I was poking around today with stuff and ended up writting this. It is a tool for displaying message to users on screen. Read the usage at the top of the script. You can diaplay message any where on screen and there are 9 default positions that you can use. Colors of text and background box can be changed as well as an option to turn off the box. The text is displayed for a set number of milliseconds or until the sceen is refreshed which ever is longer. The time can also be changed.
Enjoy.
Download:
I haven’t checked out your script yet, but it looks like a really good idea.
For a while now I’ve wanted to write (or acquire) a script that allows you to document a complex rig setup the same way a programmer documents code… can this be used for that effectively?
Thanks for sharing this.
EDIT:
Ah, after looking through the code I see this really is a nice, simple messaging system that can easily be used by other scripts. Very useful!
I really like it… easy when guiding a user through the steps of a script or workflow.
Maybe an feature to add is a way to delay a message? So you can build playback text message.
Thanks for sharing!
-Johan
Way cool!
Shane
gw gives me a lot of ideas, but The flickering is an Autodesk flaw right ?
inspiring…, I might use it with rigs, thanks
Very cool. Another practical implementation might be to use it to freak out your coworkers by popping up random insults and regular intervals. Or make them think their version of max has a crush on them.
That is the best use for it yet! I knew every one would find something to do with it.
I have used gw a fair bit in feed back of information to the user. Once place that I used it was a tool for setting soft selections in editablepoly. You hit a hot key and scrub to set the value and incase you want to know what the value is it is display at your mouse point. It displays all the settings at the same time so you know what is going on.
I built it because a friend, Dimitry, asked about something and in talking about it this idea popped into my head. I’m thinking that I should add the ability to set the position by an object or selected object. It would be neat to have a help mode for rig so that when a user selects something it pops up a message about what that object is for. Currently it only handles one line messages as line breaks are not respected. I would have to read in the string as a string stream and display each line one at a time. If enough people find cools ways to use it I might just do that.
Firstly this is a slick idea, and thanks so muh for sharing.
Unfortunately I am getting an error on the line:
if showBoxDisp then (gw.wrect rect boxColorDisp)
which is in the BoxMessage Function.
when I look at gw, wrect does not appear as a method. I am in 3DSMax 9, is this something new to 2008? Or am I being an idiot?
If this line is commented out then it works perfectly, and is definitely going to be featuring is my future projects!
Thanks
Rich
Ah yes, I should mention and didn’t even think of putting it in the header that this is a Max2008 only script. If you want to use it for Max 9 then just comment out the box or just send the showBox:false property and it should work. Maybe I will find another way to draw the box and do a check to see if it is Max 9 or earlier and use that.
I just did an update. Four new things added.
#node can be passed as the position now. If it is is passed into either the vertical or horizontal parameters the position of an object will be used for that value.
To pass in an object use obj:$theObject
Since the user can be paning a viewport as the label is displayed and the object will be moving there is parameter called updatePos:true. This is set to false by default but if passed as true the labels position will constantly updated to stay with the object.
I have also added offset:[0,0], this can be passed to move the label as an offset from the position that was set.
Enjoy.
Download:
thanks. nice tool paul.