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[Jerrot]

It's me again!  Verbbar man!
(I don't even like verbbars... but it's a good practice!)

Mnemonic, in the wishlist forum you wrote:

* Verb icons + Text field "Talk to Woman", "Use Lever", etc. (LucasArts style)

Can be done using the GUI layer. Although, as I mentioned in another thread, you must design your scenes with respect to that; by default the scenes cover the whole screen.

Ok, now I've got my window "verbbar" at the bottom of the screen. No problem, if the game area can't scroll vertically (when its height is "screen.height - verbbar.height".)

Now - let's say I WANT the main layer to scroll vertically and I use the Room scene from the wme_demo.

So I adjust the floor region and expand the height of the main layer - now there is enough place for the verbbar, if the scene would scroll to the bottom.

But - uh - how could it scroll down now ? The actor cannot reach the bottom of the main layer, because you can't click it, the verb bar is there. The actor can only walk to the upper edge of the verb bar (and the scene does not scroll down there).

I tried to turn off the AutoScroll and manage the scrolling by an attached evil script with a "ScrollTo()", but this command somehow didn't work at all for me.

So finally : is there a trick to tell AutoScroll the height of the game area instead of the screen height ? Or something I just didn't think of ?

[Mnemonic]

Hmm, it won't work. Currently, the engine assumes the scene covers the whole screen and there's no way of overriding it. Thus the vertically scrolling scenes will not work with your verbbar. But I *think* it shouldn't be too hard for me to overcome that (basically, you'd have to define a "viewport"; where on screen the scene is actually being drawn and all the scrolling will be driven by the dimensions of the viewport). I'll see what I can do about that.

[Jerrot]

you'd have to define a "viewport"; where on screen the scene is actually being drawn and all the scrolling will be driven by the dimensions of the viewport). I'll see what I can do about that.

Ok, thanks, so I'll just continue that bar without v-scrolling for now.

Right, "viewport", that's what I tried to describe by "game area". This could become a quite powerful feature, thinking about every kind of fixed or dynamic screen elements (side-bars, frames, blending in your "scanner for life-forms" on the right while walking through a space ship on the left...).  

[Mnemonic]

Yeah! I also have big plans with the viewports Actually, there already is a viewport class in WME code, which does nothing at the moment.

[Brassfire]

Great! This will be a wonderful feature. Thanks, guys!