Need help with GUI for conversation topics and translations

[BlackBaron]

I think this are more beginners questions, but I posted them in that forum and after a few days I couldn't get a satisfying answer   .

1) I have a GUI similar to that of Monkey Island 2, and I will probably want to make a translation after my game is finished. Instead of using images for the buttons, I put a label with the apropiate text over the button, that way when I later make my translation I just have to change the text on the labels (on the tranlation file) instead of using new pictures (I don't use button's text because label text are easier to manipulate, for example, I can't change button text's color during running, or can I?) I just want to be sure if that's the best way to do that.

2) I've been searching trough the help, tutorial, posts, etc. and I can't find help about how to configure the box where I select my conversation topics. I activated the option "Dialog option on GUI", but that only lets me have a background for the options, I can't configure the font color, the Y position of the first line, etc. Can stuff like that be done? or do I have to program my own script for converstions to do that?

Thanks for the help.  (And sorry for breaking a bit the rules).

[Joseph DiPerla]

For number 2, Well, you can use SetGameOption(OPT_DIALOGUPWARDS , 0); to let the dialog go up or down. Change the 0 to a 1 if you want them to go upwards.

Then there's this in the global var's:

game.dialog_options_x  Offset into dialog options GUI to compensate for borders  
game.dialog_options_y  Offset into dialog options GUI to compensate for borders  

game.max_dialogoption_width  Maximum width of textwindow-based dialog options box. Default 180.  

Try changing those variables, they should be modifiable.
You can also check the tutorial "Getting started with AGS-Part 8" In the manual.

Also in General Settings, there should be a "Pixel Gap between options" Thats how spaced out the options are.

Also, to change Speech font and Style in the dialog, Use SetSpeechFont, and SetSpeechStyle. When you start a conversation, change the speech font to which ever you like, then when its done, change it back.

For number one... My suggestion would be to get a transparent small image, and use that on a button, and then change the text and font color on it.  See, Labels are not clickable, so they cant be used as buttons. And buttons, if you use text, can be changed with SetButtonText(GUI, OBJECT, TEXT). And as long as buttons have text, you can have a translation for them. So I suggest using Buttons. It would be nice though to use  SetButtonTextFont and a SetButtonTextColor though.

[Pumaman]

Also, the colour of the dialog options is the speech colour of the player character.

[BlackBaron]

Couldn't there be a way to have different colors for those? (for future versions, at least)

[BlackBaron]

game.dialog_options_x  Offset into dialog options GUI to compensate for borders  
game.dialog_options_y  Offset into dialog options GUI to compensate for borders  

game.max_dialogoption_width  Maximum width of textwindow-based dialog options box. Default 180.  

Yep, that worked nicely, thanks a lot.

I'm trying to do an interface as similar as I can to that of Indy Jones and the FOA, I've been doing well, but when I arrived to the dialog stuff I hit a wall since you can't configure it enough.
I'll see what can I do for now, but it'd be nice to have better control on the dialog interface, maybe linking somehow the conversation options to GUI buttons, or something like that, what do you think?

[Pumaman]

Couldn't there be a way to have different colors for those? (for future versions, at least)

Would anyone else find it useful to be able to change the dialog options colour from the character's speech colour?

You're right about dialog options in that they're not really customizable enough, but it's hard to go about designing a customizable scheme for this sort of thing.