Nfo Scroller

[dev0]

Well,
seems today is my question day 
I'm trying to figure out how I could scroll the contents of an nfo file in PureBasic like this:

On the Bottom of the Window it fades in until its completely visible somewhere in the middle on top of he screen it fades out unil its invisible.... The scrolltext is not pure white a light grey gradient is on top though...

The scroller scrolls automatically until you use your cursor keys then you can scroll the text yourself (up or downwards) if you stop hitting those keys the scroller scrolls again after some delay...

Well and how let the nfo file stay intact while displaying it (you know kind of special font involved)
Basically something which you can find in the typical C.O.R.E. Intro (C.O.R.E. Intro Engine)

Not sure am I right here but my idea is the following:

I would need 2 sprites here? One containing the font the other the gradient bachground and in some why I must merge both together (blend them)? For the fade in / out stuff I'm not sure maybe I can use a Png for this stuff above the scroller?

[Raizor]

Do you mean having the text fading towards being totally transparent at the top and bottom of the view area? If so, I'd be inclined to use an overlayed PNG image that is totally opaque at the top and bottom, the middle would be totally transparent and the transparency value would reduce as your neared the top/bottom. You could then just draw the PNG over the top of the view area. Not sure if this would work for you, but it's what I'd try first.

[dev0]

Do you mean having the text fading towards being totally transparent at the top and bottom of the view area? If so, I'd be inclined to use an overlayed PNG image that is totally opaque at the top and bottom, the middle would be totally transparent and the transparency value would reduce as your neared the top/bottom. You could then just draw the PNG over the top of the view area. Not sure if this would work for you, but it's what I'd try first.

Correct! So I guess I was right here for the first problem if you suggest it too.
Just wonder how to handle the other stuff this seems kinda complicated for a beginner 

[Raizor]

Yes, probably not the easiest of first projects, but do-able with a little time I'm sure. And will be pretty cool when it's working

I'd attack it in stages:

1. Have a background image to represent your text (can be anything, just mock up a image with some text in photoshop or whatever).
2. Get the transparent gradient overlay stuff working, so it sits over the dummy background image.
3. Make the background image taller than the view area, so you can work on the scrolling.
4. Add the text rendering stuff to replace the dummy background image.

It's been a while since I've been anywhere near Purebasic/Freebasic, but I'd be inclined to use a TTF font rather than a bitmap font. That way you can let the user choose a different font more easily. I'd probably also stick with using a background image for the text and just render the text directly onto the background image. As the text doesn't need to change once it's rendered, this would probably be easier (IMHO). It would also give you the advantage of being able to use the code you write for steps 1 and 3.

[dev0]

I'll see thank you for all the suggestions...
Got another idea here maybe its possible to fade out / in the text not using additional png's (size matters  )
While reading the manual it might be possible while using DisplaySprite3D to modify the transparency param from within in a loop? Need to try it out 

[dev0]

Yup it seems to work in some way but there are a lot of problems to solve...

First of all I've no idea how to display the nfo correctly, it looks horrible strange.
My idea was just setting terminal as font for the scroller like you can do in notepad to display it nice but sure enough that does not work at least it seems thats not enough. When I load the nfo it just shows crap...

My bad it works partly!
The problem is this I think:

Code Select Expand


If CreateSprite(1, 640, 1020)
  If StartDrawing(SpriteOutput(1))
    DrawingMode(1)
      DrawingFont(Font)  ;terminal
      FrontColor(RGB(255,255,255))
      DrawText(0, 12, "ÛÛÛ ßÛß ÛÛÛ  ÜÛÛ²²ÛÛÜ  ÜÛÛÛ²ÛÛÜ ÛÛÛÛ²ÛÛÜ ÞÛ²²ÛÛÛ²ÛÝ ÛÛÛ ßÛß ÛÛÛ")           
    StopDrawing()
  EndIf
EndIf


From the above code first problem is the dimension (height) of the Sprite I think because that depends of the length of text in the nfo file So I must set it dynamically?

Second problem should be drawtext? The nfo looks just crappy if I add more lines to it so i guess drawtext has problem with line breaks?

No clue in the moment how to load the nfo and iterate over it and then make the drawtext stuff work 


Any ideas?

Whooho 
It seems I''m getting clother now...

Parts left:
1. Procedure to read the nfo instead of hardcoding with multiline support for Drawtext.
2. Automatic scrolling must be stopped when hitting cursor key so that indicates the user scrolls up / down himself.
3. Scroller direction from top to down when the last line of text is reached.
4. Sprite height must be dynamically calculated I guess...
5 Design adjustments

[Raizor]

Wow, that's looking pretty damn good already Dev0

[dev0]

Thank you Raizor!
Well I think I was wrong that it would be too hard for a beginner I guess its a really good small project to learn from.
It has all the stuff needed while learning  like string / file, event, sprite handling... Lets see if I can make it better 

[Raizor]

Well I think I was wrong that it would be too hard for a beginner I guess its a really good small project to learn from.
It has all the stuff needed while learning  like string / file, event, sprite handling... Lets see if I can make it better 

[dev0]

Just a small update 
Nfo contents now loads from file instead of hardcoding it into the executeable.

The scrolltext can now be scrolled via cursor up/down or page up/down only difference is that the for page keys I use a higher value for scroller as I used for the cursor keys.

The attachment contains an nfo folder. Anytime the exe is started it picks a random nfo file. I made this only for demo purposes to see some variations and for testing. Nfo's are downloaded from http://www.defacto2.net/file/list/-/thumb/-/releaseinformation/date/30/1

Missing yet:

1.Need kind of a check if the cursor keys are used the scroller stops thats fine so far but if you stop hitting your cursor keys the text should scroll automatically again until you hit your cursor keys again. 

2. Scrolldirection change if the scroller is near eof.

Perhaps I'll integrate and crc32 check later as C.O.R.E. did for their nfo's we'll see.

[Hotshot]

That Excellent 

That nice to see Newcomer showing what Demo they have Made 

[dev0]

That Excellent 

That nice to see Newcomer showing what Demo they have Made 

Thank you Hotshot!
Well nothing special at all compared to the stuff I've found here but at least my starting point 

[Dr.Death]

Great job mate & it works on my silly laptop too...

[dev0]

Thank you Dr.Death!
Sounds familiar I've coded this on a quite lame laptop so my hope was it should work almost on any machine 

[C3lt1c]

Awesome Stuff Bro!!!
I like the particle effects in the background and also the chiptune.
Good  Work!

Cheers C3lt1c 

[dev0]

Danke  Thank you C3lt1c!
Chiptune is called: "Simpukka chilli" from Mystic Cloud / Chemical Reaction can be downloaded here: http://orgasmod.com/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=146185

[emook]

Any chance you would be so kind and share your sources?

Great work by the way, totally authentic!