SC2Mapster

Hello.

At the very beginning of the map that I'm creating, I'm creating a custom background with dialogs and such so players can choose heroes, adjust attributes, etc.

However, before I begin creating abilities, I wanted to ask if it is possible to allow players to select the abilities that they want to assign to their heroes. For instance, at the very beginning of the map when players select their hero, they're given various abilities [probably created by dialogs] to choose from.

All abilities chosen by the player will be the ones assigned to the hero that the player has selected.

Is it possible to set up the command card like this?

If not, is there any way I can achieve this effect?

Thank you for any input

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Awesome, so it is doable. What do you mean when you say that all the buttons need a certain buff, though? I figured I could throw all of the abilities on the command card, but I'm just not too sure how I would make only the chosen abilities appear on the command card if the abilities were set on different slots in the command card. I'm fairly new to the editor, but I did a lot of scripting in WC3 (that's not saying much, given that the SC2 editor is so much more advanced).

I was going to customize the UI and make like 90% of it dialogs. I'm only going to use the first 8 buttons or so in the command card, and they will be laid out kind of towards the bottom center of the screen. I read somewhere that dialog abilities aren't possible, so I'm having to use the original command card. However, if there are 64 abilities and only the first 8 slots in the command card are available, would granting the player the required buff to use the ability automatically shift the ability to a visible command card slot, or would it stay in its position (as I'm assuming), rendering it unusable and invisible?

Thank you again for all of your help, and to anyone else who contributes to this thread.

@DrSuperEvil: Go

Could you possibly explain how to do this?

Also, I was thinking that if I could re-position the command card to the center of the screen, showing the first 8 slots or so, perhaps I could re-position the abilities on the command card somehow in-game or show only the abilities that the player chose?

@GlornII: Go

I looked at your project, and that's exactly what I'm seeking to do. I'm almost finished with my hero selection and skill selection UI. How did you get it so they were positioned on the command card in the order that they were selected?

Since I'm using a custom UI, I'm only going to be showing the first 7-8 slots in the command card. If a player chose a skill that was assigned on, say, slot 24 on the data editor, would hiding all non-essential skills automatically shift that command to a playable position on the command card?

Thank you by the way for showing me that it's possible

As for repositioning the UI, I believe you can do it in triggers by using Dialog Hooksups to access the builtin UI elements and then use Dialog triggers to move them around. However the optimal way is to use the UI editor and edit the game XML that defines the layout and thus avoid unnecessary triggers at start up.

As for the command card shifting slots, no it won't. I am not sure if there is a method to rearrange the command card in game with triggers. You can place muliple buttons on the single slot and then use hiding and showing to only show one ability at a time.

@ArcaneDurandel: Go

That is perfect, my problem is solved. Thank you both for your help!

Quote from GlornII: Go

..What I currently do is add all of skills to the heroes. ..

How long does it take to load unit when you click it in data editor? I have a hero with 5-6 abilities where each ability uses a dozen or two effects and every time I select it in units tab editor freezes for a few second (I suppose it's to arrange all the links in than link panel at bottom-left (Somehow up until now I didn't think about turning it off and checking if it fastens the process D= )

Quote from ArcaneDurandel: Go

As for repositioning the UI, I believe you can do it in triggers by using Dialog Hooksups to access the builtin UI elements and then use Dialog triggers to move them around. However the optimal way is to use the UI editor and edit the game XML that defines the layout and thus avoid unnecessary triggers at start up.

Is it the optimal way because you use less triggers (considering that maps can have thousands, tens of thousands of actions)? I kinda like using hookup cause then I can move elements in-game at any point in time and if I take a break from map when I come back there is a separate trigger for UI stuff - all organized and instantly understandable. But I admit that I haven't used UI editor (is it that tree with names/paths for all elements?) at all (except for getting values for hookups), so I'm probably unaware of some super-awesome benefits that it provides.

@Valtarian: Go For each custom spell slot I made a dummy effect-instant and effect-target ability and when needed adjusted/linked them with premade abilities (use catalogs to replace dummy effect with effect chain from ability + replace values such as cost, button info and others).