Re: [pygame] Is there an InputBox function in pygame/python?

[James Reeves <jreeves@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wednesday 27 Apr 2005 10:13 pm, D. Hartley wrote:
> I am trying to create a box on the graphics window which asks a user
> for their name.  My research led me to the "InputBox" function, which
> is said to "get user input, allowing backspace etc shown in a box in
> the middle of the screen" (but ignores the shift key?).  I found
> several pages that refer to it, and one example on google, but it
> seems very cryptic to me, and I can't find any other help materials.
> I tried help(InputBox), tried to use the function itself, tried to
> search for it in the documentation on python.org, and tried to google
> it (InputBox, Python).  I got a half-million websites talking about
> VBS and other versions of InputBox, and can't find one (besides the
> cryptic one) for python.  Does this function exist? Or is it called
> something else?  Can someone point me to an
> explanation/definition/simple example?  Like I said, I am just trying
> to ask for a user name, it is nothing more (or less!) complicated than
> that.

InputBox isn't a function native to Pygame. Pygame doesn't have any GUI 
widgets included; you have to write them yourself, or find one that's written 
already. I do recall there have been some unofficial GUI toolkits written for 
pygame, but I haven't used them (and in my opinion, they all seem a little 
ugly).

However, I found this:

http://www.pygame.org/pcr/inputbox/index.php

And this gives you a simple input box. To put this into your game, copy and 
paste the code below:

#######################
def get_key():
  while 1:
    event = pygame.event.poll()
    if event.type == KEYDOWN:
      return event.key
    else:
      pass

def display_box(screen, message):
  "Print a message in a box in the middle of the screen"
  fontobject = pygame.font.Font(None,18)
  pygame.draw.rect(screen, (0,0,0),
                   ((screen.get_width() / 2) - 100,
                    (screen.get_height() / 2) - 10,
                    200,20), 0)
  pygame.draw.rect(screen, (255,255,255),
                   ((screen.get_width() / 2) - 102,
                    (screen.get_height() / 2) - 12,
                    204,24), 1)
  if len(message) != 0:
    screen.blit(fontobject.render(message, 1, (255,255,255)),
           ((screen.get_width() / 2) - 100, (screen.get_height() / 2) - 10))
  pygame.display.flip()

def ask(screen, question):
  "ask(screen, question) -> answer"
  pygame.font.init()
  current_string = []
  display_box(screen, question + ": " + string.join(current_string,""))
  while 1:
    inkey = get_key()
    if inkey == K_BACKSPACE:
      current_string = current_string[0:-1]
    elif inkey == K_RETURN:
      break
    elif inkey == K_MINUS:
      current_string.append("_")
    elif inkey <= 127:
      current_string.append(chr(inkey))
    display_box(screen, question + ": " + string.join(current_string,""))
  return string.join(current_string,"")
######################

Then to ask a person's name, use:
name = ask(screen, "Your name")

-- 
James Reeves
http://www.monkeyengines.co.uk/