GUI tutorials?

[4 40]

So like most people, I think, there is a big gaping hole in my experience and knowledge of scripting for Arma 3:  displays, controls, et al.

 

The hallmark of a well done mod or mission, and one of the easiest ways to make a good impression on people when they try out one of your missions for the first time, is to have a nice custom GUI window.  It's one of the few things that every successful, popular mission or mod has in common.

 

Yet despite this, I don't think I have ever once seen a tutorial explaining and/or demonstrating how all of this stuff works.  The Wiki is very vague with this stuff and lacks a lot of concrete example.  So I wanted to make this thread to reach out and see if maybe you guys might be able to point me in the direction of some guides or whatever that can help me out with this hole in my scripting experience.

[SilentSpike 84]

Forewarning:

 

It's taken me probably half a year or so to really get truly comfortable with GUI. I can safely say it can be a real pain in the ass as well as very rewarding.
 
I'm not someone who learns well from guides so I don't have anything by the way of that. However, I have found the VBS wiki to be much more useful in detailing the various aspects of displays and controls that you need to know. It's an almost identical system, VBS just has a few fancy things that arma can't do (like rotate controls).

[HallyG 240]

Here are a few tutorials, there are many others but these are just a few which I quickly found:

Dialog Tutorial [Video]

Killzone Kid

Iceman's Tutorial

Austin Medic's Guide

 

I have yet to find a single, comprehensive guide covering, in detail, every aspect of GUIs. However, there are many tutorials which will provide you with a solid foundation upon which you can build by tackling problems in practical examples.

 

THIS is also useful as an introduction.

[HazJ 1289]

 

Edit: Damn, just noticed that hallyg already linked it.

[Heeeere's johnny! 51]

Tbh, I personally never used the GUI editor. It's an absolutely easy to use tool for starters and I'd always recommend to create dialogs with it and then look at the generated code to see what happens when you define/do/change what.

 

But I personally like to do my dialogs by hand, because I'm using a lot of defines to get my controls aligned in relation to each other. So for instance if I wanted to resize my dialog a bit, I simply resize the main frame and everything inside aligns accordingly. That won't happen with a GUI editor created dialog. (Have been told that's wrong.) Plus, writing x,y,w,h values by hand is more precise than in the editor.

[dreadedentity 278]

So for instance if I wanted to resize my dialog a bit,, I simply resize the main frame and everything inside aligns accordingly. That won't happen with a GUI editor created dialog.

Actually Johnny, that's exactly what the GUI_GRID variables are for

[Heeeere's johnny! 51]

Actually Johnny, that's exactly what the GUI_GRID variables are for

 

Oh. Nevermind then. ^_^

[R3vo 2654]

Tbh, I personally never used the GUI editor. It's an absolutely easy to use tool for starters and I'd always recommend to create dialogs with it and then look at the generated code to see what happens when you define/do/change what.

 

 

The best way I think is, to simply create a layout and the looks on a piece of paper, then create the whole think in the gui editor. That saved me alot of time lately, because changing things in the .hpp later is quite tedious since you have to reload the mission every time you change something.

[Heeeere's johnny! 51]

[...] since you have to reload the mission every time you change something.

 

You don't have to reload the mission. You simply hit the "Save" button or CTRL + S on your keyboard and you can preview the mission with your changed GUI.

[R3vo 2654]

Really? I'm pretty sure that I've tried that before, and didn't work for me because the descripton.ext doesn't get updated so the dialogue.hpp and defines.hpp neither.

[dreadedentity 278]

Really? I'm pretty sure that I've tried that before, and didn't work for me because the descripton.ext doesn't get updated so the dialogue.hpp and defines.hpp neither.

Try it now, it should work. I've always just saved the mission. Description.ext should be re-parsed on save.

[R3vo 2654]

Damn, you were right, it does re-parse. Would have saved alot of my precious time ;)

[Tankbuster 1747]

Like the OP, I suffer from the knowledge gap - dialogs. I'm at the stage now where I'm peppering my players with so much information via chat and hint that I worry I'm overloading them and that I want to have such information available to them via a dialog.

 

So, two questions, is the advice in this thread still current? Are there any more up to date tutorials? (I've not found any via Google) Or some that are unreleased, perhaps?

 

And secondly, is it possible to have the players call the dialog via the map screen, rather than just a keypress or addaction in the main UI?

[R3vo 2654]

4 hours ago, Tankbuster said:

Like the OP, I suffer from the knowledge gap - dialogs. I'm at the stage now where I'm peppering my players with so much information via chat and hint that I worry I'm overloading them and that I want to have such information available to them via a dialog.

 

So, two questions, is the advice in this thread still current? Are there any more up to date tutorials? (I've not found any via Google) Or some that are unreleased, perhaps?

 

And secondly, is it possible to have the players call the dialog via the map screen, rather than just a keypress or addaction in the main UI?

 

The information here is still up-to-date.

 

About your seconds question: You could for example add a diary entry which opens a dialogue.

[Tankbuster 1747]

57 minutes ago, R3vo said:

 

The information here is still up-to-date.

 

About your seconds question: You could for example add a diary entry which opens a dialogue.

Yes, Diary entry. I already am making some diary entries in lieu of a briefing so I should be able to make that work. Thanks

[Grumpy Old Man 3551]

24 minutes ago, Tankbuster said:

Yes, Diary entry. I already am making some diary entries in lieu of a briefing so I should be able to make that work. Thanks

Getting around to know how the GUI editor works really helps, since you can easily edit an already existing dialog by simply importing it into the gui editor.

A real quality of life addition to arma, basically all dialogs in my scripts are made with the GUI editor.

 

Cheers

[R3vo 2654]

2 hours ago, Grumpy Old Man said:

Getting around to know how the GUI editor works really helps, since you can easily edit an already existing dialog by simply importing it into the gui editor.

A real quality of life addition to arma, basically all dialogs in my scripts are made with the GUI editor.

 

Cheers

 

That + creating your own set of defines with a visual style you like, makes things much easier. Also read through the Wiki articles which explain the control types

GUI Editor

[Tankbuster 1747]

Here's the particular video I followed.

 

 

[Tankbuster 1747]

And

player createDiarySubject ["dialog", "Mission Status"];
player createDiaryRecord ["dialog", ["Mission Status", "<execute expression='[] spawn tky_fnc_showmissiondialog;'>Mission Status Dialog</execute>"] ];

Oh yeah. :)

[SHIFTY_TFD 0]

Hey gents,

 

Needing some help. I have grabbed a download data GUI from T-800a, it does everything I need.

 

Just wondering if it is possible to have the GUI pop up but not freeze the player? That is the player can start the download, the GUI will pop up in the corner of the screen, stay there while the player fights off enemies, then either close when finished or maybe have a key close it (i.e. esc).

[das attorney 858]

You can do that with a display - see here: