Dialog

[Xenith]

Questions about dialog
1).How do you get rid of the crummy looking dialog box in gm?
2).Do we have to design our own textboxes?
3).I dont want to download and use somebody elses engines so i need to know the basics before i attempt this.
4). why did i right down a number 3 if it wasn't a question?

[IsmAvatar]

1)

message_background(back) Sets the background image for the pop-up box for any of the functions above. back must be one of the backgrounds defined in the game. If back is partially transparent so is the message image (only for Windows 2000 or later).
message_alpha(alpha) Sets the alpha translucence for the pop-up box for any of the functions above. alpha must lie between 0 (completely translucent) and 1 (not translucent) (only for Windows 2000 or later).
message_button(spr) Sets the sprite used for the buttons in the pop-up box. spr must be a sprite consisting of three images, the first indicates the button when it is not pressed and the mouse is far away, the second indicates the button when the mouse is above it but not pressed and the third is the button when it is pressed.
message_text_font(name,size,color,style) Sets the font for the text in the pop-up box.
message_button_font(name,size,color,style) Sets the font for the buttons in the pop-up box.
message_input_font(name,size,color,style) Sets the font for the input field in the pop-up box.
message_mouse_color(col) Sets the color of the font for the buttons in the pop-up box when the mouse is above it.
message_input_color(col) Sets the color for the background of the input filed in the pop-up box.
message_caption(show,str) Sets the caption for the pop-up box. show indicates whether a border must be shown (1) or not (0) and str indicates the caption when the border is shown.
message_position(x,y) Sets the position of the pop-up box on the screen.
message_size(w,h) Fixes the size of the pop-up box on the screen. If you choose 0 for the width the width of the image is used. If you choose 0 for the height the height is calculated based on the number of lines in the message.

2) Only if you want a textbox beyond that in which GM is capable of.

3) See 1 and 2

4) right down? wouldn't that be diagonal? Now that's just downright silly.

[Xenith]

sorry i meant write down

[IsmAvatar]

i was playing with your words, no need to correct yourself. Did I help or not?

[Xenith]

thanks i'll be in need of these soon, i've been having trouble drawing my guy's hp on the top of the screen
the code is something like this

draw_text (view_left[0] + x,view_top[0] + y,"HP" +global.hit_points)

the problem is i can't figure out how to have a string (HP) and a variable ( global.hit_points ) in the same draw function, so i'd imagine calling out variables in a dialogue system would be really painful for me

[IsmAvatar]

the reason is because show_message requires a string, and global.hit_points sounds like an integer. You need to convert it to an integer, which is much simpler than you'd think.

draw_text(view_left,view_top,"HP: "+string(global.hit_points))

note the string() function.
also note, arrays with index 0 may be left out.
view_left[0] is the same as view_left
my_array[0,0] is the same as my_array[0] is the same as my_array
Though it is good programming practice to include the array index.