Name Changing Tutorial (Strings Explained) [Reviewed: Ralle]

[DarkArchon]

first of all, you need a prompt for the user.

• prompt
  • Events:
    • Time - Elapsed game time is 5 seconds
  • Conditions:
  • Actions:
    • Game - Display to (All players) the text: Type "-name " + what you would like to change your name to.

This just tells the user how to use the name changer.

Next thing to do is to store some variables of type STRING, now you could use an STRING ARRAY to hold all the names of each player. Depending on the max players in your map, you would set the string variable to that number, lets say for our case we have 8 players in our map.

So, click on the X variables and add a new variable Called NameStore and pick the variable type of STRING. Select the Array checkbox and make it size 8.

We also need a variable to store the size of the string that the user enters into the name changer, so make a variable called NameStore and pick type Integer and select Array size 8.

Now we got the prompt and a variable to store the names, now all we do is create the name changer trigger. I will first write the entire code, then explain what each part does afterwards. This is for the example for just player 1 (red), you could just copy and paste for each player and change the nessesary parts to it or you can get tricky and use for loops ect, but for this tutorial i will only do it for player 1:

• nameChanger
  • Events:
    • Player 1 (Red) types a chat message containing -name as A substring
  • Conditions:
  • Actions:
    • Set NameSize[1] = (Length of (Entered chat string))
    • Set NameStore[1] = (Entered chat string)
    • Set NameStore[1] = (Substring(NameStore[1],7,NameSize[1]))
    • Player - Set name of Player 1 (Red) to NameStore[1]

So for our event, player 1 types "-name ........." , so this ignores the rest of the text of what the player typed and fires this trigger. This is called a substring of a String, its just a small piece of the String that was typed.

Our actions were to get the Length of the string typed. This just returns a integer value of how many characters (including spaces) in the chat message typed. The nameStore just stores the whole string, then we use nameStore again to get the substring that we want, in our case the stuff after "-name ". To do this, we just use substring(STRING,startingCharNumber,SizeOfString).
In our case "-name " takes up 6 chars (including the last space too). So we use 7 for the startingCharNumber then just put in our variable for the size of string.

Now we have our string all we need to do is set the players name to that string.

Its as simple as that, hope this helps understanding strings. If you have any more questions just post it up and il try to answer it.

 

[Eleandor]

Arrays start to count at 0, not at 1. If you have an array of 8, it goes from 0 to 7.

In a tutorial, it's best to simply make 1 trigger for all players. It's not "that" tricky.

 

[PurplePoot]

Variables are uneeded, and this is really too basic to be approved IMO. (Especially since you did it a much more complicated way than needed, and the basic line needs a one-trigger explanation and that's it, really.)

 

[Gausslander]

I completely agree, variables aren't needed, and this tutorial is a little too short.

POST 900!!!

 

[p8intballer]

well if you dont use verables how would you remove -name from the players name?

 

[Dagguh]

Arrays start to count at 0, not at 1. If you have an array of 8, it goes from 0 to 7.

In a tutorial, it's best to simply make 1 trigger for all players. It's not "that" tricky.

That's true, but in WC3 you can declare an array of size, lets say, 5, and you can still store/read data in/from any fields you want [423], [5923]. The maximum size of an array is 8192, so you can refer to any field from 0 to 8191.

 

[PurplePoot]

well if you dont use verables how would you remove -name from the players name?

Inline the substring?

That's true, but in WC3 you can declare an array of size, lets say, 5, and you can still store/read data in/from any fields you want [423], [5923]. The maximum size of an array is 8192, so you can refer to any field from 0 to 8191.

8191 apparently isn't saved in Save Game.

 

[p8intballer]

ok i got you thanks final code looked like this
Defentally alot eayser then the said method above

• Events
  • Player - Player 1 (Red) types a chat message containing -name as A substring
• Conditions
• Actions
  • Player - Set name of Player 1 (Red) to (Substring((Entered chat string), 7, 40))

 

[donut3.5]

Yay necropostage!
And poot, does this mean the size is really 8191, not 8192?
--donut3.5--

 

[PurplePoot]

Donut, there are 8192 slots, which are 0-8191.

 

[donut3.5]

8191 apparently isn't saved in Save Game.

But you said this, meaning that there really isn't 8192 (0-8191), if 8191 doesn't work.
--donut3.5--

 

[PurplePoot]

8191 works as long as you don't save.

 

[Ralle]

Ah who cares about variables in this thread?

Anyway, This tutorial is too simple. The triggers are not optimized enough, (read earlier posts).
And I think it needs some kind of failsafe. It's stupid to be able to set your username to an empty string for example.