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Text Input Widget

The text input widget is a special widget which lets the player use the flipper buttons to cycle through letters and numbers and to select them. This is used in the high score name entry and the service mode.

Currently the text input widget flashes a cursor over the selected letter, and the player hitting the flipper buttons changes the letter in place. In the future, we'll add an option to show all the letters on the screen in a long list as well.

Settings

Here are the list of settings you can use for text_input widgets:

type: text_input
key:
char_list:
max_chars:
initial_char:
keep_selected_char:
dynamic_x:
dynamic_x_pad:
shift_left_event:
shift_right_event:
select_event:
abort_event:
force_complete_event:
font_size:
font_name:
bold:
italic:
halign:
valign:

Note

Text widgets also have "common" widget settings for position, opacity, animations, color, style, etc. Those are not listed here, but are instead covered in common widget settings page.

Also remember that all widget settings can be controlled via widget styles, rather than you having to set every setting on every widget.

type: text_input

Tells MPF that this is a text_input widget. This setting is required when using text_input widgets.

key:

single

char_list:

String value, default is ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ_- \.

A list of all the characters that are available to be chosen by the player as they're entering their name or initials. The order they are here is the order they show up as the uses scrolls left or right. If you want to add, remove, or change any of the defaults, just add a new char_list: setting to this text_input widget and completely replace the default list with your own list.

Note that "back" and "end" characters will automatically be added to the end of this list.

max_chars:

Integer value, default is 3.

How many characters can be entered into this text input field.

initial_char:

Single character value. Default is A.

The character from your char_list: that you want to be the initial character selected before the player starts entering their name.

keep_selected_char:

Boolean (True/False or Yes/No), default is True.

When a player hits the start button to select a character and then the cursor moves to the next position, should the selected character stay with the character they just selected, or should it go back to the initial_char:?

dynamic_x:

Boolean (True/False or Yes/No), default is True.

If True, then the x position of this text widget will be updated as characters are selected and entered. If False, then the widget's x position will not change, and additional characters will be added to the right edge.

In other words, if you plan to center this widget, set this to True. If you plan on left justifying it, set it to False.

dynamic_x_pad:

Integer value. Default is 0.

If you're using the dynamic_x: setting above, this is the number of additional pixels that will be added to the total width of the widget to calculate the dynamic x position.

block_events:

A list of events that, when posted, will prevent the text input from shifting or selecting input values. Useful for when a flipper cancel is used to select and the subsequent flipper inactive events shouldn't change the input.

Used in conjucting with release_events setting below.

release_events:

A list of events that, when posted, will unblock the text input from shifting or selecting input values.

Used in conjuction with block_events setting above.

shift_left_event:

The event that, when posted, will shift the selected character from the char_list to the left. Default is sw_left_flipper.

shift_right_event:

The event that, when posted, will shift the selected character from the char_list to the right. Default is sw_right_flipper.

select_event:

The event that, when posted, will select (or "enter") the currently highlighted character and move the cursor to the next position. Default is sw_start (which is the event that's posted when a switch tagged with start is hit).

abort_event:

The event that, when posted, will abort (or cancel) the character entry process. Default is sw_esc (which is the event that's posted when a switch tagged with esc is hit).

force_complete_event:

The event that, when posted, will mark the text entry process as complete, even if the player hasn't entered all their characters yet. Default is None.

font_size:

Same as the font_size: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

font_name:

Same as the font_name: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

bold:

Same as the bold: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

italic:

Same as the italic: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

halign:

Same as the halign: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

valign:

Same as the valign: setting for the Text Widget. See that documentation for usage.

anchor_y: baseline

Text input widgets have an additional baseline option in addition to the other baseline options detailed in the common widget settings documentation.

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