Screen Actions, Values, and Functions link

Ren’Py ships with a number of actions, values, and functions intended for use with screens and the screen language.

Actions link

Actions are invoked when a button (including imagebuttons, textbuttons, and hotspots) is activated, hovered, or unhovered. Actions may determine when a button is selected or insensitive.

Along with these actions, an action may be a function that does not take any arguments. The function is called when the action is invoked. If the action returns a value, then the value is returned from an interaction.

An action may also be a list of actions, in which case the actions in the list are run in order.

Control Actions link

These are actions that manage screens, interaction results, and control flow.

Data Actions link

These set or toggle data.

File Actions link

These actions handle saving, loading, and deleting of files. Many of these take the name and page arguments.

name
The name of the file to save to. This can be a string or an integer. It’s combined with the page to create the filename.
page
The page that this action acts on. This is one of “auto”, “quick”, or a positive integer. If None, the page is determined automatically, based on a persistent page number.

Audio Actions link

Other Actions link

These are other actions, not found anywhere else.

Bar Values link

Bar values are used with bars, to set the bar value, and to allow the bar to adjust an underlying property. To create a new bar value, subclass the BarValue class. All classes that have the step keyword also accept the force_step keyword which behavior is described in ui.adjustment().

Input Values link

Input values are used with text inputs, to set the default text, to accept changed text, to respond to the enter key, and to determine if the text is editable by default. To create a new input value, subclass the InputValue class.

Ren’Py-defined input values inherit from InputValue, which means that all values also include Enable(), Disable(), and Toggle() methods that return actions that enable, disable, and toggle editing, respectively. See also the DisableAllInputValues() action.

Functions and Classes link

These functions and classes are useful in association with screens.

Preferences link

While all preferences can be defined based on the Actions and Values given above, it requires some knowledge of Ren’Py to figure out the correct one to use. The preferences constructor makes this easy, by creation an action or value, as appropriate, based on the names used in the default preferences screen.

Gamepad link

These functions and actions work with the gamepad.

File Functions link

These functions return useful information about files. They use the same default page as the file actions.

Side Image Functions link

This function returns the side image to use.

Tooltips link

Tooltips can now be accessed by the tooltip property available on all displayables, and the GetTooltip function. The GetTooltip function returns the value of the tooltip property when the displayable gains focus.

Here’s an example:

screen tooltip_example():
    vbox:
        textbutton "North":
            action Return("n")
            tooltip "To meet a polar bear."

        textbutton "South":
            action Return("s")
            tooltip "All the way to the tropics."

        textbutton "East":
            action Return("e")
            tooltip "So we can embrace the dawn."

        textbutton "West":
            action Return("w")
            tooltip "Where to go to see the best sunsets."

        $ tooltip = GetTooltip()

        if tooltip:
            text "[tooltip]"

Legacy link

Warning

This has been obsoleted by the above, but you might see it in older projects.

The tooltip class changes the screen when a button is hovered.

When using a tooltip with a screen, the usual behavior is to create a tooltip object in a default statement. The value of the tooltip and the action method can then be used within the screen. The order of use within a screen doesn’t matter – it’s possible to use the value before an action is used.

Tooltips can take on any value. While in the example below we use the text statement to display a string on the screen, it’s also possible to use the add statement to add a displayable. More complex behavior is also possible.

screen tooltip_test:

    default tt = Tooltip("No button selected.")

    frame:
        xfill True

        has vbox

        textbutton "One.":
            action Return(1)
            hovered tt.Action("The loneliest number.")

        textbutton "Two.":
            action Return(2)
            hovered tt.Action("Is what it takes.")

        textbutton "Three.":
            action Return(3)
            hovered tt.Action("A crowd.")

        text tt.value