Quick Access Modal

How To Use Quick Access To Speed Up Your Workflow And Reduce Repetition

While designing your video game narrative, you’ll probably find that there are words, terms, phrases, and snippets of text that you type over and over again.

For example, the names of characters or regions, the name of a special item or weapon, a phrase common to an area, etc.

NarrativeFlow helps reduce or even eliminate the fatigue and redundancy of this through a feature called Quick Access.

Quick Access not only saves your fingers and brain trying to figure out how to type that complex name or term for the 3019th time, but using a feature like this can also help reduce typos and other textual errors.

For example, instead of typing a long name like “William Shakespeare”, or a complex fantasy name like “Kaedrianthar Ossuk’Thorazuun” over and over, you can insert that name anywhere in your Nodes with just a couple of clicks, saving you time and your keyboard’s lifespan.

And this isn’t limited to just names or phrases.

You can define any text-based item you want and insert it anywhere in your Nodes.

To open the Quick Access modal, click the “Quick Access” button in the menu bar. Then, let’s take a look at how it works!

Using The Quick Access Modal

Let’s talk about what each element of the Quick Access modal does for you.

New Item Group: Since you may have dozens of Quick Access items, NarrativeFlow helps keep them organized with groups. Simply click this button to add a new group to the bottom of the list.

Insert Variable: If you want an item to contain a variable you’ve defined, you can easily insert it into any field by first clicking in the field you want to insert the variable into, then clicking this button and the label of the variable you want to insert.

Insert Style: If you want to insert text styles into your content, you can do so by clicking this button (after clicking in the field you want to insert the style into) and then clicking the label of the text style you want to insert.

Done: When you’re done adding or modifying your Quick Access items, click this button to close the modal.

If there are errors or problems with any definition, this button will be disabled and some text explaining the problem will appear to the left of the Done button.

If you see this error text, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you did something wrong. It’s simply there to help you avoid name conflicts, missing labels, etc.

Drag-n-Drop Sorting Handle: If you need to rearrange groups, click and hold this icon (the six-circle icon on the left of the group header) with your left mouse button, then drag that group wherever you need it in your list of groups.

Collapsing groups by clicking on their header before you rearrange groups can make rearranging much easier.

Collapse/Expand Icon: The icon on the right of the group header indicates whether a group is collapsed or expanded. To toggle, simply click anywhere on a group’s header except for the sorting handle on the left of the header.

Group Name: You can rename a group to anything you want, helping you stay organized. Notice how a group’s name is displayed on its header.

If you want to remove a group, you can click the aptly named “Remove Group” button just to the right of the group name field. Note that all Quick Access items contained within the group will be removed as well.

Item Definitions: Each item definition consists of a label and a value. To the right of each definition is a Presented Text area.

• Label: This is the label you’ll click on to insert this item into a field when editing a Node in the Node Editor.

• Value: This is the content you want inserted into a field when you click the associated label.

• Presented Text: When your items contain variables or text styles, NarrativeFlow will parse them automatically and display a representation of what your player could see in your game engine.

  Variables will be parsed to their default value, and text within text style tags will be styled with the CSS rules associated with the tags’ definition.

To the left of each item definition is a handle you can grab with your mouse to reorder items within a group.

To the right of each definition is an X button that will remove it. You can only remove an item if there is at least two or more items in a group (because it doesn’t make sense to have a group with no items).

Add Item: This button will add a new, blank item definition to the bottom of the associated group.

Inserting Quick Access Items Into Nodes

Now that you know how the Quick Access modal works, how do you insert your Quick Access items into Nodes?

Open any Node in the Node Editor (except for a Teleport Node). In the top left of the Node Editor, you’ll see a button labeled “Quick Access”.

Before we click that button though, first, click inside the text field you want to insert a Quick Access item into and position the cursor where you want to insert your item.

Now we can click the Quick Access button.

When we do, a menu will show that lists all of the Quick Access items we’ve defined.

Then, simply click the item you want to insert.