Message/Console system.

[NintendoEKS]

After playing a game of basewars a few days back, the messagelog / console that shows how much a printer is printing and the status of certain entities etc intrigued me.
I'm just curious as to how it's done, I'm not asking for "please kode dis 4 me", just a general guidance as to how it can be achieved.

Any help is appreciated,

Regards,
NintendoEKS

[zzaacckk]

Can you please give specifics on how the basewars messagelog/console works please?

[brandonj4]

To answer your question I think it's a custom function that runs off the entity itself and grabs the time from the timer. Once the timer reaches the time of printing then it will know when to send you a message. I'm not sure how they sent the messages but i know they based it off the Entity's timers.

[NintendoEKS]

Here's a direct copy/pasta from the gamemodes files.

[lua]

local HUDNote_c = 0
local HUDNote_i = 1
HUDNotesm = {}

function GM:AddMessage( str, type, length )

local tab = {}
tab.text = str
tab.recv = SysTime()
tab.len = length
tab.velx = 0
tab.vely = 0
tab.x = 20
tab.y = 0
tab.a = 255
tab.type = type

table.insert( HUDNotesm, tab )

HUDNote_c = HUDNote_c + 1
HUDNote_i = HUDNote_i + 1

end

local function DrawMessagem( self, k, v, i )

local H = ScrH() / 1024
local x = v.x
local y = v.y

if ( !v.w ) then

surface.SetFont( "MessageFont" )
v.w, v.h = surface.GetTextSize( v.text )

end

local w = v.w
local h = v.h

w = w + 16
h = h+((i-1)*v.h)
y=y+h
//draw.RoundedBox( 4, x - w - h + 8, y - 8, w + h, h, Color( 30, 30, 30, v.a * 0.4 ) )

// Draw Icon

surface.SetDrawColor( 255, 255, 255, v.a )
//surface.SetTexture( NoticeMaterial[ v.type ] )
//surface.DrawTexturedRect( x - w - h + 16, y - 4, h - 8, h - 8 )
/*
0 logs
1 warning
2 income
3 info
4 error
*/
local textcolor = Color(0,250,0,255)
if v.type==1 then
textcolor = Color(250,0,0,255)
elseif v.type==2 then
textcolor = Color(0,100,0,255)
elseif v.type==3 then
textcolor = Color(150,150,0,255)
elseif v.type==4 then
textcolor = Color(150,0,0,255)
end
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_showmessages")==1 then
draw.SimpleText( v.text, "MessageFont", x+1, y+1, Color(0,0,0,150), TEXT_ALIGN_LEFT )
draw.SimpleText( v.text, "MessageFont", x, y, textcolor, TEXT_ALIGN_LEFT )
end
end

function GM:PaintMessages()
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_showmessages")==1 then
if ScrW()>1000 then
draw.RoundedBox( 10, 10, 10, 570, 170, Color( 30, 30, 30, 100 ) )
else
draw.RoundedBox( 10, 10, 10, 450, 130, Color( 30, 30, 30, 100 ) )
end
end
if ( !HUDNotesm ) then return end

while #HUDNotesm>10 do
table.remove(HUDNotesm, 1)
end
local i = 0
for k, v in pairs( HUDNotesm ) do

if ( k != 0 ) then

i = i + 1
DrawMessagem( self, k, v, i)

end

end
end

// lol redundant

function MsgManageMessages(msg)
local text = msg:ReadString()
local type = msg:ReadShort()
local time = msg:ReadShort()
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_showmessages")==nil then
CreateClientConVar("bw_showmessages", 1, true, false)
end
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_shownotify")==nil then
CreateClientConVar("bw_shownotify", 0, true, false)
end
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_messages_warningnotify")==nil then
CreateClientConVar("bw_messages_warningnotify", 1, true, false)
end
if LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_messages_dontshowincome")==nil then
CreateClientConVar("bw_messages_dontshowincome", 0, true, false)
end
local mode = LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_showmessages")
local both = LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_shownotify")
local warn = LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_messages_warningnotify")
local inc = LocalPlayer():GetInfoNum("bw_messages_dontshowincome")

if mode==0 then
GAMEMODE:AddNotify(text,type,time)
elseif mode==1 then
if inc==0 || type!=2 then
GAMEMODE:AddMessage(text,type,time)
end
end
if both==1 && mode==1 then
GAMEMODE:AddNotify(text,type,time)
end
// if 'both' is set already, we dont need to put the message twice.
if warn==1 && mode==1 && both==0 && type==1 then
GAMEMODE:AddNotify(text,type,time)
end
end
usermessage.Hook("RPDMNotify", MsgManageMessages)[/lua]

Sure it's all there, how ever I have no idea how exactly it "works".