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Screen Actions, Values, and Functions

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Special Screen Names

There are two kinds of special screen names in Ren'Py. The first are screens that will be automatically displayed when Ren'Py script language commands (or their programmatic equivalents) are run. The other type are menu screens. These have conventional names for conventional functionality, but screens can be omitted or changed as is deemed necessary.

On this page, we'll give example screens. It's important to realize that, while some screens must have minimal functionality, the screen system makes it possible to add additional functionality to screens. For example, while the standard say screen only displays text, the screen systen makes it easy to add features like skipping, auto-forward mode, or muting.

Some special screens take parameters. These parameters can be accessed as variables in the screen's scope.

Some of the screens also have special ids associated with them. A special id should be assigned to a displayable of a given type. It can cause properties to be assigned to that displayable, and can make that displayable accessible to calling code.

In-Game Screens

These screens are automatically displayed when certain Ren'Py statements execute.

Say

The say screen is called by the say statement, when displaying ADV-mode dialogue. It is displayed with the following parameters:

who
The text of the name of the speaking character.
what
The dialogue being said by the speaking character.

It's expected to declare displayables with the following ids:

"who"
A text displayable, displaying the name of the speaking character. The character object can be given arguments that style this displayable.
"what"
A text displayable, displaying the dialogue being said by the speaking character. The character object can be given arguments that style this displayable. A displayable with this id must be defined, as Ren'Py uses it to calculate auto-forward-mode time, click-to-continue, and other things.
"window"
A window or frame. This conventionally contains the who and what text. The character object can be given arguments that style this displayable.
screen say:

    window id "window":
        has vbox

        if who:
            text who id "who"

        text what id "what"

Choice

The choice screen is used to display the in-game choices created with the menu statement. It is given the following parameter:

items
This is a list of (caption, action, chosen) tuples. For each choice, caption is the name of the choice, and action is the action to invoke for the choice, or None if this is a choice label. Chosen if a choice with this label has been chosen by the user before. (It doesn't have to be in the current game.)
screen choice:

    window:
        style "menu_window"

        vbox:
            style "menu"

            for caption, action, chosen in items:

                if action:

                    button:
                        action action
                        style "menu_choice_button"

                        text caption style "menu_choice"

                else:
                    text caption style "menu_caption"

Input

The input screen is used to display renpy.input(). It is given one parameter:

prompt
The prompt text supplied to renpy.input.

It is expected to declare a displayable with the following id:

"input"
An input displayable, which must exist. This is given all the parameters supplied to renpy.input, so it must exist.
screen input:

    window:
        has vbox

        text prompt
        input id "input"

NVL

The nvl screen is used to display NVL-mode dialogue. It is given the following parameter:

dialogue
This is a list of ( who, what, who_id, what_id, window_id) tuples, each of which corresponds to a line of dialogue on the screen. Who and what are strings containing the speaking character and the line of dialogue, respectively. The ids should be assigned to the who and what text displayables, and a window containing each unit of dialogue.
items

This is a list of (caption, action, chosen) tuples. For each choice, caption is the name of the choice, and action is the action to invoke for the choice, or None if this is a choice label. Chosen if a choice with this label has been chosen by the user before. (It doesn't have to be in the current game.)

If items is empty, the menu should not be shown.

Ren'Py also supports an nvl_choice screen, which takes the same parameters as nvl, and is used in preference to nvl when an in-game choice is presented to the user, if it exists.

screen nvl:

    window:
        style "nvl_window"

        has vbox:
            style "nvl_vbox"

        # Display dialogue.
        for who, what, who_id, what_id, window_id in dialogue:
            window:
                id window_id

                has hbox:
                    spacing 10

                if who is not None:
                    text who id who_id

                text what id what_id

        # Display a menu, if given.
        if items:

            vbox:
                id "menu"

                for caption, action, chosen in items:

                    if action:

                        button:
                            style "nvl_menu_choice_button"
                            action action

                            text caption style "nvl_menu_choice"

                    else:

                        text caption style "nvl_dialogue"

Notify

The notify screen is used by renpy.notify() to display notifications to the user. It's generally used in conjunction with a transform to handle the entire task of notification. It's given a single parameter:

message
The message to display.

The default notify screen, and its associated transform, are:

screen notify:
    zorder 100

    text message at _notify_transform

    # This controls how long it takes between when the screen is
    # first shown, and when it begins hiding.
    timer 3.25 action Hide('notify')

transform _notify_transform:
    # These control the position.
    xalign .02 yalign .015

    # These control the actions on show and hide.
    on show:
        alpha 0
        linear .25 alpha 1.0
    on hide:
        linear .5 alpha 0.0

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