grayed out in-game menu

[DaFool]

Hi,

I want to know whats the most efficient method to make a menu that contains the following buttons:

A B C D

Where sometimes, some buttons are not available for action. For example, D is a 'special move' but is not yet available because a variable has not been set.

This is not an action game by the way, it's instead a form of talk/see/do/explore variation (yes I will name A...D to some other names)

The options I have for implementing this are the following:

1.) Variations of the standard in-game menu... depending on the context, some choices just won't appear. CONS: I want to see future available choices grayed out but still displayed.

2.) a variation of monele's early MagBou 2 talk/see engine. CONS: I don't find the code intuitive at all. I prefer something which I can easily sketch into a State Machine diagram.

3.) A dynamic in-game overlay. I've managed to define multiple types of overlays depending on context, but I would like a set single layout with "empty slots" if you will. Should this be simple, set some part of the choice variables to False initially?

If the answer is somewhere found with a deeper search, I apologize in advance since I am rushing my game for completion before the Christmas break and am getting lazy in other aspects.

Much appreciated in advance.

[monele]

I would have gone with regular menus (using "if") if not for that grayed out requirement :/.
Thus, and strangely obvious, I'd go with my method XD...
In the Adventure engine, I use loops and other stuff that make it complicated, but if you strip it down the the displaying of buttons, I think it's pretty simple :

Code: Select all

ui.frame() # or any other container, styled if needed, to contain the buttons
ui.textbutton("Choice A", clicked=ui.jumps("somelabel"))
ui.textbutton("Choice B", clicked=ui.jumps("labelB"))
if someconditional:
    ui.textbutton("Choice C - Special Attack", clicked=ui.jumps("labelC"))
else:
    ui.textbutton("Choice C - Special Attack", clicked=None))
ui.interact()

This should display three buttons, the first two being always the same, while the third one is clickable only if "someconditional" is true.
And if you hate the if/else and would rather have a single line for that third button, it should be possible to replace "ui.jumps('labelC')" and "None" with a single ternary function that returns one or the other depending on a conditional. I can give details on this if needed.

[Guest]

Yes, in short, a button will be shown but not be active (and greyed out, but that's a style setting - style prefix "insensitive_") if the value given as the clickable is None.

[DaFool]

I temporarily use multiple menu variations, but am coming back to this. A simple copy paste doesn't work, if I remember correctly.

What do I do to call the textbutton menu in-game? Append $ in front of every ui statement?

[monele]

Yes. Or put the whole thing in a "python" block.

[HotLimit]

I'm looking to do the same thing (have a menu with several options, with certain options un-clickable depending on different conditions), but do I have to create my own custom menu every time I want to do this?

I know how to hide certain options:

Code: Select all

menu:

    "Walk Away":
        ...

    "Go Crazy" if sanity == 0:
        ...

and change the text displayed in options:

Code: Select all

define sanity = "???"

menu:

    "Walk Away":
        ...

    "%(sanity)s":
        ...

But is there any way to display certain options but not allow people to click them? What I usually do is create a loop, but that requires extra code:

Code: Select all

label begin:

    e "Hey, how are you doing?"

    jump choice_one

label choice_one:

menu:

    "Good!":

        e "Oh, that's great!"

    "Not Great...":

        if happy > 0:

            jump choice_one

        elif:

            e "Oh, that's too bad..."

[Clayton Barnett]

Apologies about resurrecting an old thread, but as my menu statement already has a conditional in it, I cannot quite wrap my head around what to do next. What I have now (that works fine) is this:

Code: Select all

menu:

     "Aoi" if aoipoints > 1:
          $ girl = "Aoi"
                 
     "Atti" if attipoints > 1:
          $ girl =  "Atti"
        
     "Rimu" if rimupoints > 1:
         $ girl = "Rimu"
        
     "Aris" if arispoints > 1:
          $ girl = "Aris"  

Now, if [name]points are not > 1, nothing is displayed.
I'd much rather have all four names displayed, but only those where the points condition be met as 'clickable.'

The point behind this is that I don't want someone unfamilar with this game (or VNs in general) to think that there are only 1-2 possible ends.
"Oh, I can't click on the 'Atti' button! I should replay this once I'm finished with Rimu's route."

Thanks again, and sorry about all the newbie-ness.

[SundownKid]

You can try making it a screen instead. Make each menu choice a textbutton in a vbox, and substitute the action-less textbutton for the working one if the variable changes.

Code: Select all

screen girlselector:
   vbox xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5:
     if aoipoints > 1:
          textbutton "Aoi" action Jump("Aoi")
     else:
          textbutton "Aoi" action None
                 

et cetera.

Then use:

Code: Select all

call screen girlselector

[Clayton Barnett]

Thank you for the suggestion... now please help an old man grasp his error. Based upon what you told me and what I want, I came up with this statement in init python:

Code: Select all

screen girlselector:
    vbox xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5:
        if aoipoints > 1:
            textbutton "Aoi" action girl = "Aoi"
        else:
            textbutton "Aoi" action None

From my 1st Grade grasp of Python, in the init python bloc, I don't use $ for variables. As in {$ girl = "Aoi"}. Nonetheless, this does not work.

Now, I could do what you wrote ("jump Aoi") but that would require me writing my Scene 19 FOUR times, one for each character (or calling it), but I cannot believe that RenPy is so unflexible based upon recent experience... so the problem must be me and my ignorance.

[SundownKid]

What you should do is something like this:

Code: Select all

action[SetVariable(girl, "Aoi"), Jump("girls")]

So it sets the variable when you jump to that portion. I'm not sure about the quotes, but I think this way should work.

[Levrex]

I'm not sure about the quotes, but I think this way should work.

"girl" should be quoted, and that's all.

[Clayton Barnett]

OK, works fine now (with one caveat). I've got

Code: Select all

screen girlselector:
    vbox xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5:
        if aoipoints > 1:
            textbutton "Aoi" action[SetVariable("girl", "Aoi"), Jump("scene18b")]
        else:                
            textbutton "Aoi" action None
        if arispoints > 1:
            textbutton "Aris" action[SetVariable("girl", "Aris"), Jump("scene18b")]
        else:
            textbutton "Aris" action None            
        if attipoints > 1:
            textbutton "Atti" action[SetVariable("girl", "Atti"), Jump("scene18b")]
        else:
            textbutton "Atti" action None            
        if rimupoints > 1:
            textbutton "Rimu" action[SetVariable("girl", "Rimu"), Jump("scene18b")]
        else:
            textbutton "Rimu" action None           
            textbutton "What am I thinking?" action Jump("scenebadend")

The 'jump' command is a bit kludgey, but it works.

My last nag is that while the five boxes are in the middle of the screen, they're all justified to some left margin, rather than truely centered. I'd thought that 'xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5' forced centering, but it seems not.

PS Sorry about being so thick. Woke up this AM with a 101F fever. Still need to get this done, though.

[Levrex]

My last nag is that while the five boxes are in the middle of the screen, they're all justified to some left margin, rather than truely centered. I'd thought that 'xalign 0.5 yalign 0.5' forced centering, but it seems not.

Yeah, that's true.
I suggest adding line that says

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xfill True

to your choice screen after

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    window:
        style "menu_window"
        xalign 0.5
        yalign 0.5

, or - if that does not work - changing the style of the said screen to something like mm_root or mm_imagemap (or copy the style and edit the new one, if you don't like the new look).