I can't get...

ID:262704
 
Oct 25 2005, 2:26 pm
I can't get the arrow in my game menu to work. Can anyone tell me how to go about this? I'd rather not post my code here, but can anyone tell me how to do it correctly? And if anyone doesn't understand this, I'm talking about an arrow like in the FF series, when you open up the menu, you got the arrow next to the category you want to go into, etc.

Oct 25 2005, 3:05 pm
im not sure if you can do that in byond code or not thats what statpanels are for
Oct 25 2005, 3:24 pm
In response to National Guardsmen
You can but sorry I'm not so sure how you can do it.
Oct 25 2005, 3:30 pm
You need to tell us how you are currently trying to do arrows. Otherwise, we don't know how you could do it, since we can't adapt a concept to your current one. Either post your programming, or tell us your concept on how you currently do the game menus.

A way to do it is to create a datum which controls the arrow, and keeps track of the item selections, and what they do.

~~> Dragon Lord
Oct 25 2005, 3:33 pm
In response to Mecha Destroyer JD
Okay, I'm following Rakwon's example in his "Raekwon Random Combat" demo.
Oct 25 2005, 4:31 pm
In response to Game Sage
Game Sage wrote:
Okay, I'm following Rakwon's example in his "Raekwon Random Combat" demo.

My god, don't use that demo. It has terrible programming practices, and will only end up being a pain in the ass to create new screen objects. Sure it might work, but when you start to learn what it does, you will realise there are way better ways to do it, and the way which that specific demo shows it is terrible.

As I said before, one good way to display input boxes on the screen which can be used over again in different situations is by creating a datum specific to it. The inputbox datum could hold a list of what boxes would be drawn on the screen. The datum would have the drawing functions, and would draw as many tiles to how many elements to the list it is told to do.

Here is a small basic empty example you could build off of:
proc
  tmax(list/L) // returns the longest charactered text string in a list
    .=""
    for(var/i in L)
      if(length(i) > length(.))
        . = i

client
  var/inputbox/ib
  Move(l, d)
    if(ib && ib.selecting)
      ib.MoveArrow(d)
      return 0
    return ..()

obj/screenobj
  New(l, client/C, sc) // sc = screen_loc
    C.screen += src
    screen_loc = sc
    ..()
  arrow
    icon = 'arrow.dmi'

inputbox
  var
    client/owner
    list/selections = list()
    offset = 1  // x where the inputbox starts
    obj/screenobj/arrow
    selecting = 0
    currSelection  // current selection element the arrow is pointing to
  
  New(client/C, list/selec)
    owner = C
    selections = selec
    arrow = new (null, owner, "[offset],15")
    // assuming 15 is the height of the screen
    DrawScreen()
    var w = 1
    for(var/i in selections)
      DrawText(i, w)
      w++
  
  proc
    DrawScreen()
      // draws the background "black" colours
      // height and width is dependent on the longest length in the selection list (width), and how long the list will be (height).
      var width = length(tmax(selections))
      var height = selections.len
      // do the drawing of the background.
      

    DrawText(i, j) // j is the number in which i is put in
      // draws the text "i" in (offset + 1, j) coordinates on the screen
      // a nice drawing utility for this type of situation would be DMIFonts, by Lummox JR

    
    ClientInput() 
      selecting = 1
    
    MoveArrow(d) // d can be any direction, but this specific example will only apply to north and south
      var/ldirec = d == 1 ? -1 : 1
      // direction in the list to go to
      // north = -1, south = 1
      var/possibleItem
      if((currSelection + ldirec) > selections.len)
        currSelection = 1
      else if((currSelection + ldirec) < 1)
        currSelection = selections.len
      else
        currSelection = currSelection + ldirec
      // loop to the start of the list if the end of the 
      // list is attained to, and vice versa
      currSelection = selections[currSelection]
      DrawArrow()

    DrawArrow()
      arrow.screen_loc = "[offset], [selections.Find(currSelection)]"


And to create the input box, we do something like this..

mob/verb
  test_on_screen_input()
    var/list/L = list("Test Selection","A test")
    var/inputbox/B = new (src.client, L)
    // when ready, call B.ClientInput to allow input to the inputbox via client/Move
    B.ClientInput()


This snippet just serves as an example on how you can expand an input box on the screen to your use. This will hopefully point you to the right direction. If you are unfamiliar with datums, then you need to learn them!

~~> Dragon Lord