How to make a loop thats checks for a hotkey to be pressed then goes to a menu?

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Kraken

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Joined: 11th Jun 2009

Location: South Carolina

Posted: 17th Jul 2009 05:26

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I am creating a basic text game where the player types in things, and the game responds to there anwsers.

My question is, how do you make a loop that is always running so that the game continuously checks if you press a key on the keyboard, and if you do press it, it will bring up a game menu, and I'll be able to go back to the line where I went to the menu from,
e.g. if I press "resume" on my game menu, it will go back to where it left off.

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Grog Grueslayer

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Joined: 30th May 2005

Playing: Green Hell

Posted: 17th Jul 2009 06:55 Edited at: 17th Jul 2009 06:57

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You can do that by checking the KEYSTATE() of a key and go to a function if that key has been pressed. When the function is over it goes back to the line after the function call. You can also use GOSUB to do the same thing... just don't use GOTO... ever.

+ Code Snippet

` Overwrite text background
set text opaque

` Show instructions
text 0,30,"Press (SPACEBAR) to pause."

do

 ` Show the current count
 text 0,0,str$(Count)
 
 ` Check for spacebar and call the Menu function
 if keystate(57) then Menu()

 ` Increase the count
 inc Count

loop


end


function Menu()

 ` Show instructions
 text 0,30,"Press (R) to resume.      "

 do
 
  ` Check for R key and exit DO/LOOP
  if keystate(19) then exit
  
 loop 

 ` Replace instructions for pause
 text 0,30,"Press (SPACEBAR) to pause."

endfunction

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zeroSlave

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Joined: 13th Jun 2009

Location: Springfield

Posted: 17th Jul 2009 17:17

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I assume that you are using the INPUT command for the text input. such as:

+ Code Snippet

INPUT "Enter name>";name$
PRINT "Your name is ";name$
WAIT KEY

I don't know if you can set DarkBasic to catch keyboard or mouse interrupts when it is waiting for a user response from an INPUT command. A work around would be to set the 'name$' variable(in this case) to respond to "menu" or some such string.

+ Code Snippet

DO
INPUT "Enter name(type 'menu' to go to the menu)>";name$
IF lower$(name$) = "menu" then gosub menuScreen
IF name$ <> "menu" then PRINT "Your name is ";name$
LOOP


menuScreen:
Do
`menu stuff
`put save stuff, load stuff, etc.
cls
if keystate(16) <>0 then return
print "MENU SCREEN: Press Q to quit"
wait key
Loop

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Dream And Death

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Location: The circus! Juggling job, kids and DBPro

Posted: 17th Jul 2009 19:44 Edited at: 17th Jul 2009 19:44

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One piece of advice - dump the idea of using Input as your method of communicating with the user. Learn how to build your own text buffer (hint: search for 'text buffer' on the forums). Using a text buffer, your program will already be in a loop and you can check for, let's say, the keystate of F1 each loop and go to a menu function while the text buffer is still has some text in it.

"You get what everyone gets, you get a lifetime!" - Death, The Sandman Library

First you Dream, then you ... - Neil Gaiman, 2001

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Kraken

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Joined: 11th Jun 2009

Location: South Carolina

Posted: 18th Jul 2009 00:47

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Thanks everyone, I think I am going to go with Dream and Death's idea.

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