GUI

GUI functions and properties

GUI.Centre

(Formerly known as CentreGUI, which is now obsolete)

GUI.Centre()

Centers the specified GUI in the middle of the screen. Useful if you've been moving it around with SetPosition and just want to return it to the center.

Example:

gControlpanel.Centre();

will center the CONTROLPANEL GUI in the middle of the screen.

See also: GUI.SetPosition

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GUI.Click

GUI.Click()

Forces GUI's OnClick event. If there is a script function bound to that event it will be run, otherwise nothing happens.

NOTE: GUI.Click should not to be confused with static function GUI.ProcessClick. GUI.Click is called for specific GUI and does not impose any other conditions, while GUI.ProcessClick is called for "any GUI element that happen to be at the given coordinates".

Example:

gMainMenu.Click();

triggers OnClick event for gMainMenu.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.4.0 and later versions.

See also: Button.Click, GUI.ProcessClick

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GUI.GetAtScreenXY

(Formerly known as GetGUIAt, which is now obsolete)

static GUI* GUI.GetAtScreenXY(int x, int y)

Checks whether there is currently a GUI at screen co-ordinates (X,Y). If there is, returns its GUI. If two GUIs overlap, the front-most one will be returned - this can be changed with the GUI.ZOrder property.

If there is not currently a displayed, clickable GUI at the location then null is returned. If null is returned, do NOT attempt to call any methods or use any properties of the GUI (since it does not actually exist).

NOTE: This command will not find any GUIs that are set as Non-Clickable (i.e. the "Clickable" checkbox not checked).

Example:

GUI *theGui = GUI.GetAtScreenXY(mouse.x, mouse.y);
if (theGui == gInventory) {
    Display("Inventory GUI at mouse location.");
}
else if (theGui == null) {
    Display("No GUI at mouse location");
}
else {
    Display("GUI %d at mouse location.", theGui.ID);
}

will display the number of the GUI that the mouse is over.

See also: GUIControl.GetAtScreenXY, GUI.ID, GUI.ZOrder

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GUI.GetByName

static GUI* GUI.GetByName(string scriptName)

Returns a pointer to the GUI with the specified script name, or null if it does not exist.

Normally you do not need to use this, as there will be a automatically created global script variable for each GUI which got a script name. Where GetByName() function may come useful is situation in which you a) do not know exact name, b) had to store object's reference in a string for some reason. Good examples of this are saving object's name in a custom property, or a file, then reading it back.

Example:

function ReadGUIConfig() {
    File *file = File.Open("$SAVEGAMEDIR$/guiconfig.dat", eFileRead);
    if (file == null) {
        return;
    }

    while (!file.EOF) {
        String name = file.ReadStringBack();
        int x = file.ReadInt();
        int y = file.ReadInt();

        GUI *gui = GUI.GetByName(name);
        if (gui != null)
        {
            gui.X = x;
            gui.Y = y;
        }
    }

    file.Close();
}

Above function opens a custom file called "guiconfig.dat" for reading, reads gui positions, and tries to move game guis to these.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.6.1 and later versions.

See also: GUI.ScriptName

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GUI.ProcessClick

static void GUI.ProcessClick(int x, int y, MouseButton)

Simulates clicking the mouse on GUI on the location (X,Y) using the specified mouse button. This "click" has special behavior in that it only affects GUI and GUI controls. The click will be received by a topmost control or parent GUI under given coordinates. If that control or GUI has functions attached to their events, these will be executed as in case of a normal player's click. If there's no GUIs under the coordinates, then nothing will happen. Any other game elements (room objects, hotspots, characters) are not affected by this.

Example:

ProcessClick(100, 50, eMouseLeft);

will simulate clicking the mouse on co-ordinates (100, 50) with the left mouse button. Only GUIs will receive this click.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.4.0 and later versions.

See also: Mouse.Click, Room.ProcessClick

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GUI.SetPosition

(Formerly known as SetGUIPosition, which is now obsolete)

GUI.SetPosition(int x, int y)

Moves the top-left corner of GUI to the new location (X,Y) on the screen. This allows you to dynamically move GUIs around on the screen while the game is running. The co-ordinates are screen co-ordinates, not room co-ordinates, and use the same scale as in the editor.

Example:

gMyGui.SetPosition(mouse.x, mouse.y);

will move the GUI to the position where the cursor is.

See also: GUI.Centre, GUI.BackgroundGraphic, GUIControl.SetPosition, GUI.SetSize, GUI.X, GUI.Y

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GUI.SetSize

(Formerly known as SetGUISize, which is now obsolete)

GUI.SetSize(int width, int height)

Changes the GUI to have the new size WIDTH x HEIGHT

This could be useful for initially hiding an 'Advanced' part of an options screen and such like.

The size is in the normal 320x200-resolution pixels. Setting the size to 320, 200 will cause the GUI to take up the entire screen.

Example:

gIconbar.SetSize(160, 100);

changes the ICONBAR GUI to be the size of half the screen

See also: GUI.Centre, GUI.Height, GUIControl.SetPosition, GUI.SetPosition, GUI.Width

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GUI.AsTextWindow

readonly TextWindowGUI* GUI.AsTextWindow

If this GUI is of TextWindow type then returns the TextWindowGUI interface which could be used to access specific properties; otherwise returns null.

Example:

TextWindowGUI *tw = gMyTextGui.AsTextWindow;
tw.TextColor = Game.GetColorFromRGB(255, 0, 0);

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.0 and later versions.

See also: TextWindowGUI

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GUI.BackgroundColor

int GUI.BackgroundColor

Gets/sets the background color.

Setting BackgroundColor to 0 will make GUI background fully transparent.

This property is ignored if the GUI.BackgroundGraphic is assigned a sprite number (other than 0).

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.0 and later versions.

See also: GUI.BackgroundGraphic, GUI.BorderColor

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GUI.BackgroundGraphic

(Formerly known as SetGUIBackgroundPic, which is now obsolete)

int GUI.BackgroundGraphic

Gets/sets the background image of the GUI.

You can set this to 0 to remove the background image from the GUI.

When this property is assigned a sprite number other than 0 GUI.BackgroundColor and GUI.BorderColor are ignored.

See also: GUI.SetPosition, Button.NormalGraphic

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GUI.BorderColor

int GUI.BorderColor

Gets/sets the border color.

Setting BorderColor to 0 will make GUI border fully transparent.

Not applicable to TextWindow GUIs. This property is ignored if the GUI.BackgroundGraphic is assigned a sprite number (other than 0).

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.0 and later versions.

See also: GUI.BackgroundColor, GUI.BackgroundGraphic

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GUI.Clickable

(Formerly known as SetGUIClickable, which is now obsolete)

bool GUI.Clickable

Gets/sets whether the GUI is clickable or not. This allows you to modify the "Clickable" checkbox from the GUI Editor.

If this is set to 1, then the GUI will respond to mouse clicks as normal.

If this is set to 0, then this GUI cannot be clicked on by the mouse. This might be useful for a transparent overlay GUI which displays information, and you want the player to be able to click on whatever is underneath.

Example:

gStatusline.Clickable = false;

sets the STATUSLINE GUI to no longer respond to mouse clicks.

See also: GUI.GetAtScreenXY

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GUI.ControlCount

readonly int GUI.ControlCount;

Gets the number of controls on the GUI. This is useful if you wish to iterate through all the GUI's controls, then this property would allow you to determine where to stop.

Example:

for (int i = 0; i < gMyGUI.ControlCount; i++) {
    gMyGUI.Controls[i].Enabled = false;
}

disables all controls on the gMyGUI GUI.

See also: GUI.Controls

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GUI.Controls

GUIControl* GUI.Controls[index]

Provides an array which allows you to access controls on the GUI by their index. This may be useful when you need to iterate through all the GUI's controls. And also if, for some reason, you cannot use actual control's name or GUIControl* pointer, and have to use a numeric ID instead.

Returns the GUIControl object for the specified control index, or null if you give an invalid control index.

You can cast the GUIControl to the appropriate type using the AsButton, AsLabel, etc methods on it.

Example:

for (int i = 0; i < gMyGUI.ControlCount; i++) {
    gMyGUI.Controls[i].Enabled = false;
}

disables all controls on the gMyGUI GUI.

int control_number = Random(gMyGUI.ControlCount - 1);
gMyGUI.Controls[control_number].Visible = false;

Makes a random control on gMyGUI invisible.

See also: GUIControl.As\*, GUI.ControlCount

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GUI.Height

int GUI.Height

Gets/sets the height of the GUI. This allows you to dynamically change the size of the GUI on the screen.

The height is specified in the normal 320-resolution style.

Example:

Display("The icon bar GUI is %d pixels high.", gIconbar.Height);

displays the height of the ICONBAR GUI.

See also: GUI.SetSize, GUI.Width

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GUI.ID

readonly int GUI.ID

Gets the GUI's ID number. This is the GUI's number from the editor, and is useful if you need to interoperate with legacy code that uses the GUI's number rather than object name.

Example:

SetGUIClickable(gIconbar.ID, 1);
gIconbar.Clickable = false;

uses the obsolete SetGUIClickable function to make the ICONBAR GUI clickable, and then uses the equivalent modern property to stop it being clickable.

See also: GUIControl.ID

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GUI.PopupStyle

readonly GUIPopupStyle GUI.PopupStyle

Gets the style of GUI behavior on screen. Possible values are:

eGUIPopupNormal       no special behavior
eGUIPopupMouseYPos    shown when the mouse cursor moves to the top of the screen, past GUI.PopupYPos, and hidden at all other times
eGUIPopupModal        like normal, but pauses game when shown
eGUIPopupPersistent   like normal, but not removed when the game's user interface is disabled

NOTE: for MouseYPos style GUI.Visible property does not control visibility directly. The GUI will become visible only when both conditions match:

• GUI.Visible property set to TRUE;
• mouse cursor is closer to the screen top than GUI.PopupYPos value.

GUI.Shown property tells whether GUI is actually displayed, which may be different from GUI.Visible in the case of MouseYPos style.

NOTE: To automatically hide a GUI when the user interface is disabled, the General Settings option When player interface is disabled, GUIs should needs to be set as Be hidden.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.0 and later versions.

See also: GUI.PopupYPos, GUI.Shown, GUI.Visible

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GUI.PopupYPos

int GUI.PopupYPos

Gets/sets the Y co-ordinate at which the GUI will appear when using MouseYPos popup style. The GUI will be automatically shown when the mouse cursor's Y coordinate is equal or lower than GUI.PopupYPos (closer to the screen top) and hidden when it is greater.

This property is ignored if GUI has a different style.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.0 and later versions.

See also: GUI.PopupStyle, GUI.Shown, GUI.Visible

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GUI.Shown

readonly bool GUI.Shown

Tells whether GUI is currently active on screen.

In the common circumstances this property's value is equivalent to checking GUI.Visible. But for GUIs with "Mouse Ypos" popup style the Visible property does not actually determine whether the GUI is displayed, but instead it controls whether the GUI is allowed to pop up. In such case it is Shown property that would tell if the GUI is actually displayed on screen at this moment.

NOTE: Shown property only reports a logical state, it does not test whether GUI may be seen by the player or not (overlapped by other objects, moved offscreen or fully transparent).

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.5.1 and later versions.

See also: GUI.PopupStyle, GUI.Visible

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GUI.ScriptName

readonly String GUI.ScriptName;

Gets the script name of the gui, which serves as a unique identifier, as set in the AGS Editor.

This may be useful if you have a pointer to some gui stored in your variable, and want to know what it actually is. Normally you don't need a script name, as you have an automatic global variable for each gui in the game, but sometimes you may want to save its script name as a text either to display it somewhere for testing purposes, or keep as a reference. You may later use GUI.GetByName function to retrieve the gui by the previously saved script name.

Compatibility: Supported by AGS 3.6.1 and later versions.

See also: GUI.GetByName

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GUI.Transparency

(Formerly known as SetGUITransparency, which is now obsolete)

int GUI.Transparency

Gets/sets the GUI translucency, in percent.

Setting this to 100 means the GUI is totally invisible, and lower values represent varying levels of translucency. Set it to 0 to stop the GUI being translucent.

NOTE: Transparency only works in 16-bit and 32-bit color games.

Some rounding is done internally when the transparency is stored -- therefore, if you get the transparency after setting it, the value you get back might be one out. Therefore, using a loop with gInventory.Transparency++; is not recommended as it will probably end too quickly.

In order to fade a GUI in/out, the best approach is shown in the example below:

Example:

int trans = gInventory.Transparency;
while (trans < 100) {
    trans++;
    gInventory.Transparency = trans;
    Wait(1);
}

will gradually fade the INVENTORY GUI out until it is invisible.

See also: GUIControl.Transparency, Object.Transparency

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GUI.Visible

(Formerly known as GUIOff, which is now obsolete)
(Formerly known as GUIOn, which is now obsolete)
(Formerly known as InterfaceOff, which is now obsolete)
(Formerly known as InterfaceOn, which is now obsolete)
(Formerly known as IsGUIOn, which is now obsolete)

bool GUI.Visible

Gets/sets whether the GUI is visible or not. This property has behaves differently depending on the GUI popup style.

For "Normal" and "Persistent" GUIs, this property simply switches the GUI on and off, and has no further effects.

For "Popup modal" GUIs, setting Visible to true causes the game to become paused until the GUI is removed by setting Visible back to false (e.g. when the user presses an OK button or something similar).

For "Mouse Ypos" GUIs, the Visible property does not actually determine whether the GUI is displayed, but instead it controls whether the GUI is allowed to pop up. If Visible is false, then moving the mouse to the top of the screen will not activate the GUI; if it is true, then the GUI will be allowed to be popped up.

NOTE: for "Mouse Ypos" style GUIs the way to actually know if GUI is displayed or not is GUI.Shown property.

Example:

gSettings.Visible = true;

will turn on the SETTINGS GUI.

See also: GUI.Shown, IsGamePaused

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GUI.Width

int GUI.Width

Gets/sets the width of the GUI. This allows you to dynamically change the size of the GUI on the screen.

The width is specified in the normal 320-resolution style.

Example:

gInventory.Width += 5;

makes the INVENTORY GUI 5 pixels wider.

See also: GUI.Height, GUI.SetSize

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GUI.X

int GUI.X

Gets/sets the X position of the GUI. This allows you to dynamically change the position of the GUI on the screen.

The X position is the left-hand side of the GUI, and can be between 0 and 320. The co-ordinates used are screen co-ordinates, not room co-ordinates, and are in the normal 320-resolution style.

Example:

gMyGui.X += 5;

moves the GUI right 5 pixels.

See also: GUI.SetPosition, GUI.Y

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GUI.Y

int GUI.Y

Gets/sets the Y position of the GUI. This allows you to dynamically change the position of the GUI on the screen.

The Y position is the top edge of the GUI, and can be between 0 and 200 (or 240, depending on room height). The co-ordinates used are screen co-ordinates, not room co-ordinates, and are in the normal 320x200-resolution style.

Example:

gMyGui.Y += 5;

moves the GUI down 5 pixels.

See also: GUI.SetPosition, GUI.X

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GUI.ZOrder

(Formerly known as SetGUIZOrder, which is now obsolete)

int GUI.ZOrder

Gets/sets the drawing z-order of the GUI. This allows you to dynamically change the ordering of GUIs on the screen.

Z-order setting is an arbitrary integer number that can be positive or negative. It tells how the overlapping objects should be sorted. Those with lower z-order are drawn at the back, and those with higher z-order are drawn at the front.

The GUIs are sorted among themselves and screen Overlays, and thus their ZOrder is relative to other GUIs z-order and Overlays z-order values.

NOTE: If two or more GUIs have equal ZOrder, their relative order is then defined by their IDs: lower IDs are drawn at the back and higher IDs at the front. This is different from other kinds of game objects which do not depend on their IDs at all when being sorted on screen. Normally we don't recommend relying on this though, and suggest setting explicit ZOrder for the scenes where multiple GUIs may overlap each other.

Example:

gStatusline.ZOrder = 0;

sets the STATUSLINE GUI to be behind all other GUIs.

See also: GUI.GetAtScreenXY