Custom Button Features?

[Dopeboi]

[E] There is one thing I think should be added, but it doesn't need to be added... I would like to see custom button implementation, the Magatama is cool and all but we need more control over buttons like that... Just be able to place to position of the button on the bottom screen and add custom image icons making it like Apollo's Bracelet, you can make the button redirect to a frame on click using certain conditions and stuff... This can be used for Evidence too, take the mixing board or Lamiroir's performance tape as the example for the custom buttons on evidence... It would be a cool addition to have at our disposal!

[Enthalpy]

I'm not sure if I understood you correctly.

Are you asking for the ability to have something like the magatama on any frame, redirecting to any frame, and with any (user-inputtable) icon?

[Dopeboi]

Something of the sort, It's like the magatama that opens an event when pressed, except you make what happens...

[Enthalpy]

Um, what do you mean by "make what happens"? I still don't quite understand.

[123fendas]

Something of the sort, It's like the magatama that opens an event when pressed, except you make what happens...

You can already make what happens.

[Dopeboi]

I mean make the event that happens after you press the button! It's hard to explain without confusing people...

[AceAttorneyMaster111]

I think I understand. Here's how I could see it implemented, hopefully this will clarify the suggestion for everyone.

This is a fundamentally different type of data, so I could see this feature having its own editor tab (or being under Enthalpy's "miscellaneous" tab.) For now, let's call it "Widgets."

So under that browser tab, you can create with text/link to an image for a button that will be placed at a given location on the touch screen. The author will also specify an Action that occurs whenever the button is clicked. A common use case might be a frame redirect, but I could also see people having a button increment a certain variable.

We would also need two new Actions, for respectively showing and hiding these buttons.

There's probably a bunch of issues with the implementation that I haven't thought of, but I think this gets across what Dopeboi is proposing.

[ThePaSch]

I agree that a feature like this could be pretty useful. I don't like the idea of "hardcoding" an action into the widget, though - that would make it rather inflexible (if, for instance, you'd always have it redirect to the same frame, regardless of where it appeared). We might have it point to a variable, but then there could be issues if the variable isn't defined at the point the widget is called. We have to consider where and how to define what the widget actually does when it's clicked, while keeping it as flexible as possible.

There's also an issue with the specific implementation of making them available to the player. I'm guessing you mean the new actions would show and hide indefinitely, respectively. As far as I'm aware, there's no other action that displays anything on either the top screen or manipulates the bottom screen for longer than the frame that action is defined in. There's a plethora of concerns - it'd have to play nice with the save/load system, there's the potential for softlocking the player if they're redirected to a frame that should have had the widget appear in a frame beforehand (and requires its use to proceed), we'd have to consider how it would work with investigation scenes and/or cross-examinations, and a lot more.

[AceAttorneyMaster111]

I added a thread over here where we can talk more about the technical specifics of implementing this feature.

[Enthalpy]

I'm going to refrain from technical discussion until I'm sure what is being proposed.

Some icon appears in the place of the magatama, and on clicking it some "event" happens. Dopeboi, can you give examples of what these "events" are? The more, the better. Are you intentionally not being specific about this?

[ThePaSch]

From what I've gained from Dopeboi's posts, it's basically the ability to display a clickable custom graphic in an arbitrary location on the bottom screen and tying an action to it. While I don't think it should allow users to put it in a truly arbitrary location, I think putting it where the Magatama would go in psyche lock-enabled investigation scenes could be a way to go. You could then make it redirect to another frame when clicked, and display/hide it when you wanted. That's the assumption I made my post under, at least.

[Enthalpy]

Ah, thanks. Whether this should just frame redirect or do something more complicated is an important point (and is why I asked the specific question I did), so I'll wait and see what Dopeboi says.

[Unas]

Indeed. I it's just a matter of displaying a single button doing a frame redirect, it's easy enough to do it with an editor action "Show Button" taking the target frame as parameter. (With that target frame potentially being a variable, it becomes fairly dynamic).

If, however, as AAM describes, it's more of a custom bottom screen UI, with potentially several button placements with different effects, that's fairly more complicated - though also more interesting.
Indeed it would warrant a whole new tab for defining that custom interface, program its interactions... And then have an action in the storyboard to override the standard bottom screen UI with this one for the current frame (and pass optional parameters specific to this frame).
Think of what is done with cross examinations : though it's hidden in the editor, frames needing to display the CE interface have the CEStatement action set, with the statement contradictions as action parameters. Something similar could be done with another action fo display custom UI...
So, it could work, and potentially have great uses. But that's a lot of work.

[Enthalpy]

For what it's worth, Pasch and I were speaking about this last night. He'd be interested in defining the exact specifications of the feature and possibly implementing it.

[Dopeboi]

That sounds about right, thanks for the explanation... The feature would definitely be cool to have