Displaying text in specific coordinates

ADSentertainment

Is there any way possible to have it so you can have an actor display text in a specific X and Y location WITHOUT having to make another object? I know you can do that it that way, but under the current circumstances, I can't do that without having a bunch of extra problems to deal with, and I don't really feel like explaining it. They really need to make that an option on here if this feature isn't possible yet.

Tokuhara

Just leave the actor with display text outside the scene and create a rule to change its position and text if something happens.

Exemple (Text Actor with 2 rules inside):
-----------------------------------------

Rule - if attribute "move left" is "true"
Display text: My text
Change attribute self.position X to "any number"
Change attribute self.position Y to "any number"

-----------------------------------------

Rule - if attribute "move right" is "true"
Display text: My text 2
Change attribute self.position X to "any number"
Change attribute self.position Y to "any number"

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Yes remember an actor is an actor and can do anything any other actor can do. Just because you use it to display text as shown above you can adjust any attribute. Don't let your thought process be blocked by the GUI of GS. You have to learn to think in logic and see how creator programing works. It's all just arranging and changing variables around.

ADSentertainment

Yes remember an actor is an actor and can do anything any other actor can do. Just because you use it to display text as shown above you can adjust any attribute. Don't let your thought process be blocked by the GUI of GS. You have to learn to think in logic and see how creator programing works. It's all just arranging and changing variables around.

Alright, I mean, the problem that was going on with me though was that the actor had an image, but I wanted text to show above it. And I wasn't able to think of any way possible to change the text's coordinates without changing the actor's coordinates without making a separate actor that displayed text that would follow another

tatiang

You need two actors for that. Some things have simple answers and this is one of them. Either have the image actor spawn the text actor at a relative position (e.g. 60 pixels above) or position it off-screen and move it into place as was already suggested.

ADSentertainment

You need two actors for that. Some things have simple answers and this is one of them. Either have the image actor spawn the text actor at a relative position (e.g. 60 pixels above) or position it off-screen and move it into place as was already suggested.

darn, under the circumstances, I need them to be the same actor.

tatiang

I take it you're wanting something like a lives/score/name display over each moving actor. The only way I know to do that is by constraining one actor to another. This demo should help: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/384027/#Comment_384027.

ADSentertainment

I take it you're wanting something like a lives/score/name display over each moving actor. The only way I know to do that is by constraining one actor to another. This demo should help: https://forums.gamesalad.com/discussion/comment/384027/#Comment_384027.

What I'm trying to do is have several actors display text showing a local attribute to that actor, but show it above the actor and not right smack in the middle of it. I can't constrain a global variable to it however because I wouldn't think a global variable would be constrained to only one of the actor's local attributes (?)

tatiang

You can if you want to. Here are the two demos I made modified to display the text value of each actor's health. You could use actual text (e.g. a word) instead of numbers and it would work the same way. You just have to set a static value for the width of the health bar actor rather than constraining it to the health attribute as I've done.

Tokuhara

You can constrain a local attribute to a global attribute.
For example you can constrain your actor's local score attribute to a global attribute:

Actor
Constrain attribute game.score to self.score

I made an example, don't know if its what you are trying to do...

ADSentertainment

You can constrain a local attribute to a global attribute.
For example you can constrain your actor's local score attribute to a global attribute:

Actor
Constrain attribute game.score to self.score

I made an example, don't know if its what you are trying to do...

Oh, I know that, but what if I had several of those actors that have that behavior, can a single global attribute be equal to each individual attribute of each actor?

Tokuhara

You can only store one local attribute in one global attribute...
What you can do to not create a global attribute for each local attribute is store all in one table.

ADSentertainment

You can only store one local attribute in one global attribute...
What you can do to not create a global attribute for each local attribute is store all in one table.

I'm still a tad new to tables.

Yovanny369

Not sure if this is what you want but this is how I display multiple text in different positions.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9gqiviyqfbjs7xz/Me9jyf_C3_

BBEnk

not sure if your actor is active but if its just for display you could make it taller and have image below and transparent above so text in middle is above image.

ADSentertainment

Not sure if this is what you want but this is how I display multiple text in different positions.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9gqiviyqfbjs7xz/Me9jyf_C3_

That's actually really clever, that can probably fix my solution very easily. Thank you! I appreciate it

tatiang

Nicely done, @Eduard0369. A much simpler solution than mine. And if you don't need the bottom text, you can just leave it as "Up"..self.U/D

Yovanny369

@ADSentertainment
@tatiang
Thanks guys! I like that you have found this usuable!
but also you can display special characters as icons, symbols, etc.
look at this example
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9gqiviyqfbjs7xz/Me9jyf_C3_

BBEnk

@Eduard0369

Hey @Eduard0369 how are you putting the space between the up and down I see how it works but can only space them left and right once I make my own.

Yovanny369

@BBEnk
With the option key and enter.

ADSentertainment

@BBEnk
With the option key and enter.

Ooh, that's helpful for a lot of other things too

BBEnk

@BBEnk
With the option key and enter.

Thanks I tried every combination but that one.