NES Name Entry Screen

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Socoder -> Blitz -> NES Name Entry Screen
Sun, 05 Apr 2009, 11:29
LostUser	Hi there. Does anybody have a NES name entry screen code for Blitz? I am writing a game in a NES theme, and I'm wanting to re-create a NES name entry screen, similar to what you'd see in Zelda. I can recreate everything except the cursor moving around and selecting letters to create a name. What I'm missing are: * The ability to move the pink rectangle cursor selector in rows and columns. * The ability to add a letter to a name. * There is no way at the moment to "END" character name entry or "DEL" a letter from the name. Here's what I have. Notes: You will require the EMULOGIC.TTF font (which is similar to the one on NES) and a keyboard scancode list. ; NES Style name entry screen Graphics 640,480,16,2 ; Windowed SetBuffer BackBuffer() Include "system/application/_library/common.kbd.bb" ; Load the EMULOGIC.TTF font Const FONT_PATH$ = "system/public/fonts/" Global font_main = LoadFont ( FONT_PATH$ + "emulogic.ttf", 12) SetFont font_main Global fw = FontWidth() Global fh = FontHeight() name$ = "" While Not KeyHit(1) Cls Color 255, 255, 255 ; Display the name being entered Text 100,80, "Register your name:" Text 100, 105, name$ ; Pink cursor display Color 0,0, $CC0066 Rect 100, 105, fw, fh, 1 Color 0, 0, 0 ; Row 1 count = 0 display = True For i = 65 To 75 ; Pink cursor display If display = True Then Color 0,0, $CC0066 Rect 85+fw2+1, 170, fw, fh, 2 display = False End If count = count + 1 Color 255, 255, 255 Text 85+ fwcount2, 170, Chr$(i) Next ; Row 2 count = 0 For i = 76 To 86 count = count + 1 Text 85 + fwcount2, 170+fh2, Chr$(i) Next ; Row 3 count = 0 For i = 87 To 90 count = count + 1 Text 85 + fwcount2, 170+fh*4, Chr$(i) Next ; [Keyboard capturing] ; ; 1. How do I get the pink cursor to move around ; the different rows and columns? ; ; 2. How do I capture the letters and then ; add them to a name? ; ; 3. How do I handle DEL and END actions? If KeyHit(KEY_UP) Then End If If KeyHit(KEY_LEFT) Then End If If KeyHit(KEY_RIGHT) Then End If If KeyHit(KEY_DOWN) Then End If If KeyHit(KEY_A) Then ; The key to capture letters? End If If KeyHit(KEY_Q) Then ; The key to end capture? End If FlushKeys() VWait:Flip Wend End --v
Sun, 05 Apr 2009, 12:57
Evil Roy Ferguso	; NES Style name entry screen Graphics 640,480,16,2 ; Windowed SetBuffer BackBuffer() Include "system/application/_library/common.kbd.bb" ; Maximum length of a name, so people don't get off trying to name themselves ; "Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche" or something Const MAX_NAME_LENGTH = 8 ; The size and length of the rows. Const ROW_COUNT = 3 Const ROW_LENGTH = 11 ; Load the EMULOGIC.TTF font Const FONT_PATH$ = "system/public/fonts/" Global font_main = LoadFont ( FONT_PATH$ + "emulogic.ttf", 12) SetFont font_main Global fw = FontWidth() Global fh = FontHeight() ; The x and y position of the cursor. Local selx = 0 Local sely = 0 ; The name being entered. Local name$ = "" ; These strings correspond to the letters on each row. ; There are many ways to handle this, but this is one of the ; easiest. Dim letter_rows$(2) letter_rows(0) = "ABCDEFGHIJK" letter_rows(1) = "LMNOPQRSTUV" letter_rows(2) = "WXYZ " ; the spaces in letter_rows(2) are necessary to allow entry of spaces and to prevent Mid() dying, since the selection ; code doesn't handle this shorter row differently than others. ; When we're done entering a name, we'll change this to True. Local done = False ; You could do this with a while loop like ; While Not (done or KeyHit(1)), but I think a Repeat...Until is more natural. Repeat Cls ; Name entry cursor display. ; We push it back by one if the name is at it's max length, to demonstrate that. ; Displaying this first so it can go under the name entry. Color 0,0, $CC0066 Rect 100 + (Len(name) - (Len(name) = MAX_NAME_LENGTH)) * fw, 105, fw, fh, 1 ; Display the name being entered Color 255, 255, 255 Text 100,80, "Register your name:" Text 100, 105, name$ ; Selection cursor display. ; we multiply selx and sely by 2fw or 2fh to put it where it belongs, ; taking the spacing int account. Color 0,0, $CC0066 Rect 85+fw(2selx+2)+1, 170+2selyfh, fw, fh, 2 ; Row 1 count = 0 Color 255, 255, 255 For i = 65 To 75 count = count + 1 Text 85+ fwcount2, 170, Chr$(i) Next ; Row 2 count = 0 For i = 76 To 86 count = count + 1 Text 85 + fwcount2, 170+fh2, Chr$(i) Next ; Row 3 count = 0 For i = 87 To 90 count = count + 1 Text 85 + fwcount2, 170+fh4, Chr$(i) Next ; I'm handling movement with variables called selx And sely, ; which represent the selected row and column, respectively. If KeyHit(KEY_UP) Then ; This moves the selection rectangle up, unless you're at the top, in which ; case it wraps around because of the modulo. sely = (sely + ROW_COUNT - 1) Mod ROW_COUNT End If If KeyHit(KEY_LEFT) Then ; Moving left works on the same principle as moving up. selx = (selx + ROW_LENGTH - 1) Mod ROW_LENGTH End If If KeyHit(KEY_RIGHT) Then ; Moves right but wraps back to zero at the edge selx = (selx + 1) Mod ROW_LENGTH End If If KeyHit(KEY_DOWN) Then ; Moves down but wraps back to zero at the edge sely = (sely + 1) Mod ROW_COUNT End If ; enter a character If KeyHit(KEY_A) Then ; letter_rows(sely) contains the characters on that row, then. ; Since Blitz strings are indexed starting at 1, the character at position ; selx is the character in question. If Len(name) < MAX_NAME_LENGTH name = name + Mid(letter_rows(sely), selx+1, 1) EndIf End If ; backspace If KeyHit(KEY_S) Then ; Only backspace if there is something entered! If Len(name) ; left returns the first 'count' characters of a string, ; so if we pass it one less than the string's length, ; it's like a backspace. name = Left(name, Len(name)-1) EndIf EndIf If KeyHit(KEY_Q) Then ; The key to end capture? done = True End If FlushKeys() Flip ; flip automatically vwaits unless you use Flip False, so you're VWaiting twice here. Until done Or KeyHit(1) ; no real error here, this is just a cheap popup box :x RuntimeError "Hello " + name + " won't you save our kingdom" End --v The comments try to explain what's going on. It probably isn't exactly what you want, but hopefully it would be a good starting point. This is a good candidate for functionizing later -- it could return the name, so you could do something like player\name = NES_Name()
Tue, 07 Apr 2009, 03:57
LostUser	Thanks for the starting point, its better than what I have! Thanks.
Thu, 09 Apr 2009, 12:27
LostUser	This NES character selection screen works really well! Thanks. I'm wondering -- how do you prevent the hotpink cursor from selecting any blank spaces. I have some code to capture if the name is blank, and present an error message. I also trim the name too (to prevent lots of white spaces at the end). However, ideally I'd like it so that the pink cursor does not select any blank spaces and just stops, or wraps around. Thanks.
Thu, 09 Apr 2009, 18:51
Evil Roy Ferguso	What might be the easiest way to do this is to use Mod Len(letter_rows(sely)) instead of Mod ROW_LENGTH. Then, when the cursor is being moved up or down, after changing sely, check if selx >= Len(letter_rows(sely)), and if so, set it to Len(letter_rows(sely))-1. IIRC, Blitz stores the length of strings internally, so Len() is O(1).
Sun, 12 Apr 2009, 04:12
LostUser	OK I will try this out. What does IIRC mean?
Sun, 12 Apr 2009, 05:07
Phoenix	If I remember correctly.