ADVANCED Question about using an "inventory items" slide for a game

Oct 24, 2018

Hi.

I'm creating a game that would have an inventory window pop-up when the user would press the "I" key.

My thoughts have been the following:

Create a slide layer and use some variables that would toggle the "inventory" window when the user presses "I" to open and then "I" to close it. This would work if I start on the base layer and then show the slide layer, HOWEVER, when I start the game, I have "show slide layer when timeline starts".

I can't seem to get this triggering to fire correctly starting on the slide layer.

Second, I tried to create a trigger on the Master Slide to show but I have no idea where to start. I even thought about using a lightbox too. However, I can't seem to find the correct Masterslide to place the trigger onto. IS there an easy way to know which Slide Master I am working from?

Any help is appreciated!!

Thank you!

8 Replies

Phil Mayor
Hero

over 5 years ago10/24/18 at 6:49 pm (UTC)

I try and only keep one or two slide masters, adding a shape can help identify the slides using a master.

You can put it on the top slide master which would put it on every slide. The problem will be with the trigger, the key press trigger needs the slide to have focus, each time you change slides the player takes focus.

W Gill
Author

over 5 years ago10/24/18 at 6:56 pm (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply Phil!

So, if I create the press key trigger on the Master, I could easily call a lightbox slide that contains my variables and show the inventory. Once they close the lightbox, it would go back to the current. However, are you saying that if they press "I" for inventory while on a slide layer it wouldn't show the lightbox?

I have essentially 20 slides that I would want them to be able to press "I" to view their treasures and items they have collected, would I copy the trigger 20 times?

Another question, would place the trigger on base layer before the "show layer" trigger work or does this lose focus as well?

Thanks for your help!!

Phil Mayor
Hero

over 5 years ago10/24/18 at 6:58 pm (UTC)

When the user changes slides for the key press to work they would first have to click on the slide. I think the layers should work fine. I have always had an issue when I swap slides and then have to engineer a click on the slide before the trigger will work.

Michael Hinze

over 5 years ago10/24/18 at 7:11 pm (UTC)

Phil is right, when navigating between slides, the player will take focus and that would require a learner to click on the slide first before the keypress fires. The only way to get around this is to add a textentry field to the master, place it offstage and put it at the bottom of the timeline. With that, the textentry field should 'wrestle' the focus away from the player. Here is a quick test, this seems to work.