v2.1.0

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👩‍🚒 Getting Help

There are several places you can go to get help with Yarn Spinner.

• Read the Yarn Spinner Documentation.
• Join the Yarn Spinner Discord.
• Tweet at us, at @YarnSpinnerTool.
• To report a bug, file an issue on GitHub.

📦 How To Install Yarn Spinner

To install the most recent release of Yarn Spinner for Unity, please see the Installation Instructions in the Yarn Spinner documentation.

If you want to install this particular version of Yarn Spinner for Unity, follow these steps:

Installing Yarn Spinner for Unity v2.1.0 from Git

• Open the Window menu, and choose Package Manager.
• If you already have any previous version of the Yarn Spinner package installed, remove it.
• Click the + button, and click Add package from git URL...
• Enter the following URL:
  • https://github.com/YarnSpinnerTool/YarnSpinner-Unity.git#v2.1.0

Each release will have a different URL. To upgrade to future versions of Yarn Spinner, you will need to uninstall the package, and reinstall using the new URL.

📜 Changes

Dialogue View API Update

The API for creating new Dialogue Views has been updated.

Background: Dialogue Views are objects that receive lines and options from the Dialogue Runner, present them to the player, receive option selections, and signal when the user should see the next piece of content. They're subclasses of the DialogueViewBase class. All of our built-in Dialogue Views, such as LineView and OptionsListView, are examples of this.

Previously, line objects stored information about their current state, and as Dialogue Views reported that they had finished presenting or dismissing their line, all views would receive a signal that the line's state had changed, and respond to those changes by changing the way that the line was presented (such as by dismissing it when the line's state became 'Dismissed'). This meant that every Dialogue View class needed to implement fairly complex logic to handle these changes in state.

In this release, 'line state' is no longer a concept that Dialogue Views need to keep track of. Instead, Dialogue Views that present lines simply need to implement three methods:

• RunLine is called when the Dialogue Runner wants to show a line to the player. It receives a line, as well as a completion handler to call when the line view has finished delivering the contents line.
• InterruptLine is called when the Dialogue Runner wants all Dialogue Views to finish presenting their lines as fast as possible. It receives the line that's currently being presented, as well as a new completion handler to call when the presentation is finished (which this method should try and call as quickly as it can.)
• DismissLine is called when all Dialogue Views have finished delivering their line (whether it was interrupted, or whether it completed normally). It receives a completion handler to call when the dismissal is complete.

The updated flow is this:

1. While running a Yarn script, the Dialogue Runner encounters a line of dialogue to show to the user.
2. It calls RunLine on all Dialogue Views, and waits for all of them to call their completion handler to indicate that they're done presenting the line.
   • At any point, a Dialogue View can call a method that requests that the current line be interrupted. When this happens, the Dialogue Runner calls InterruptLine on the Dialogue Views, and waits for them to call the new completion handler to indicate that they've finished presenting the line.
3. Once all Dialogue Views have reported that they're done, the Dialogue Runner calls DismissLine on all Dialogue Views, and waits for them to call the completion handler to indicate that they're done dismissing the line.
4. The Dialogue Runner then moves on to the next piece of content.

This new flow significantly simplifies the amount of information that a Dialogue View needs to keep track of, as well as the amount of logic that a Dialogue View needs to have to manage this information.

Instead, it's a simpler model of: "when you're told to run a line, run it, and tell us when you're done. When you're told to interrupt the line, finish running it ASAP and tell us when you're done. Finally, when you're told to dismiss your line, do it and let us know when you're done."

We've also moved the user input handling code out of the built-in LineView class, and into a new class called DialogueAdvanceInput. This class lets you use either of the Unity Input systems to signal to a DialogueView that the user wants to advance the dialogue; by moving it out of our built-in view, it's a little easier for Dialogue View writers, who may not want to have to deal with input.

This hopefully alleviates some of the pain points in issues relating to how Dialogue Views work, like issue #95.

There are no changes to how options are handled in this new API.

Jump to Expressions

• The <<jump>> statement can now take an expression.

<<set $myDestination = "Home">>
<<jump {$myDestination}>>

• Previously, the jump statement required the name of a node. With this change, it can now also take an expression that resolves to the name of a node.
• Jump expressions may be a constant string, a variable, a function call, or any other type of expression.
• These expressions must be wrapped in curly braces ({ }), and must produce a string.

Added

• Added a new component, DialogueAdvanceInput, which responds to user input and tells a Dialogue View to advance.
• Added DialogueViewBase.RunLine method.
• Added DialogueViewBase.InterruptLine method.
• Added DialogueViewBase.DismissLine method.

Changed

• Updated to Yarn Spinner Core 2.1.0.
• Updated DialogueRunner to support a new, simpler API for Dialogue Views; lines no longer have a state for the Dialogue Views to respond to changes to, and instead only receive method calls that tell them what to do next.
• Fixed a bug where changing a Yarn script asset in during Play Mode would cause the string table to become empty until the next import (#154)
• Fixed a bug where Yarn functions outside the default assembly would fail to be loaded.

Removed

• Removed LineStatus enum.
• Removed DialogueViewBase.OnLineStatusChanged method.
• Removed DialogueViewBase.ReadyForNextLine method.
• Removed VoiceOverPlaybackFmod class. (This view was largely unmaintained, and we feel that it's best for end users to customise their FMOD integration to suit their own needs.)
• Renamed VoiceOverPlaybackUnity to VoiceOverView.