[WIP] Grimrock NoteBook Container

[JohnWordsworth]

A long time of waiting for this, I know, but I'm glad to announce that I've spent this evening finishing up an alpha version of a Grimrock NoteBook Container for fellow dungeon crafters to drop into their mods. Have been a mixture of busy and unfocussed this last couple of months (probably from moving house about 10 times), but getting back into the swing of things again now. It's not 100% complete yet, and as the errors in this mod have the potential to utterly destroy notes and the like, I want to make sure it's really robust before sharing the source code for others to use.

However, I have an alpha version of the .dat file for those who are interested in giving it a bit of a play (and a screenshot to tempt people into giving it a quick shot). Any feedbacks, especially bugs, gratefully received.

Features / Notes:
- The notebooks act as containers that can store notes/scrolls containing text and/or images and even spell scrolls.
- There are 3 sizes of notebook - small, medium and large, which hold 10, 20 and 30 notes respectively.
- You can create your own editable notes and type the contents of them into the book. You can even then tear this out of the book if you like!
- You can move through the pages using the left/right arrow keys.
- I've added an intro page on the inside cover so you can read the instructions (shown in the screenshot).

Screenshot:

SpoilerShow

YouTube Video Sample: NoteBook Example on YouTube
Now available for download: Grimrock NoteBook on NexusMods.

[Leki]

It's awesome, John

[msyblade]

You're a beast, JW! Thank you for this!

[JohnWordsworth]

Thanks guys. While I've not uploaded the latest DAT yet, I've locally fixed a bug where removing the last page left you looking at a blank page and have moved the NoteBook to the top left so that it fits better on lower resolutions. I intend to add skinning support this evening so that it's possible to (a) have a little and large skin for different resolutions and (b) re-skin the notebook in your own mod with a custom layout - say, into a futuristic PDA, just by dropping in a texture and editing a few numbers in the Lua file.

If you don't fancy downloading the sample dungeon and would rather just watch a video, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mav8-rjS ... e=youtu.be - Highly advised that you watch at 720p.

[Komag]

Wow, just wow. That is too cool, very well done. I can't imagine what goes on behind the scenes in the black box to make that work so nicely!

[maneus]

Really amazing stuff.
If I understand it right then spell scrolls can´t put into the book?
But when I make a scroll with an image of the spell-runes on it, then I can put it into the book? Is that right, John?

[JohnWordsworth]

Thanks for the positive feedback guys. This evening I have added the following features to this mod;

- Ability to create any number of skins and associate them with an item.name. Each skin has any number of sub-skins, and the relevant sub-skin is picked automatically based on the width of the screen. This means that a sci-fi mod for instance could define it's own skins for a PDA looking system of you could even have different skins for the different sized books. The skins are comprised of a background image and then a number of rectangles, which describe where each button sits in the underlying image (so it's possible to completely re-arrange every screen element in a skin).

- It's now also possible to delete notes from the Note Book. This only works for editable notes (notes you have created) and you get a confirmation dialogue before it's actually deleted.

I think the mod now includes all of the features I am planning on adding. Unless someone has any further ideas, I'll wrap it up and release it!

@Maneus: Unfortunately, that's true about the automatic spell scrolls. As there is no 'getScrollImage()' associated with the object, and I don't think there is any way for us to get the spell represented by the scroll from lua, I would have to go purely based on the scroll name. Although... now I come to think of it, we could probably use that (as we know what they are for the standard scrolls) and then you could code in custom scrolls.. Hmm, you've got me thinking now :p.

For now, you would have to put your own scroll in a standard scroll object with a full scroll image if you wanted the scrolls to appear in the notebook. But leave it with me - I think I can probably fudge it with a look up table in the script.

[JohnWordsworth]

Have just mocked up the ability to add scrolls to the note book and it works a treat. What's also cool is that you can actually build a wizards spell book right in the editor with a bunch of pages (scrolls) in, because the note book is just a standard container object under the hood - so you can actually build a note book containing a bunch of pages, which now includes spell scrolls

[msyblade]

Okay JW, just got an idea out of this line of thought. . .2 notebooks. One for notes n scrolls (like you're doing) and a very similar, but slightly different functioning "spellbook" for mage characters. The spellbook just takes spell scrolls for mage reference. The "notebook" is for hints and journal type refreshing of dialogue/tips that you've received, meant for progressing through the story. i could keep each "journal" on a different character, and they have very similar functionality, but my magic user has a "spellbook" to refer to, DnD style. I would enjoy this, and while my brain would throw a little complaint out when i try to add a "spell scroll" to the "story" journal, and it doesn't work, the functionality makes sense. (Duh! its a SPELL, it goes in my mages SPELLBOOK.) You could even take it further, where the player cannot cast a spell (one use scroll) permenantly, UNTIL it is put in his spellbook. Wherein it becomes important to remember to ADD THIS SCROLL TO MY SPELLBOOK, it IS permenant POWER. Upon which using, I can cast the spell at will. Perhaps I am crossing LoG over to DnD a bit too much here, but it is a definitive way to FEEL like you are growing in power thru menu use and mouse clicks, rather than personal memorization power. I KNOW the runes to cast a fireball, but I gotta find the scroll, and enter it into my JW created spellbook, and then I attain my power. I dont mean this is a definitive, awesome suggestion. But if it starts a dialogue among all these smart gentlemen around here, I bet they could FIND a good approach to this. Help me out gents! Suggestions more than welcome!

[maneus]

That is a good idea msyblade and I´m sure that many guys here will use a spellbook with the functions you´ve written gladly in their own mod.

But to John: Your actually notebook with the spell scroll import function is exactly what I´ve imagined by myself for my mod.
So please release it as a notebook with importing spell scrolls and notes likewise.