dMZX Forums: Error related to messages at bottom of screen when using SMZX modes and custom palettes -> Archived MegaZeux Bugs -> Tracker

This directly relates back to Report ID #666: Graphical error related to text box color and text color. The issue was resolved for [ text box messages but remains an issue for * messages at the bottom of the screen. The same temporary fix still exists for this issue.

This is actually intended behaviour, but it's not necessarily the right behaviour. Being able to show things in a string that hasn't been warped by SMZX formatting and palette assignment is really useful, so useful that after assessing every SMZX game in the archives I determined it didn't cause any problems and decided to include it. That said, if this is causing problems for you and/or if the behaviour is sufficiently unintuitive that most people would consider this a bug it can be changed. It's a pretty nasty fix though- there's no clean way of changing the behaviour.

The long and the short of it is that the message row appears on the UI layer because the UI layer is the only layer that appears above all overlaid sprites, but the UI elements appear on that layer and they need to be SMZX mode 0. This behaviour could be modified for [ message boxes because nothing appears in front of them, but lots of UI things that need protecting can be on the screen at the same time as the message bar: the help screen, the debug window, the escape and F2 dialogs etc.

I see. I think I can get around it using your previously mentioned fix but I don't fully understand what's going on. The first 16 colors of a smzx mode palette are black? I set them using robotic to colors I've selected and it changes the color of my player sprite and some other things. I'm not sure how to get color on message text without it affecting other things as well. I guess I've never completely understood smzx mode 2 or 3 well enough, even though I'm using mode two. I'll try looking into some tutorials or something to get a better understanding of it.

This post has been edited by Graham: 20 July 2017 - 03:53 AM

So, from your perspective, would a better fix be to protect the message bar colours under certain circumstances (e.g. with SMZX and unbound sprites) so you'll get the default palette rather than using the early colours from the SMZX palette? Because that's another possibility.

I think it's a bad idea to add exceptions like that to the message bar's behavior. The message bar's palette should not be protected in circumstance X but not circumstance Y.

It sounds like Graham is describing the message bar using completely different colors than the first 16 colors in the palette, which is a bug if that's actually what's happening.

There's definitely a bug here. The message row does not appear in mode 0 unless an unbound sprite or UI element is active. In this case, it acts like whichever mode the MZX world is in.

Updating status to: Confirmed
Updating severity to: 3 - Medium

Here's a test world showing the issue. The message row contents will display in SMZX palettes normally, but if any UI element (the escape menu, debug window, etc) or an unbound sprite (press 'A' while playing this world and a robot will create one) exists, they will display in regular MZX with the first 16 colors of the SMZX palette. The border is also affected by these changes (a separate but related bug).

I expect what Graham wants is the former state (SMZX palettes) to persist while unbound sprites are active, correct?

Having MZX mode UI elements via the message row in SMZX mode could be beneficial. Lancer and I have talked about this and believe a counter to enable the MZX message row in SMZX is the correct solution. It would default to off (i.e. the message row would display in normal SMZX colors), so no change should be required on your part.

Fixed in GIT 0a2ccd0, with the new counter added in GIT b43a194.

Updating status to: Fixed
Issue fixed in: GIT

Moving to: Archived MegaZeux Bugs