Custom Dialog GUI displaying black behind it, hiding mouse cursor

[thezombiecow]

I'm using a custom dialog GUI (gDialog). I've set the appropriate option in General Options to use it, and it's displaying in the right place.

Problem is, it's displaying a screen-wide block chunk of solid black behind it of the same height as gDialog, and the mouse disappears when I roll over it (it reappears only when I end the dialog). The GUI itself works fine, bar the no-mouse issue.

Presumably I'm either missing the 'turn off big chunk of black' or a chunk of general script as a result of starting with an empty game.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrongo?

[TwinMoon]

If you're using a background image, try setting the backgroundcolor to 0.
Not sure what's causing the mouse cursor to disappear, though.

[Makeout Patrol]

Not sure what's causing the mouse cursor to disappear, though.

It couldn't be the gui's z-order, could it? I wouldn't think so, but it's the best thing I can think of unless there's some bizarre scripting going on somewhere.

[TwinMoon]

No, the mouse cursor is always drawn in front of everything. (At least, that's what I suspect, not having programmed AGS and all that.)

But wait: AGS changes the cursor to "pointer". You probably forgot to assign a graphic to that one, zombiecow.

[thezombiecow]

But wait: AGS changes the cursor to "pointer". You probably forgot to assign a graphic to that one, zombiecow.

Aha! That's nailed that problem! Thanks!

For test purposes, I've set the bg colour to 3. Although transparent, and assigning an image to it all still have the same black background effect behind it...

The GUI itself is displaying in the right place; shifting the x/ y/ height/ width all work. It's also displaying properly... it's the background.

Also, this doesn't happen on any of my other custom GUIs.

Also, I've tried shifting the z-order from positive to negative, with no change to the blackness...

??

EDIT: hmmm... I'm still testing this, but it looks like buttons etc. aren't being drawn onto my gDialog... is there anything within AGS that ignores buttons/ labels/ textboxes on a GUI that's being used for dialog...??

EDIT 2: EDIT HARDER: Also, the font's being displayed without an outline, so presumably I've just done something massivley wrong in setup... Given that I didn't do anything in setup for a custom GUI, what should I be doing in setting up a dialog GUI? // although actually, all fonts display on top of GUIs without outlines. Oh I don't know...!

[thezombiecow]

Sorry - I forgot to point out: I'm assuming the blackness is the black that's drawn screen-width for the bog-standard non-custom GUI.. you know the box that appears at the bottom of a default game??

[TwinMoon]

Are you sure you changed General Settings | Use GUI for dialog options to the number of the GUI you want to use?
If gDialog is the only GUI that's visible, changing the z-order won't do anything, since that only affects in what order GUI's will be drawn.


EDIT: Unfortunately you can't use buttons / labels / etc. on the GUI you're using to display the dialog options on.
However, Chris is redesigning the dialog system, the current beta version does have the option to make your own dialog system.

EDIT 2: Game.NormalFont allows you to change it (check the help file though, since it also affects Display and the build-in Save/load dialog)

[thezombiecow]

Are you sure you changed General Settings | Use GUI for dialog options to the number of the GUI you want to use?

Yup. In fact no matter which gui I use, the blackness remains.

[TwinMoon]

Just to get the problem clear:

- When you start the game, there's no sign of a black bar.
- When you start a dialog with Dialog.Start(), it displays gDialog but also with large black blocks on the left and right, which are the same height as gDialog.
- If you change the y value of gDialog the black chunks also change position.
- If you end the dialog, that black stuff also disappears.

Is this correct?

[thezombiecow]

Just to get the problem clear:

- When you start the game, there's no sign of a black bar.
- When you start a dialog with Dialog.Start(), it displays gDialog but also with large black blocks on the left and right, which are the same height as gDialog.
- If you change the y value of gDialog the black chunks also change position.
- If you end the dialog, that black stuff also disappears.

Is this correct?

Yep, all correct.

EDIT: Progress on this... under Direct Draw 5 everything displays exactly as you'd expect (no black box). On Direct3D 9 hardware acceleration, I get the black boxes either side. I've tried it on a Test Game and an Empty Game and get the same results every time.

Has that made this not a beginner problem and something more serious??

d

[Khris]

I've noticed the two modes behaving differently when I didn't import a 16bit pic as the first room background.
The room was still handled as being 8bit, although the game was set to 16bit.
This was fixed in a recent beta though.

[Dualnames]

So that goes down to what version you're using? And if you're using a stable, then that means you'll have to wait for Chris or can we solve it? Direct3D usually acts differently on some things. Example I can't play some videos files via AGS with it..when on direct 3d, yet works on direct draw(can't recall the version of AGS).

[thezombiecow]

The version I'm using is about a month old... 3.0 something, presumably stable...??

Should I shift this issue to the Tech Forum? Is it more likely to get picked up there?

d

EDIT: I've shifted this to here, hope that's ok: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=35854.0