Welcome to the CS web boards Mr. JoeB. I am glad that you have found CS to be a good game creation tool, and I am also happy to hear that you are making a new type of game. As for your essay problem...
Great news for you: What you want is not only possible, but easy to do (CS has some problems that take long workarounds to solve).
There is a bit of work, but it is pretty easy compared to most other CS jobs.
First have the player type up the essay using the "Ask Entry" (the first action, when you create a new event). In the layout section, under the "Dialog Entry" area, you will want to expand the box called "Entry field" so that it fills most of the screen (you will also need a picture for this). Note that the OK button needs to be drawn in (I think) and the red box labeled "Ok Button" placed over it. You will have to find out how many letters you can fit in this box, as you will need to limit the player to this ammount (otherwise the text will keep going onto the screen, and if long enough, off the screen). You will then need to modify the "Dialog" section. Make sure the "Text" section of this (not the "Dialog Entry" layout's "Text"!) is the same size as the "Dialog Entry" layout's "Entry field" (There are pixel numbers telling how big each box is at the bottom of the layout modification window, so this shouldn't be too hard). Also import a picture for this dialog (You can type an intoduction to the essay by adding the words directly into the graphic. Make sure they do not overlap the entry box. An intro. could be something like: "Here what you wrote. Click Save to continue, Back, to edit it, or Exit to quit"). Make sure that the field labeled "Log Button" and that the "Answer Choice 1" (and 2 and 3) are visible and add a button (graphic) to your picture to include the log button. After the player types up his/her essay, the information is stored in the variable &&GlobalEntry.; Create a new global, and use the "Change Globals" action to set your new global to the global enrty value (click the little black arrow next to "Operative Value" and scroll down to "GlobalEntry"). Use the "Dialog" action to display the essay: Type &&gb;_YOURGLOBALNAME into the entry field (you can add answer choices like "Back", or "Exit"; "Save" is already taken care of, if you added the "Log button") After the player clicks save, the entry will appear in his/her journal which can be called using the "Engine Call" action combined with a keydown event or a location click, etc.
This causes a few problems: every time the player types in text, it will be in the same entry field. Every time the player views a dialog, it will be in the same picture (Including the intro, if you wrote one). The other option for the intro. is to type it manually when you display the dialog, but then it will appear in the journal as well.
I hope this was of some help. I know it was sort of lengthy, but I'm not too good at explaining things. The people to ask for help are Stark Bledfast, Cafalll, amd ellrx. They know a lot about CS. RubberDucky has just started with CS, but he is a great Beta tester, so you can ask him for help when you get the game to a playable stage. Once again, Welcome to the CS web boards.
EDIT: spelling
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CI-I@()s
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(This message has been edited by CI-Ia0s (edited 01-17-2003).)
