Menu handling in GML

[Kilyle]

Anyone got a tutorial (or explanation of some sort) for GameMaker5 as to how to handle menus?  I've been stumbling through on my own and I'd like to see someone's fine-tuned solutions, if they're available.  I want 1) a Dragon Warrior-style menu that pops up on top of the map, with child menus that pop up on top of that, and 2) a Final Fantasy IV-style menu that shows an entirely different screen for the menu, with child menus that also show entirely different screens.

Also, I'd like to know how best to handle them so I don't end up making a menu-handling device for every single room (read: town, map, house) I enter.  I don't think it's good for the Hero object (the one that's user-controlled) to run the menus, I kind of feel that a different object should handle that, but I'm not sure why I think that.

Also, is there any way to create the menu in a whole different room, and have menu handling be "moving" to that room (and later back to wherever you were before), but not having a persistent hero show up in the menu room?  (I haven't gotten as far as to test that yet, but as I understand the GML help file, the hero's persistence allows him to run between rooms, but that means he shows up in every room.

Thanx in advance!

[Kilyle]

Well, it's been more than a year, and no one replied.  Does that mean that no one has figured out how to make menus using GameMaker?  Or does that mean that the people who do know how have never looked at my message?

In hope of the latter, I hereby re-request.  I want to figure out how to make good menus using Marc Overmars's GameMaker (now 6.0 I think).

Thanx!

[AsakuraHao2004]

Well, there might be several reasons no one replied, such as wrong forum, your low post count, and also because this is an RPG Maker Community and not a Game Maker one.

Also, why did you wait a year for an answer when you could have taken that year and learned to do it yourself. You can learn quite a bit in a year....

[GhostClown]

Making a new thread would have been a much better idea.

[Kilyle]

Why did I not take that year to learn how to do it myself?  There are numerous reasons that I don't care to discuss.  The one reason I will state is that my solutions seemed inelegant, and I was very much hoping to learn of someone else's more elegant solution (since I believe that others know more than I do).

Wrong forum?  This is general programming.  RPGMaker vs. GameMaker?  This is general programming.  If I'm not mistaken, this forum deals with "General Programming: C, C++, VB, Perl [etc.]"  Ergo, your point is meaningless--unless perhaps to point out that there are not enough GameMaker users here to form a knowledge base from which I could receive a useful answer.

As for low post count, I don't yet understand how that affects things, but I'm not going to run around posting uselessly in the hopes of making people pay attention to my "actual" posts.

As for replying to my old post vs. making a new topic...what is the distinction?  This way I didn't need to retype my old post, and the forum didn't end up with two different topics on the same subject more than a year apart.  Or am I supposed to make a new topic, retype my old message, and then erase my old topic?  Can I do that?  Is that S.O.P.?

Anyway...if no one here knows, then no one here knows.  No biggie.

[ZeroKirbyX]

Lets see...
1. If you wanted to learn someones "elegant" way, there are sucj things as TUTORIALS! Check em out
2. By wrong forum we mean that this is an RPG Maker SITE, not a gamemaker. Meaning very few people use GameMaker.
3. If you have a low post count, it shows that you aren't here to get what you want then leave.
4. If you post randomly to get high posts, no one will do your request because you are a spammer
5. Making a new post is a good idea because it makes you seem less, pathetic, I think is a good word. By posting in your old one it makes you seem lazy, which I now figure you are.

[Kijuki_Magazaki]

Originally posted by Kilyle
Why did I not take that year to learn how to do it myself?  There are numerous reasons that I don't care to discuss.  The one reason I will state is that my solutions seemed inelegant, and I was very much hoping to learn of someone else's more elegant solution (since I believe that others know more than I do).

Wrong forum?  This is general programming.  RPGMaker vs. GameMaker?  This is general programming.  If I'm not mistaken, this forum deals with "General Programming: C, C++, VB, Perl [etc.]"  Ergo, your point is meaningless--unless perhaps to point out that there are not enough GameMaker users here to form a knowledge base from which I could receive a useful answer.

As for low post count, I don't yet understand how that affects things, but I'm not going to run around posting uselessly in the hopes of making people pay attention to my "actual" posts.

As for replying to my old post vs. making a new topic...what is the distinction?  This way I didn't need to retype my old post, and the forum didn't end up with two different topics on the same subject more than a year apart.  Or am I supposed to make a new topic, retype my old message, and then erase my old topic?  Can I do that?  Is that S.O.P.?

Anyway...if no one here knows, then no one here knows.  No biggie.

She pretty much has you all guys in a little ball XD because she has major points XD XD And a lot of people overlook this part of the forum, it might be the reason as towhy there's been no response, but also because no one knows; dunno i never could figure on how to do it either

And zerokirby, those are bare assumptions <.<

[Osmose]

Wow. You are awesome.  

As for menu handling, I'm not too familiar with Gamemaker, but the basic concept behind a menu is first finding a way to display the menu. This can be done with "Bring up graphic" commands and such, and from what you've posted I'm pretty sure you understand that part.

The next problem to tackle is how to display a cursor and get it to move. One way is to insert If/Then conditionals in the script that is activated when you hit whatever buttons you press to move. What happens here is that, if a certain variable is true, then it will move the cursor object, and if not, it will move the player. Then all you have to do is display the cursor object and set the variable to true, and you can move it.

It's also important to keep track of the cursor. Add in a part in the cursor-moving code that changes a single variable every time the cursor moves. Also, make sure to have it check which option it's on and to move it back to the start if it reaches the end of the list.

That's about all I can give you, since I'm not a Game Maker user, but hopefully you can use some of my advice.