Options Presenter

The Options Presenter (YarnOptionsPresenter) shows your options as buttons. When the player picks one, it tells the Dialogue Runner which option was picked, and the dialogue carries on from there.

If you followed Adding Presenters, you already have one.

Where the buttons go

The Options Presenter needs a container to put its buttons in. In the scene from the previous pages, that’s an empty VBoxContainer:

When the scene starts, the Options Presenter uses the first Container directly under it. Each time the dialogue reaches some options, it adds a button to that container for each one, and removes them all again once the player has picked. Leave the container empty in the editor.

To use a container somewhere else in your scene, assign it to the Options Presenter’s Options Container property.

The Options Presenter shows and hides the nodes under it, so there’s no need to hide the container when the scene starts.

Picking an option

When the options appear, the first one the player can choose has focus. The player can:

• click an option,
• move between options with the arrow keys or a gamepad, and choose one with ui_accept,
• press a key you’ve set up for that option (see Keyboard shortcuts).

Hovering the mouse over an option also gives it focus. The focused option has a dot beside it.

While the options are showing, the Line Presenter ignores its Continue Action and clicks, so they go to the option buttons.

Use Fade Effect fades the options in when they appear and out once the player has picked. It’s on by default. Fade Up Duration and Fade Down Duration set how long each fade takes, in seconds.

Options the player can’t choose

An option with a condition is unavailable when the condition is false. In this example, the second option is only available if $has_key is true:

Rosa: Are you here about the lighthouse?
-> Yes. I heard the lamp went out.
-> I can open the door for you. <<if $has_key>>
-> No, I'm just passing through.

By default, the Options Presenter doesn’t show unavailable options at all. Turn off Hide Unavailable to show them as buttons that can’t be pressed.

If every option is unavailable, the Options Presenter shows nothing. What happens next depends on the Dialogue Runner’s Allow Option Fallthrough setting. See Dialogue Behaviour.

Changing how the buttons look

The Options Presenter makes each button from the scene in Option Button Scene. By default that’s res://addons/yarn_spinner/ui/option_item.tscn:

To change how the buttons look, make your own scene and assign it to Option Button Scene. Don’t edit the default scene: it’s part of the addon, and updating the addon replaces it.

Start by duplicating option_item.tscn into your own project and chaning the copy. The root node’s script is YarnOptionItem, which has these properties:

The root of your scene can also be a plain Button. The Options Presenter sets its text to the option’s text, and disables it when the option is unavailable.

The option’s text never includes the character’s name, and any markup is removed.

Keyboard shortcuts

To let the player pick options by pressing number keys, add an input action for each option in Project›Project Settings›Input Map, named with a shared prefix and a number starting at 1: option_1, option_2, option_3, and so on. Then set the Options Presenter’s Option Action Prefix to option_.

The numbers match the order of the options in your Yarn Script, including unavailable options. In the example above, if the player doesn’t have the key, option_3 still picks “No, I’m just passing through”, even though it’s the second button on screen.

Option Action Prefix is empty by default, which turns shortcuts off.

Showing the last line

When options appear, the line before them usually disappears. To keep it on screen above the options, turn on Show Last Line and assign a Label or RichTextLabel to Last Line Text.

In this tree, you’d set:

• Last Line Text to LastLineText,
• Last Line Container to LastLine, which is hidden when there’s no last line to show,
• Last Line Character Name Text to LastLineName, for the speaker’s name.

If you don’t set Last Line Character Name Text, the speaker’s name is left off. Set Last Line Character Name Container to hide something bigger than the name label, such as a name plate, when a line has no speaker.

Shortening the last line

A long line can take up too much space above the options. Put [lastline/] in the line where you want the shortened version to start:

Rosa: I've been keeping this light for thirty years, and I've never once let it go out. [lastline/]So, will you help me fix it?
-> Yes.
-> No.

The Line Presenter shows the whole line. Above the options, the Options Presenter shows only what comes after [lastline/], with “…” in front: “…So, will you help me fix it?”

Time limits

To give the player a limited time to choose, set Option Timeout on the Dialogue Runner, not the Options Presenter. When the time runs out, the Options Presenter removes the buttons, and the dialogue carries on after the options as if none had been picked. See Dialogue Behaviour.

To show the option the player picked as a line of dialogue, turn on Show Selected Option as Line on the Dialogue Runner.

Signals

Settings