Displaying multiple notices inside Ren'Py Projects

In Ren'Py code, the renpy.notify function can be used to display a simple message on a pre-defined screen (located on top left by default). It is great for testing or, well, notifying the player, but comes with some limitations, mainly that it only takes a string - even if that string can use Ren'Py text tags.

LezNotice can be viewed as an improved version of this function, always showing a Displayable, aka an image.

It can take a string with possible text tags, just like renpy.notify, but that Text is always converted into a displayable according to a pre-defined style.
It can take a displayable or a defined image to display it instead of text.

How to use

All of the code is located in a single file, lez_notice.rpy. It is split into three sections:

Style and Preferences
Code
Examples

Style and Preferences

First part allows for quick setup of the script. It consists of a transform and several styles and preference variables.

transform notice_trans():
    yoffset 30 alpha 1.0 xoffset 30
    linear 4.0  yoffset 200 alpha 0.0

notice_trans is the transform used by every notice displayed. By default, it displays it at the left side of the screen slowly moving down and fading away.

style notice_frame:
    background Frame("gui/notify.png")

notice_frame is the style that represents frames the notices are contained in. Besides other things, background can be set to None to make them invisible.

style notice_text:
    color "fff"
    italic True

notice_text is the style that is used for notices created with only a text string. While notice_frame is used directly inside the screen responsible for displaying the notices, notice_text is used for Text displayable generation.

define notice_time = 4.5

notice_time is a variable which should be a float. It is the time Notices are guaranteed to be on screen before the script tries to remove them. This should be either the time it takes for notice_trans to finish, or slightly more than that.

define notice_remove_interval = 10.0

notice_removal_interval is a variable which should be a float. It is the frequency at which the script tries to remove finished notices - should be lower number (more often) if you display notices often or many at once, and can be higher (less often) if not.

define notice_log_add = False
define notice_log_remove = False
define notice_log_clear = False

Finally, there are three variables that each control a different print function. These messages are outputted to the console and the log.txt file. notice_log_add prints a message when a new notice is added and what it is. notice_log_remove prints a message whenever a notice (and which one) is ready to be removed. notice_log_clear prints a message when the list of notices becomes empty.

Code

Second part contains all of the script's code, split into Working stuff where all the variables and functions are defined, and Screen stuff, where the notice_screen screen (which is responsible for displaying all Notices) is located.

The essential function of this script is new_notice:

new_notice(message, image = False)

message is the thing to be displayed, either a string or a displayable. String, as already mentioned, is converted into a Text displayable based on the notice_text style. If image is passed as True, message is expected to be something that can be converted to a displayable, following the usual Ren'Py rules - a string of a filename, a color, an image name or a list.

There are few more names which shouldn't be overwritten: notice_list, mark_old_notices and clear_notices.

Examples

Finally, here are the examples featured inside the script's lezNotice_examples label.

new_notice("A plain notice!")

First example displays a simple text notice, formed according to the notice_text style.

new_notice(Text("Text displayable notice!", color = "0f0", underline = True))

Second example also displays a text notice, however this one is passed directly as a Text displayable, allowing for styling different from the default.

new_notice("gui/window_icon.png", image = True)

Third example displays an image from a file. For this, image has to be passed as True.

image example_image = Solid("f80", xysize = (200, 200))

new_notice("example_image", image = True)

Fourth example displays a defined image correlating to a passed image name. For this, image has to be passed as True.

init python:
    def displayable_ex_func(st, at):
        t = round((st + 1) * 5, 3)
        return (Text(str(t)), 0.1)

a = DynamicDisplayable(displayable_ex_func)
new_notice(a)

Fifth and final example displays a more complex displayable, a counter which keeps on increasing and is displayed as text. Putting aside the definition, creating a notice showing it is just as simple as it is in all other examples.

Final words and terms of use

This script is under the MIT License. This means you can use, modify and/or distribute this script, as long as I am credited ("Lezalith" is enough, but a link to my website with Ren'Py content, LezCave.com, is greatly appreciated!) and as long as the LICENSE.txt file stays included. Feel free to move it into its own folder, though.

Thank you very much for reading all the way here if you did. Now, go do great things!

Lezalith / LezNotice

readme