Custom UI Troubleshooting (Choices/Namebox/Message Caret)

[Hinalilly]

I am more of an artist/writer and completely code-impaired, and since one of the main features of my current project include a custom UI, the UI editing options are the main reason why I'm loving VN Maker so far. However, I've ran into some unexpected problems. I managed to edit the Common Events to show a custom message box without much issue, but when it comes to the choices I'm not sure what I did wrong.

I replaced the template choice images for my own, but after I attempted to reposition them with the direct option (for some reason only 1 choice is showing up here--I'm not sure if this could be an issue or not), calling the Show Choices Common Event makes only one blank choice option show up, regardless of what text or how many choices I add (I attempted using both the Add Choice and the Add Choice Common Event and neither helped). This issue only shows up after I try to reposition the choices on the screen. I have no idea how to fix it.

Second, I have a question about the character namebox. The UI I have in mind has a differently colored namebox (and different display name text colors) for each character. VN Maker doesn't have the option for code-impaired people like me to edit/reposition the namebox on its own (it's "stuck" to the message box), that I've seen. Would anyone have any idea of how I could achieve this effect (I assume it would take a decent bit of coding?)? I'm thinking it might be possible to do it by creating a separate Common Event with all 3 different versions of the message box (ground-hover-select) for each character, but that would mean loading a different message box for each time and a lot of graphics data......

Lastly, I managed to successfully edit in my own custom message caret animation (it was very easy!), but I would like it not to scroll along with the text, but to show up on the bottom right corner of the message box only when the whole message has finished loading. Again, does anybody know how to achieve this effect, if possible?

Sorry for all the questions! I'll appreaciate any help anyone can give me.

[Pumpkin Potion]

I had this exact same problem. (I am an artist - not a coder, also.) I did manage to figure out a couple of things. Couldn't tell you if it's the 'right' way to fix it, but maybe the devs can step in and help both of us.

The regular "Add Choice/Show Choice" options just give us the default images that come with the game. In order to have anything customized, I've had to go through Call Common Event.

https://imgur.com/a/fXGAY
This is how I have mine set up right now. I tried the exact same thing as you, directly setting it where I want it. As soon as I did, it would only give one choice button, no matter how many options I had-- and the alignment was really messed up. I figured out that whatever this variable means (red circle) needs to stay the same. After 5 hours of trial and error, that's the only way I can get it to work with more than one choice.

Problem #1 -
It means we haven't figured out how to actually move each separate choice button where we want it for some reason-- and we're stuck with it being in a 'list' format in designated default spot. And that isn't ideal for custom designed UIs-- at all.

Problem #2 -
The text wasn't even on the buttons. And becauase we can't mess with the variable in the Y section, I couldn't figure out how to properly move the text onto the box. To fix this, I adjusted the padding (blue circle) until the text was correctly in the middle where it should be. No idea if this is the right way to do this, but it worked. You might have to play around with the numbers here since everyone's button designs are different. It seems to be straight up trial and error-- move it a few pixels, save, preview. Move a few pixels, save, preview.

Problem #3 -
Not sure if you're experiencing this one too, but the text color of the buttons wouldn't change. No matter what is changed in the common events section, my choice text still shows up as all black in game. (Black circle shows that it's clearly supposed to be white).

[Hinalilly]

Yes, switching to [0004: Picture Y] does make the entire list of choices appear! Thank you! But also yes, that defeats the purpose of being able to reposition them, since they're not where I need them to be at all...

And yes, I do have the same issue with the text color. (I also had an issue where I was unable to change the fonts without messing with the script as shown in the Help documentation, even when I had imported the new fonts I wanted to use.)

It would be really nice to get a fix/solution for this issue.

[Pumpkin Potion]

Glad that I could help you! Even if it's just a little bit to get the ball rolling. If I learn anything else about how to fix the direct placement and the text color issue, I'll post again. o/

Hopefully, we'll get an official developer answer soon. They've been very quick with their responses to help people, but it's the weekend.

[Mr. Bushido]

I currently have the same issue and wasn't able to fix it yet. Also tried changing it back to [0004: Picture Y] but I still have the problem that I only see one choice D:

[Pumpkin Potion]

Blanny,
Did you save after you changed it back? I know that when I was fiddling around trying to make this functional, it didn't work in the preview window until I had saved the changes manually.

[Mr. Bushido]

Originally posted by That Redhead:

Blanny,
Did you save after you changed it back? I know that when I was fiddling around trying to make this functional, it didn't work in the preview window until I had saved the changes manually.

Thank you for your answer! As for mine: Yes, I saved after I changed it back to Picture Y. But sadly it didn't work either, which is kinda weird. After that I created a new test project to see if it's gonna work there... and yes it worked. Now the problem is... that it won't work in my actual project, no matter what I am trying to do. It's still only showing me once of three choices and that one choice doesn't even show text either.

[Kentou]

Hi guys,

I will try to help you out :) So for choices via common events, you cannot use the Direct positioning option because the amount of choices are dynamic. There are two common events:

Add Choice adds a choice to the list of choices (List variable)
Show Choices will use Loop command to go through each choice in that list and display it on the screen with Show Picture and Show Text.

You can modify the placement on the x-axis if you just modify the X field on the Show Picture and Show Text command. If you want to modify the placement on the y-axis, you have to take a look at the Number Variable commands here:

https://puu.sh/ypEwd/a3b53d9668.png

The last one where it adds 100 is the y-offset of the choices. So if you increase that value, the choices will be displayed more down. If you decrease it, they will be more up.

If you want to display you choices with completely different layout, please let me know how you want it.

Second, I have a question about the character namebox. The UI I have in mind has a differently colored namebox (and different display name text colors) for each character. VN Maker doesn't have the option for code-impaired people like me to edit/reposition the namebox on its own (it's "stuck" to the message box), that I've seen. Would anyone have any idea of how I could achieve this effect (I assume it would take a decent bit of coding?)? I'm thinking it might be possible to do it by creating a separate Common Event with all 3 different versions of the message box (ground-hover-select) for each character, but that would mean loading a different message box for each time and a lot of graphics data......

In the Script-based UI, the name is automatically colored with the Character's color defined in Database > Characters for the character. In Action-based UI, it is always white color but can be changed if you do the following:

1. Go to Common Events > Message Box > Show Message Box and delete the "Color Text" there.
2. Go to Common Events > Message Box > Update Name Box and there, add this line of script there using the Script command:

SceneManager.scene.texts[0].font.color = gs.Color.fromObject(SceneManager.scene.currentCharacter.textColor)

as you can see here:

https://puu.sh/ypFNX/f6a339f974.png

Then the name will always be in the Character's color. Hope that help. We will on a way to make that more easy in a future like adding a "Use Character Color" for Show Text command too. The message text can already be shown in the character's color if you use Message Settings and enable "Use Character Color" there.

[Pumpkin Potion]

Thank you, Kentou!

[Mr. Bushido]

Thank you very much!

[Hinalilly]

Thank you so much! That worked!

[Aurion-a]

Originally posted by Kentou:

2. Go to Common Events > Message Box > Update Name Box and there, add this line of script there using the Script command:

I cannot see this "Update Name Box" common event in version 1.0.1077, but I see "Update UI" which appears to be the same as in the attached image, is this correct?