[SOLVED] Dialogue cut off by statusline GUI

[tilapisha]

When my character is on the upper half of screen, and has some length dialogue, it gets cut off by the status line GUI and you cannot read it.

Is there an easy way to fix this?

[eri0o]

Which speech type are you using? I remember sierra speech was able to detect GUIs and move the dialog down, so if it's Sierra than this is a bug - in the engine!

Erh, additionally, what you mean by cutoff? Is the speech behind the GUI? I remember speech was supposed to always be in front of the GUI!

[tilapisha]

I'm using Sierra-style and Character.SayBackground, which from my understanding makes the character able to move while speaking and has nothing to do with actual back to front properties.

Maybe it's a bug? It's getting cut off at the top of the screen nonetheless.

[Crimson Wizard]

I'm using Sierra-style and Character.SayBackground, which from my understanding makes the character able to move while speaking and has nothing to do with actual back to front properties.

SayBackground creates a normal Overlay object, which by default is displayed behind all GUIs. The only overlays that are displayed above GUI are normal speech when using Say command and messages created with Display command.

If you're using AGS 3.6.0, you may write a custom function that creates background speech and adjusts it's ZOrder property to get on top of certain GUI (or all of them).

If not, or this looks like a bad solution, perhaps change something in GUI or speech design. For example: use GUI with a label for background speech, as you may arrange GUIs among themselves.


EDIT: on a separate note, is that a default status line from the template? It may be removed or moved elsewhere (to the bottom, etc).

[tilapisha]

So, Say command not SayBackground? I will go ahead and replace. Right now I'm using 3.5.17, but I plan to switch over to 3.6 before Thursday so that I can port to the web.

[Crimson Wizard]

So, Say command not SayBackground?

They do different things, Say is blocking, stops the character, and displayed in the chosen "speech style", SayBackground is non-blocking and is displayed always above the character as plain text (if i remember correctly). So they are not directly replaceable.

If you want a non-blocking speech that is displayed above GUI, then you need some custom solution that does not use these functions. One of them is showing a GUI with a label.

If blocking speech is fine, then of course simply use Say.

[tilapisha]

For time's sake (the play test is on Thursday) I will use Say. It's working pretty well for me. Thank you!