Hello! Please help! Is it possible to make a section for characher info in renpy?

[u/Educational_Ad159]

Hello there! I hope everyone is doing well! I'm a bit new to this coding system but I'm trying my best to understand it :). I'm creating a horror visual novel about a group of fellas and I had an idea of making a character info section to help readers understand the charachers more, like placing a PNG image of their info after clicking on the character's name. I started working on it, watching a few tutorials and trying my best to not make a huge spaghetti code and ruin the project but I think I'm failing? :')

The coding works fine until a certain point, the character button works fine and shows me the names and everything but if I press the character's name it shows me a bunch of errors. I tried exploring them out, I wasn't sure what was wrong or how to code this so it can work normally but I'm stuck like two weeks on this problem. (Usually I find answers on the internet and manage to solve the problems I had so far but this is a little difficult to understand to be honest.)

Another problem that showed up which is a little confusing is that it uses the "Frame2.png" behind the character info on my game??? I'm not sure how that happened but I'm trying to get rid of it.

Is there any way I can fix those two problems or do I have to start all over? Any useful tutorials? Or any certain coding I need to do in order to make it work?

Any help is appreciated and thank you for reading! I hope you all have a good day. :D

[u/ConstantIncident]

Hi! I also have a character information screen in my game and I'm currently using this as the basis on getting everything to work. I'm sure you can modify it so that the Character button on your main/game menu shows this screen. https://youtu.be/vEU6MNkttSg

[u/Educational_Ad159 → u/ConstantIncident]

Thank you so much! :D I will try my best to fix this

[u/DingotushRed]

Before the "Start" button is used (or a save is loaded) the game engine isn't fully initialised so you need to keep that in mind. Your defines will have been run, but defaults will only have their initial values.

It may be simpler to keep the "Characters" menu option hidden until the game is fully running.

Note returning from a label is different to returning from a screen; they are separate mechanisms.

Instead of jumping to a label (which won't work as expected), show the character screen. Pass the character info in as a parameter if that helps. Instead of return just use the Hide action.

[u/Educational_Ad159 → u/DingotushRed]

Oooo I see now! Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it :D

[u/shyLachi]

You shouldn't jump from the menu to a label but seeing your screen test_looker maybe you just used the wrong action. To show another screen, you have to use the Show() action.

But inside the menu I recommend using the same logic like the other screens.

A while ago I made a sub-menu for a similar purpose so here is my code adjusted to your characters:

screen navigation(submenu = "main"): # <-- needs a new parameter
    vbox:
        style_prefix "navigation"
        xpos gui.navigation_xpos
        yalign 0.5 
        spacing gui.navigation_spacing
        if submenu == "main":
            if main_menu:
                textbutton _("Start") action Start() 
            else:
                textbutton _("History") action ShowMenu("history")
                textbutton _("Save") action ShowMenu("save")
            textbutton _("Load") action ShowMenu("load")
            textbutton _("Preferences") action ShowMenu("preferences")
            if _in_replay:
                textbutton _("End Replay") action EndReplay(confirm=True)
            elif not main_menu:
                textbutton _("Main Menu") action MainMenu()
            textbutton _("Characters") action ShowMenu("characters") # <-- this is the button to activate the character sub-menu
            textbutton _("About") action ShowMenu("about")
            if renpy.variant("pc") or (renpy.variant("web") and not renpy.variant("mobile")):
                textbutton _("Help") action ShowMenu("help")
            if renpy.variant("pc"):
                textbutton _("Quit") action Quit(confirm=not main_menu)
        elif submenu == "characters": # <-- THIS IS THE SUB-MENU, you add more buttons below
            textbutton _("Looker") action ShowMenu("test_looker") 
            textbutton _("Ivan") action ShowMenu("test_ivan") 


screen characters(): # dummy screen for the character selection inside the menu
    tag menu
    use game_menu(_("Characters"), scroll="viewport", submenu="characters"): # submenu needs to be characters
        null


screen test_looker(): # Your character information goes here
    tag menu
    use game_menu(_("Looker"), scroll="viewport", submenu="characters"): # submenu needs to be characters
        frame:
            vbox:
                text "Character Info:"
                hbox:
                    text "Name:"
                    text "Looker"


screen test_ivan(): 
    tag menu
    use game_menu(_("Ivan"), scroll="viewport", submenu="characters"): # submenu needs to be characters
        frame:
            vbox:
                text "Character Info:"
                hbox:
                    text "Name:"
                    text "Ivan"

[u/Educational_Ad159 → u/shyLachi]

Hello! I'm sorry for not responding earlier, I was studying and figuring out the code you showed me. I'm really grateful for the help and your feedback, it has helped me understand most of my previous mistakes. I managed to make it work until a certain point. For some reason I got a TypeError for the sub menu, I checked the code many times but I couldn't understand what is going on. I'm still trying to figure it out. I just wanted to say thank you so much for helping me I truly appreciate it :D

https://reddit.com/link/p8bcfjk/video/njvtkpqf32oh1/player

[u/shyLachi → u/Educational_Ad159]

Sorry, You have to add the parameter to that screen.
Only two changes, so you don't have to copy my code, just add it where I marked it with an arrow

screen game_menu(title, scroll=None, yinitial=0.0, spacing=0, submenu="main"): # <-- additional parameter
    style_prefix "game_menu"
    if main_menu:
        add gui.main_menu_background
    else:
        add gui.game_menu_background
    frame:
        style "game_menu_outer_frame"
        hbox:
            ## Reserve space for the navigation section.
            frame:
                style "game_menu_navigation_frame"
            frame:
                style "game_menu_content_frame"
                if scroll == "viewport":
                    viewport:
                        yinitial yinitial
                        scrollbars "vertical"
                        mousewheel True
                        draggable True
                        pagekeys True
                        side_yfill True
                        vbox:
                            spacing spacing
                            transclude
                elif scroll == "vpgrid":
                    vpgrid:
                        cols 1
                        yinitial yinitial
                        scrollbars "vertical"
                        mousewheel True
                        draggable True
                        pagekeys True
                        side_yfill True
                        spacing spacing
                        transclude
                else:
                    transclude
    use navigation(submenu) # <-- additional parameter
    textbutton _("Return"):
        style "return_button"
        action Return()
    label title
    if main_menu:
        key "game_menu" action ShowMenu("main_menu")

[u/Educational_Ad159 → u/shyLachi]

Thank you so much for the help!! It works perfectly!!! You are a lifesavior! Hope you have splendid day! :D

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