will the "new" objective be set, I am assuming that will be on the SDK side? I can do it in the gui, but it will require a extra set of time parameter scripts to be written in.

 

Yeah, that will be done in the SDK. There's going to be a set of objectives like 0, 1, 2, 3. Adding a new objective just adds on to that to make 0, 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

I'd have to see the GUI code to be sure, but from what we talked about before I think the GUI can handle that as long as it's somehow looping thru (or going thru a fixed maximum number) of objective vars and checking if it's visible, since the SDK will not set the GUI var for objective 4 to "visible" until an objective is added and set visible within the SDK. At that point it will also add in the rest of the GUI data for objective 4 (text description, whether it's optional, etc). So the next time they open the objective GUI after objective 4 is added, the GUI code that goes down the list should see that it's visible and display it, I think.

 

For the strikethru, what if we added a new font that's the same font but with a strike thru the middle? Or would that be a dumb way of doing it?

[Springheel]

It would look pretty artificial if we did it that way--the line would have to be perfectly straight. I can provide a different line-through graphic if we need it though.

[Napalm]

Its the repetition thats the problem, there no easy way I can think of to get it to match any length of text with a graphic.

 

Isht what I'm talking about is there is a "new" set for the objective for when you first get an objective ingame. It's not a problem to add a If the int = 4 then show the new graphic, I'm asking how the program will read "new" Should it be when the objective is set to active it displays new for a set time and then change to active-not new? Or will the SDK changes make it so The change will simply be a change in the integer. If your not sure what I'm talking about look at the different setting for objectives on page 1 of this thread.

[Ishtvan]

Isht what I'm talking about is there is a "new" set for the objective for when you first get an objective ingame. It's not a problem to add a If the int = 4 then show the new graphic, I'm asking how the program will read "new" Should it be when the objective is set to active it displays new for a set time and then change to active-not new? Or will the SDK changes make it so The change will simply be a change in the integer. If your not sure what I'm talking about look at the different setting for objectives on page 1 of this thread.

 

Oh, I see what you're talking about now. Well, first we have to design how we want this to work: Should it be marked "new" for a set period of time, or should it be marked "new" the first time you open your objectives GUI after it's been added, and then no longer be marked new on successive openings?

 

For now, I think we should just get a preliminary working version up without worrying too much about marking off new ones. We can work on that in the next version.

 

I would vote for some combination of both, i.e., it will remain marked new for at least a minute (or some other time), but it will also remain marked new the first time you open your objectives after it's been added. (So if you get a new objective and don't open your objectives menu until 20 minutes later, it will be marked new on the first opening but not on successive openings).

 

I think maybe we could set that up by putting the time check code in when the GUI exits. This could be done in the GUI if GUI code can do stuff like that. I could write a timestamp gui var for each objective from the SDK, and then upon exiting the GUI, the GUI code could check the current time against the time stamp and unmark any new objectives where the timer has expired. This method won't quite work though because it would mean even after the first time seeing the objective, if the menu is closed before 1 minute passes it will be on there again the next time they open it even if it's much later, which could be annoying. Alternatively we could do it all in the SDK if it's hard to do stuff like that in GUI code.

[Springheel]

Its the repetition thats the problem, there no easy way I can think of to get it to match any length of text with a graphic.

 

It's ok if it doesn't match completely. I'm not sure which part is causing difficulty. Is it not possible to detect how long a line of text is? If not, then that would make it a problem. How about detecting the number of lines in an entry? If we could do that I could come up with an alternate graphic.

[Gildoran]

In GUIs, I believe it's very hard (read: almost impossible without special SDK support) to detect how long a line of text is, or how many lines wrapping text ends up to be.

[Napalm]

Thank you gil, yes this is the problem. The text code is pretty basic, as are most o fthe gui commands, there is no way I know to check the length of a text entry. Again, might it be possible to simply gray out cancelled, as that is very easily accomplished

[Springheel]

Well, we already use greying out for accomplished objectives. Hmm, let me see if I can think of another way to do cancelled ones that sticks with our parchment theme. Maybe it would be possible to create a scratched out font as Ish suggested that doesn't look too bad.

[Gildoran]

Another possibility would be to make a scribbled out material that could be applied to the whole text box... though that might make it hard to read the objective.

[Ishtvan]

Do we really need to grey out accomplished objectives? In Spring's concept they also had a check mark next to them, maybe that is enough by itself and we could reserve greying out for invalidated objectives?