This sounds like a classic case of not calling ShowPage(); after drawing something. Render() draws the map to screen, and ShowPage() actually updates the screen. Maybe you do this, but even then, do you have a looping structure of some sort to make the box show until you're done?

	// Stop entities before.

	while(!done)

	{

		Render();

		// Whatever Tom's weird gradient box thing is.

		ShowPage();



		// Exit when button 1 (enter by default) is pressed

		if (b1)

		{

			Unpress(1);

			done = 1;

		}

	}

	// Start entities after.

Alternatively, perhaps it's something to do with the way that Tom's gradient stuff works, a step that you possibly omitted.

What kind of gradient box are you trying, anyway? If you just need a horizontal or vertical blending box, the Code Vault (see docs page) has the functions RectVGrad and RectHGrad.

The Sully textboxes also have autowrap, actually!

"What", you say, "But I see those three-line things right there!"

Aha, but we did that for backward compatibility! It's all got a autowrap parser in the backed. Aaaand there's a direct access to it: AutoText() defined in /vc/v1_rpg/v1_textbox.vc

Here's the inline documentation for it:

// Takes a single string of text and does as many TextBoxM()'s and a 

// final TextBox() as needed.

//

// | and/or TAB will force a newline.

// ~ and/or NEWLINE will force an entirely new box.

//

// VERGEDev doesn't advocate the use of Autotext for most cases because it

// ruins the dramatic effect of well-plotted out textboxes.  Done correctly,

// your game is awesomely poetic and quotable.  However, having massive boxes

// of text that don't have complete thoughts in one screen ruins the

// illusion.

//

// Ask vec for a more in-depth explaination sometime. ;)

//

// However, autotext is very useful if you're dynamically resizing your boxes,

// or pulling dynamic content from somewhere, etc etc, so here's the function anyways.

//

void AutoText( int sp, string master_text )

That first int is a sully style speech portrait reference.

As an aside, I made the SotS/Astrad textboxes completely by altering the variables of the Sully textbox system:

Okay, I'll look at the sully code, I kinda got lost in it the first few times.

Good points, though, on not using autotext.

I discovered that (after adding a ShowPage();) it still looks like its skipping the render. BUT

Its not.

The box is vanishing before the next frame is rendered!

If I nag the activation enough times, it will show it for just a split second before vanishing.

Okay, not intending to post boost, but I wanted to start a new one after all that crapola above.

After mucking with the code for a while, realizing I was editing _menu_system.vc instead of the *real* menu_system.vc (that had me confused beyond belief!) and figuring out I had to call the menuinitcolors() function to get the colors set, then realizing its spelled colours, its working...sorta.

Anything that needs multiple boxes in succession (autotext or not) is giving me an error pointing to the completely wrong place. It says:
<code>
ImageForHandle() - Null image reference, probably an uninitialized image handle:

TextBoxDirect - vc/util/targetting.vc(28)
</code>

Only problem is that there are no image handles in targetting.vc! The engine is apparently not realizing its confused until somewhat later than the error occurs. I understand that this is somewhat common, but frustrating.

I think I'm going to bed for now.

Oh, what I ended up doing was plopping the whole VC and RES folders from Sully's package into the new game folder, then #include ing the includes.vc. There were a few messy errors to clean up, mostly the engine complaining that I wasn't actually using Sully at all!

EDIT

Okay, this morning I was a bit clearer in the head. I looked through the TextBoxDirect code, and found the problem. When I commented out the bit where it draws the little bobbing arrow, it stopped giving an error. Which means... I have to figure out a solution now. :)

Sorry if I seem to be posting too much, but I'm hoping that maybe my troubles and solutions might help someone else later. Or at least I might get some help! I'm gradually getting the idea though.

Are there any suggestions for drawing a 'status bar' for each character, somewhat like the ones in Ultima 7? I like that style and want to have the option to use a similar design. It would need to be updated pretty regularly, since its more of a stamina meter.

Thanks!