Is there native support for TEXT INPUT (Like Kings Quest / Space Quest etc etc)

Jynks

Hi there...

I'm a hobbyist game maker and I want to make a
Adventure Game for my next hobby project. I have been looking at a bunch
of engines and this one looks like it could be really cool. The thing
is that I wish to have a old school text interface, where the player
types commands instead of using mouse clicks .. say Space Quest 1 or
Kings Quest 1 are pretty famous examples.

Now I understand that
this plugin might not have a text phraser, I have already created one
that serves me when I was making a pure text adventure that just ran in
the console. I was just wondering if this engine has the ability to take
text commands.

Is there any precedence in this plugin design to accommodate text input to send commands?

Thanks in advance
--A4L

ChrisIceBox

Yes - there's a menu element type called Input, which lets the player enter in text strings.  It's intended for things like passwords or player names, rather than anything complex (you can see a tutorial on it's typical use here, but if you have a parser code ready-made it shouldn't be too much trouble to link the two together.

It's simple enough to write a custom script that reads the box's contents - from there it's yours to do what you will.

Jynks

you could use the "enter key" to send the text string instead of pressing the button like in this tutorial?

The functionality of the "menu box" would need to be called though the keyboard as well. pressing any key should start you typing... so "a" should open the text input window with "a" already printed in it. Up Arrow should open the text box with the last command. (I plan to have a small array storing the last 10 or so strings entered by the user) .. and that is about it.

This dose look promising though.

ChrisIceBox

A simple script should be able to handle that easily enough.  The static function PlayerMenus.GetMenuWithName (string menuName).TurnOn (true); will turn on any menu.  You can manipulate elements similarly with GetElementWithName.  The manual in the upcoming 1.40 release will be updated with a list of common static functions available.

As for the enter key - the Input box has a property that links the key to a button.  The button will be "clicked" when the enter key is pressed, but the button doesn't even need to be visible - it can be used simply for handling the enter key.