GUI2 custom dialog questions

[Exasperation]

I'm working on using wesnoth.show_dialog to create a custom dialog in 1.9.0, and I've run into a stumbling block. I need to color the text in a label widget. Using the old dialog, I just applied Pango to the string, but the label doesn't process the markup by default. As far as I can tell, it should be possible to override the behavior of the widget to do one of a) processing the markup or b) just using a manually defined color by using wesnoth.set_dialog_canvas.

The documentation in the wiki is, however, somewhat sparse, and I haven't been able to figure out the right set of arguments to pass to the function. I know what the path to the widget is, and I've figured out that the only valid values for the canvas index are 1 and 2, but I can't figure out what to put in the WML table to make it work. So far, everything I've tried results in no visible change if the canvas index is 2, and making the text invisible (I guess it disables the widget?) if the canvas index is 1.

[Anonymissimus]

(no answers in this post)
1. Whenever I pass an apparently wrong table describing the dialog, wesnoth 1.9.0+svn freezes.
2. Could we get a or some much more simpler examples than the one in the wiki (which is almost the same like the one from the testscenario), to show the relation between graphical appearance and the table ?
3. simple definition of "widget" ? I've already looked it up at wikipedia.

[Sapient]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI_widget

For the other questions, you might want to check with Mordante a.k.a. SkeletonCrew.

I'm not really an expert on the new features.

[Exasperation]

I got b) working, so no need to answer my question.

[silene]

1. Whenever I pass an apparently wrong table describing the dialog, wesnoth 1.9.0+svn freezes.

Yes, that's an unfortunate feature of the GUI engine. Assertions were used, not to check the internal consistency of data, but to validate external values. So, expect the engine to constantly crash while trying to write the correct WML containers. I have already replaced the assertions I experienced, but I'm sure there are still lots of them. So please report them and I will fix them.

Note that it isn't specially difficult to fix them. So you may also try to do it on your side too, as it will considerably ease your WML development. See the following patches for instances of how to convert failed assertions into proper errors.
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/wesnoth/trun ... uilder.cpp
http://svn.gna.org/viewcvs/wesnoth/trun ... erator.cpp

2. Could we get a or some much more simpler examples than the one in the wiki (which is almost the same like the one from the testscenario), to show the relation between graphical appearance and the table ?

Do you have some examples in mind?
As far as I'm concerned, I learned the syntax by reading the .cfg files in data/gui/default.

3. simple definition of "widget" ? I've already looked it up at wikipedia.

I don't understand your question. If you looked it up in Wikipedia, you already know that it means "window gadget". (I didn't check, I hope that's the definition Wikipedia gives.) Is there something missing? Or do you mean that the Wesnoth documentation should remind this definition too?

I got b) working, so no need to answer my question.

Ouch, I didn't expect one to have to go as far as overwriting the canvas to simply get Pango markup inside a label. I somehow hope there exists a simpler way.

[Anonymissimus]

@Exasperation
Could you please post whatever you got working ?

For anyone checking this out, expect crashes and such since the engine gui code is (not yet) very stable. And when the engine seems to freeze when it should show the dialog, press enter or esc on the keyboard so you don't need to shut down wesnoth.

[Exasperation]

Sure. It's in ATBX, so you can get the most recent version off the 1.9.0 add-on server, but the specific function that calls show_dialog is as follows (spoilered for length):

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

function wesnoth.wml_actions.view_queue(cfg)
	clear_dead()
	wesnoth.synchronize_choice(function()
		local T = helper.set_wml_tag_metatable {}
		local s = cfg.viewing_side or "all"
		local n = cfg.count or 0
		local q = helper.get_variable_array("atb.queue.list")
		local pos, len, c_min, n_min, delay = wesnoth.get_variable("atb.queue.position") + 1, #q, wesnoth.get_variable("atb.queue.current_minimum"), wesnoth.get_variable("atb.queue.next_minimum")
		
		local dialog = {
			T.grid { T.row {
				T.column {
					horizontal_grow = true,
					T.listbox {
						id = "unit_list",
						T.list_definition { T.row { T.column {
							horizontal_grow = true,
							T.toggle_panel { T.grid { T.row {
								T.column {
									horizontal_alignment = "left",
									T.label { id = "unit_label" } },
								T.column {
									horizontal_alignment = "right",
									T.image { id = "unit_icon" } }
							} } }
						} } }
					}
				},
				T.column { T.grid {
					T.row {
						T.column {
							horizontal_grow = true,
							T.label { id = "unit_name" }
						}
					},
					T.row {
						T.column {
							horizontal_grow = true,
							T.label { id = "unit_type" }
						}
					},
					T.row { T.column { T.grid {
						T.row {
							T.column {
								horizontal_alignment = "left",
								T.label { id = "unit_side" }
							},
							T.column {
								horizontal_alignment = "left",
								T.label { id = "unit_coords" }
							}
						},
						T.row {
							T.column {
								T.button {
									id = "cancel",
									label = "Locate"
								}
							},
							T.column {
								T.button {
									id = "ok",
									label = "OK"
								}
							}
						}
					} } }
				} }
			} }
		}

		local z, t
		local function preshow()
			t = { q[pos].uid }
			while n > #t do
				pos = pos % len + 1
				delay = q[pos].delay
				if delay > 0 then
					if pos == 1 then
						c_min = n_min
						n_min = 20
					end
					if delay == c_min then
						if q[pos].uid == 0 or not wesnoth.get_unit(q[pos].uid).status.petrified then
							table.insert(t, q[pos].uid)
						end
						delay = get_unit_delay(q[pos].uid)
					else
						delay = delay - c_min
					end
					if delay < n_min then
						n_min = delay
					end
					q[pos].delay = delay
				end
			end
			if s ~= "all" then
				for i = 1, #t do
					if not (t[i] == 0 or wesnoth.eval_conditional {
						{ "have_unit", {
							{ "filter_wml", { underlying_id = t[i] } },
							{ "and", {
								{ "filter_vision", { viewing_side = s } },
								{ "not", {
									{ "filter_vision", {
										visible = "no"
									} }
								} },
								{ "or", {
									side = s
								} }
							} }
						} }
					}) then
						t[i] = -1
					end
				end
			end

			local function select()
				local i = wesnoth.get_dialog_value "unit_list"
				if t[i] == -1 then
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("Unknown unit", "unit_name")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_side")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_type")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_coords")
				elseif t[i] == 0 then
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("Village income", "unit_name")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_side")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_type")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("--", "unit_coords")
				else
					local u = wesnoth.get_unit(t[i])
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(u.name, "unit_name")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("Side: " .. u.side, "unit_side")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(u.__cfg.language_name, "unit_type")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(string.format("Loc: (%d, %d)", u.x, u.y), "unit_coords")
				end
			end

			for i,v in ipairs(t) do
				if v == -1 then
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(" Unknown unit", "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_canvas(1, { T.text {
						x = "(if(text_height < height, (height - text_height + 1) / 2, 0))",
						y = "(if(text_width < width, (width - text_width ) / 2, 0))",
						w = "(text_width)",
						h = "(text_height)",
						font_size = 14,
						colour = "190, 190, 190, 255",
						text = "(text)",
						text_markup = "(text_markup)"
					} }, "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("units/unknown-unit.png~RC(magenta>black)", "unit_list", i, "unit_icon")
				elseif v == 0 then
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(" Village income", "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_canvas(1, { T.text {
						x = "(if(text_height < height, (height - text_height + 1) / 2, 0))",
						y = "(if(text_width < width, (width - text_width ) / 2, 0))",
						w = "(text_width)",
						h = "(text_height)",
						font_size = 14,
						colour = "190, 190, 190, 255",
						text = "(text)",
						text_markup = "(text_markup)"
					} }, "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value("terrain/village/human-tile.png", "unit_list", i, "unit_icon")
				else
					local u = wesnoth.get_unit(v)
					local c = u.__cfg
					h = wesnoth.get_variable("atb.color_index[" .. wesnoth.get_variable("atb.side[" .. u.side .. "].color") .. "].color")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(string.format(" %s\n (%s)", tostring(u.name), tostring(c.language_name)), "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_canvas(1, { T.text {
						x = "(if(text_height < height, (height - text_height + 1) / 2, 0))",
						y = "(if(text_width < width, (width - text_width ) / 2, 0))",
						w = "(text_width)",
						h = "(text_height)",
						font_size = 14,
						colour = h,
						text = "(text)",
						text_markup = "(text_markup)"
					} }, "unit_list", i, "unit_label")
					wesnoth.set_dialog_value(c.image .. "~TC(" .. u.side .. ",magenta)", "unit_list", i, "unit_icon")
				end
			end
			wesnoth.set_dialog_callback(select, "unit_list")
			wesnoth.set_dialog_value(1, "unit_list")
			select()
		end

		local function postshow()
			z = t[wesnoth.get_dialog_value "unit_list"]
		end

		local r = wesnoth.show_dialog(dialog, preshow, postshow)
		if r == -2 and z > 0 then
			local u = wesnoth.get_unit(z)
			wesnoth.scroll_to_tile(u.x, u.y, true)
		end
	end)
end

Not sure how much help it's going to be - it's pretty messy (a lot of trial and error involved in getting it working, and I didn't want to risk breaking it by trying to clean it up too much).

[Exasperation]

So, I got back to work on this, and decided to start by downloading 1.9.5 and updating the era to work with it. My custom dialog now throws the following error (although it still works for the moment): "<Invalid WML found> Window builder: parsing resolution tip with empty 'id' field. Will become mandatory in 1.9.7."

Unfortunately, I can't find (or at least have been unable to recognize) any related parts of the GUI2 documentation. Any ideas?

[Anonymissimus]

Dude -
1. Our lua expert (silene) decided to go away so we're on our own.
2. Thus you may be currently the one who knows most about lua dialog coding (I did shy away from it ever. )
3. mordante can possibly tell you about that error, but you need to ask him in IRC.

[Elvish_Hunter]

2. Thus you may be currently the one who knows most about lua dialog coding (I did shy away from it ever. )

The very same thing applies for me. Perhaps we need a tutorial page that explains in a simple way how to make dialogs with Lua. For example, on Python I'm currently using Tkinter with ttk; and I was able to get started because I found this tutorial that teached me how to think in Tkinter (although I used the Italian translation).
Following this example, a wiki page explaining dialogs with Lua should start with some simple dialogs (like placing a button, a text entry, and how to position them), and end with something more complex. Anyone up for the challenge?

[Exasperation]

Victory is mine! In addition to a [grid] child, the dialog box table now also requires a [tooltip] child and a [helptip] child. I'm off to edit the relevant WML reference entry.