Chat Module

The ChatModule is a module containing several features and functionality. It is based on the HogWarpChat.

Feature Overview

1. Single Actor for sending messages to players ✅
2. Full control with builder pattern for complex chat messages ✅
3. Simple command registration with Attribute ✅
4. Offers different channels (House, Global, ...) ✅
5. Chat message commit history (using up / down arrow) ✅
6. Player-specific settings ✅

Sending a Message

Sending a message to a single player is as easy as

• Injecting the ChatActor as a depedency
• Determinig the target player
• Calling SendMessage in ChatActor with the target and provided content of the ChatActor

[RegisterSingleton]
public class MyController(PlayerController _playerController, ChatActor _chatActor) {
	
	public async Task Something() 
	{
		// Determining the player
		var player = _playerController...
		_chatActor.SendMessage(player, "Hello from MyController!");
	}
}

Building Complex Message

The chat allows for icons to be displayed and styles to be applied for texts using <> tags. For easier usage, the ChatMessage.Builder is introduced, so you can build a complex message with many colors as easy as that:

var builder = new ChatMessage.Builder();
builder.AddIcon(ChatIcon.Gryffindor);
builder.AddText("Default ", ChatTextStyle.Default);
builder.AddText("Gryffindor ", ChatTextStyle.Gryffindor);
builder.AddText("Hufflepuff ", ChatTextStyle.Hufflepuff);
builder.AddText("Ravenclaw ", ChatTextStyle.Ravenclaw);
builder.AddText("Slytherin ", ChatTextStyle.Slytherin);
builder.AddText("Admin ", ChatTextStyle.Admin);
builder.AddText("Dev ", ChatTextStyle.Dev);
builder.AddText("Server ", ChatTextStyle.Server);
builder.AddText("Red ", ChatTextStyle.Red);
builder.AddText("Blue ", ChatTextStyle.Blue);
builder.AddText("Green ", ChatTextStyle.Green);
builder.AddText("Yellow ", ChatTextStyle.Yellow);
builder.AddText("Magenta ", ChatTextStyle.Magenta);
builder.AddText("Cyan ", ChatTextStyle.Cyan);
builder.AddSender(player.Username, ChatTextStyle.Server);
_chatActor.SendMessage(player, builder.Build().Message);

Resulting in the output shown in the image in the top.

Command Registration

A chat command can be registered using the SlashCommandAttribute . Optional args can be used, that are based on the player input, splitted along whitespaces ' ' without the command. The first argument of the method must be the PiPlayer . The second argument is optional.

Note

The server will not start if an invalid attribute usage was detected

[RegisterSingleton]
public class MyController(ChatActor _chatActor) {
	
	[SlashCommand("example")]
	public async Task ExampleWithoutArguments(PiPlayer player)
	{
		_chatActor.SendMessage(player, $"You called the example without arguments");
	}

	[SlashCommand("exampleargs")]
	public async Task ExampleWithArguments(PiPlayer player, string[] args)
	{
		_chatActor.SendMessage(player, $"You called the example with a total of {args.Length} arguments");
	}
}

Channels

By default, Pillars offers two channels:

• House
• Global

Switching channels can be done via the /house or /global command.

There will be improvements to chat in regards to that later 😊.

Settings

Each player can specify their own settings of the chat, e.g.

• Width
• Height
• FontSize (TextScale)

These settings are saved when the settings window gets closed. These settings are saved in the database using the ChatSettings entity.

Improvements / TODOs

A list of improvements / todos for the chat :

• Add some more settings
  • Show background:
    • Always
    • Never
    • Only when active
  • Sound Effects On / Off
• Channels
  • Make channels dynamically (provided by server)
  • Possibility to talk to channel usinig a designated prefix
• Whisper
  • Add whisper functionality with @username
• Blocklist
  • Possibility to have a blocklist for whispers
  • Possibility to have a generic blocklist
  • Bind blocklist to account
• Command Auto-Complete
  • When player starts typing with /, offer a list of possible commands to possibly select from