Assign Speaker

[idgie]

I would really like Assign Speaker to change the ID of the speaker when it is dropped into the chat window. In its current version, It only serves to remind the GM who is speaking. I would really like it to act as:

/id Monster Welcome to my lair

so that it would show on chat window

Monster: Welcome to my lair

regardless of who I presently have speaking. Presently assign speaker is worthless in my opinion.

[Goblin-King]

Presently, if you drag a chat frame to the chat window (the larger, upper area) the speaker is assigned to the outgoing message. If you drop it into the chat entry line (the one line area at the bottom), it's simply put there as text that the GM can edit before submitting.

I'm afraid I didn't quite understand the problem. Could you give an example of a step by step that you would like to see happen?

[richvalle]

What I THINK he wants: the /id to be a command line toggle that you can type as you 'speak'.

So, for example. I can type in the chat window /id Orc1 I hate Guard duty, I hope something exciting happens soon.

/id Orc2 Me too!


Instead of clicking on the Ork1 and Ork2 buttons created with the /id Orc1 and /id Orc2(or forgetting to click on them which is what I do all the time).

rv

[Ablefish]

This was one thing I really really hoped would make it into FG 2 - that the chat box entry line would display who the active speaker is. I hate it when my NPCs speak for the GM... It's way to easy to forget who the active speaker is when you're bouncing back and forth between a couple of NPCs, Monsters and story text.

If he's referring to Assign Speaker in terms of assigning a Speaker to a block of text, and then dragging that text block into the chat window - I was never able to get this to work properly in fg1. I'll have to push it around in 2 tonight.

[idgie]

Ablefish expressed my frustration in NPC discussions. When I have multiple NPC's talking to the players. Rather than having to click on the NPC id each time I want to change who is speaking, I would like to be able to pre-assign a speaker, so that when I drag and drop the text into the chat window it will always appear with the NPC I have designated by Assign Speaker.

In an ideal world, this would happen automatically with the Assign Speaker command. So that when I Assign Speaker, the ID would change any time that text is dropped into the chat window.

Since I am not a programmer, I don't know how hard this would be to change or what problems it would create. Therefore, I proposed an idea using the /id command as a work around. My thought was to offer a solution to the problem without perverbially reinventing the wheel. I appologize if my first post caused confusion. My idea was to use an existing command to effect the desired change.

The reason I brought up the /id command is because of its ability to automatically change the designated speaker. I sometimes create separate text boxes about the dialogue with the /id command.

/id Orc2
Me too!

However, dialogue is not always linear and this solution doesn't always prevent the humorous taking as someone else.

My recommendation is if the Assign Speaker can not be set to automatically change or add the appropreate character id then the /id command may present an acceptable alternative.

I don't see why text could not be added after the /id command, similar to the whisper command. /w [character] [message]. The command would look like /id [character] [message]. To prevent confusion, the command identifier could be changed to /as for assign speaker. /as [Orc2] [Me too!]. I have no problem with typing brackets, but name sometimes have spaces and that might create some problems, with names like "inn keeper".

An example from my on going campaign. This is an agurement on board a ship in the middle of a storm.

Presently, I have written:

/id Capt Bjorn

"The wind has blown us off course."

/id helmsmen

"We could make the ship lighter."

/id Merchant

"You will not drop my cargo over the side."

Due to my mistake in not changing the ID, the conversation went:

Capt Bjorn: "The wind has blown us off course."
Capt Bjorn: "We could make the ship lighter."
Helmsmen: "You will not drop my cargo over the side."


What I would like to see, using Assign Speaker:

Capt Bjorn "The wind has blown us off course."
Helmsmen "We could make the ship lighter."
Merchant "You will not drop my cargo over the side.

Or

/id [Capt Bjorn] ["The wind has blown us off course."]
/id [helmsmen] ["We could make the ship lighter."]
/id [Merchant] ["You will not drop my cargo over the side.]

[Sigurd]

"/id Monster" Would work very well as a flexible approach. It could be hotkeyed or recorded into speach blurbs in documents etc....

/id Sigurd I'd appreciate it.


S

[joshuha]

This could be done pretty easy with the LUA scripting. I don't think we have access to the /ID parameters though. An easy workaround would be to create another /slash command like identiy say, maybe /IS text. This LUA function would create the identity if it didn't already exist, switch you to that active identity and then say the text. Is that what you are after?

[idgie]

An easy workaround would be to create another /slash command like identiy say, maybe /IS text. This LUA function would create the identity if it didn't already exist, switch you to that active identity and then say the text. Is that what you are after?

That would be an acceptable solution for me.

[Goblin-King]

Ablefish expressed my frustration in NPC discussions. When I have multiple NPC's talking to the players. Rather than having to click on the NPC id each time I want to change who is speaking, I would like to be able to pre-assign a speaker, so that when I drag and drop the text into the chat window it will always appear with the NPC I have designated by Assign Speaker.

Just to confirm, this is exactly what is happening right now, if I understood you correctly. If you create a chat frame in the story book, for example, and use Assign Speaker, then drag the frame over to the chat window, the message will be displayed with the given speaker. The active id, however, will not be changed so if you continue typing using the keyboard after that, it will take whatever id you had active before the drag.

If that's not the case, there's a problem somewhere that you shouldn't be seeing. Please make sure you drop in the chat log area, not the chat text entry area.

Extending the /id command to include an initial line of text sounds good to me, but there is just one problem, which is that of names with spaces, such as Capt Bjorn. Simply typing:

/id Capt Bjorn The wind has blown us off course.

Would not indicate where the name ends and where the text begins. Two reasonable schemes for this would probably be:

/id Capt Bjorn: The wind has blown us off course.
/id Capt Bjorn "The wind has blown us off course."

Which could both work.

Also, it's possible to make a script change that would cause any chat frame text dropped on the chat window to also change the active id to the one that was dropped.

Both ideas sound fine to me, but I'm open to any feedback on these.

[Griogre]

The thread here explains how to do assign a speaker to a chat box: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5483

Because I'm lazy, I would rather the "/id Capt Bjorn: The wind has blown us off course." I could save a character typing and the odds are I would forget the closing quote. :p

[Oberoten]

Just to confirm, this is exactly what is happening right now, if I understood you correctly. If you create a chat frame in the story book, for example, and use Assign Speaker, then drag the frame over to the chat window, the message will be displayed with the given speaker. The active id, however, will not be changed so if you continue typing using the keyboard after that, it will take whatever id you had active before the drag.

If that's not the case, there's a problem somewhere that you shouldn't be seeing. Please make sure you drop in the chat log area, not the chat text entry area.

Extending the /id command to include an initial line of text sounds good to me, but there is just one problem, which is that of names with spaces, such as Capt Bjorn. Simply typing:

/id Capt Bjorn The wind has blown us off course.

Would not indicate where the name ends and where the text begins. Two reasonable schemes for this would probably be:

/id Capt Bjorn: The wind has blown us off course.
/id Capt Bjorn "The wind has blown us off course."

Which could both work.

Also, it's possible to make a script change that would cause any chat frame text dropped on the chat window to also change the active id to the one that was dropped.

Both ideas sound fine to me, but I'm open to any feedback on these.

My suggestion on this would be to use the same format as the /m command. IE, /id (Captain Bjorn) The wind has blown us off course. It is always good to use/have a standard since it makes it easier for people to pick up on all the functions.

[Ablefish]

I'll be honest - I'd be perfectly happy if the Chat entry box just had an italicized name of who will be saying whatever the text box holds when I hit enter.

Just a

Dirty Peasant: "Got any copper?... blah blah"

That would make it a lot easier to make sure the NPC doesn't start describing his own reaction to the player's actions. :P

[idgie]

Just to confirm, this is exactly what is happening right now, if I understood you correctly. If you create a chat frame in the story book, for example, and use Assign Speaker, then drag the frame over to the chat window, the message will be displayed with the given speaker. The active id, however, will not be changed so if you continue typing using the keyboard after that, it will take whatever id you had active before the drag.

If that's not the case, there's a problem somewhere that you shouldn't be seeing. Please make sure you drop in the chat log area, not the chat text entry area.

I now realize that the my problem lay in my dragging the text into the chat text entry area rather than the chat log area. When I tried dragging the text into the chat log area, the correct speaker was displayed all of the time. The program appears to functioning as designed. Therefore, I see this thread not so much a discussion of a bug as discussion of "Does the function or command do what I would hope that it would do?"

Now with that said. My personal opinion and request would be that no matter where I dragged the text once I have used an Assign Speaker command, FG2 would always display the same thing: what I had written in the text box. (I would like the program to be smarter than the user) I also would like the ID to change or at least have the option to automatically change the speaker ID when the Assign Speaker is dropped into either chat area.