Conversations and dialogs: an aesthetic dilemma

[Luca]

Hi guys!
I'm still "prototyping" (I don't know if it's a real world but it sounds good to me) and I have a question about the ugly black "box" where all the choices for the conversation are located.
Is there any way to change its position and make it transparent?

Thank you!

EDIT:
I forgot... when I pass with the mouse cursor over the "ugly black box for dialogue choices", the mouse cursor become invisible. How can I fix that?
Thank you again!

[Ryan Timothy B]

When I pass with the mouse cursor over the "ugly black box for dialogue choices", the mouse cursor become invisible.

Sounds like it's changing to eModePointer. Check the sprite you have for that pointer graphic.

As for making it transparent, look at Custom dialog options rendering in the manual. Change the following line:

Code: ags

  info.Surface.Clear(14);  // Clears the area yellow

change to:

Code: ags

  info.Surface.Clear();  // Clears to transparent

That will also allow you to set its position and size.

[san.daniele]

you could also "Use GUI for dialog options" in the General Settings.

[Luca]

Thank you all guys!
I'll try with your advices.
"I' will return!"

[Luca]

Ok, now I'm creating a custom dialog GUI, but I need to put buttons to scroll the dialogue options when they are too many.
How could I do this?
I searched in the dynamic help but I found only the code for the scroll buttons for the inventory.
Thanks again

[Slasher]

Hi,

AFAIK you can't scroll with custom GUI Dialog's, unless someone has made a module or other to do so.

[Luca]

Hi,

AFAIK you can't scroll with custom GUI Dialog's, unless someone has made a module or other to do so.

Ok, thank you
I'm not so good as a coder... I think will leave as it is with some little variations

[Scavenger]

Hi,

AFAIK you can't scroll with custom GUI Dialog's, unless someone has made a module or other to do so.

I thought you could? I'm using This module in my game, and I got scrolling options. (it is a really good module, too, I've had absolutely no problems with it, even when I needed to change the behaviour of the dialog gui.)

[Luca]

I thought you could? I'm using This module in my game, and I got scrolling options. (it is a really good module, too, I've had absolutely no problems with it, even when I needed to change the behaviour of the dialog gui.)

Thank you Scavenger! I'll give it a try

[Ryan Timothy B]

AFAIK you can't scroll with custom GUI Dialog's, unless someone has made a module or other to do so.

A module is simply just AGS Code. If there's a module that can do it, then you can do it. Unless you meant to say plugin.

Ignoring that, yes, you can do scrolling with a custom dialog. It's just a tiny bit more work.

[Luca]

A module is simply just AGS Code. If there's a module that can do it, then you can do it. Unless you meant to say plugin.

Ignoring that, yes, you can do scrolling with a custom dialog. It's just a tiny bit more work.

I guess this could be a good moment to begin to see how modules work

In any case, is there a tutorial to create a scrolling interface with scripting? I searched but I didn't find anything.

Thank you

[Khris]

A module is just a way to separate connected code from the rest of the game, to keep things tidier.
The cool thing is that they allow you to add to or even replace the main functions that do click handling, that constantly run in the background, and other things.
Ideally, you import a module into the script tree, maybe call a few setup lines, and bam, your game has completely new capabilities, or a different interface. An example would be an underwater graphics effect.

In essence, it's just a tons more convenient way of posting huge blocks of code, together with instructions where and how they're supposed to be inserted.

[Luca]

So I could create my own modules, each one for every aspect of the game (a module for the inventory, a module for the dialogues, a module for the input and so on)?
Even a module for each room?

Anyway ok, I can import a module for the scrolling dialogues, call the lines for the setup, and then follow the instructions to use my new features?
Sweet 

[Khris]

Yes.

Creating a new script for every aspect of the game is not recommended, unless you're creating a completely custom inventory system from scratch or something like that (which is clearly something not recommended for a beginner to try).
And rooms have their own script anyway; it handles all room-specific events like entering regions, entering or leaving the room itself, interacting with the room's hotspots or objects, etc.

If you decide to go ahead and implement a complex custom interface later on, and your repeatedly_execute or on_mouse_click is going to become really cluttered and long (and even transferring code to custom functions doesn't help), then is the time to start putting stuff into other scripts / modules. You'll notice

[Luca]

Ok, thank you
Since we are writing a classic point and click adventure, I think we don't need to add too much custom features, but it will be surely useful in the future

[Luca]

Hi to you all
In the last days I haven't had enough time to work on the prototype
Anyway I finally imported the module suggested by Scavenger, but I don't know hoe to use it (it's my first attemp with a module of any kind).
First I wanted to ask help directly in the module thread, but my questions are too generic... well... how do I use it (and modules in general)? Scavenger! I summon you!

EDIT:
Scavenger helped me via pm. It all works great Thank you all!