Messaging¶
Dent runs its events off a messaging system. You can hook into this in order to access system events such as keyboard input, mouse input and timers. Even more, you can insert messages into the queue. This is the recommended way to communicate between elements of your game.
Dent also saves a log of the message queue every time your game is run.
If you use messaging for all non-deterministic interactions in your game (random die rolls for example), then Dent will be able to read a message log as a game replay. This is useful for debugging.
To fire an event, call:
message = dent.messaging.Message('event_name', ('some', 'data'))
dent.messaging.add_message(message)
Here we have made an event of type event_name and with two data.
To add a handler, simply call:
dent.messaging.add_handler('event_name', handler_func)
The hander function must expect exactly the data that will be in the event.
Thus, in the above case it must take two parameters. The handler will be called
with some and data as the parameters, given the previous message.
Naturally there can be mulitple handlers for the same event from different parts of the system. Thus, for example, a weapon object and the camera object might define hooks for keyboard input.
Default Messages¶
Dent fires off a number of messages that you may write hooks for. They are
| Message Type | Description | Arguments |
|---|---|---|
mouse |
A mouse button has been clicked | The mouse button, state and xy coordinates |
mouse_motion |
The mouse has moved | The xy coordinates of the mouse |
keyboard |
A key has been pressed | The pressed key character |
keyboard_up |
A key has been released | The released key character |
timer |
Fired every timer tick | The current number of frames per second |
game_start |
Fired once at the beginning of the game | None |