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Text Messages/Basic Cog

Author: EvanC

This is pretty simple. Using the line Print(); in cogs you can print text to the screen. This small tutorial will let those without much cog knowledge have text messages.

While I'm at it I may as well go into cog a bit. Lets start at the start:

You can open/create cogs with a text editor. Remember to have the file extension as .cog and not .txt The first section in a cog is the symbols section. This section starts with the word "symbols" It ends with the first "end". From the cog we will be using this is the symbols section:

symbols

sector      sec
message entered

end

As you can see, it starts with a "symbols" and ends with an "end". In between there are two lines. The first starts with a "sector" and ends with a sec. If you open the cog with JED and add this cog you will notice it has a value called "sec" Those of you who are observant will notice that this is also the last word of the sector line. It's not a coincidence. Try changing the "sec" into "sect". If you open up JED again and try to add the cog the value should now be "sect". So, the first word is what the object is. It can be sector, thing, surface, sound ETC. Check JKspecs for more info. The second word is the name of the object. As far as I know there is no limit to what this can be called(but I would avoid objects with the same name). On to the second line. This is a different kind of line. It starts with a "message" and ends with "entered". This is probably the most important part of coging. The JK engine sends messages to it's cogs. So when a level starts up it sends a startup message to the cog. This brings us to the code section. At the start of the code section is a "code" and at the end, like symbols section, it has an "end". Here is what it looks like:

code

entered:
Print("you have entered the sector");
return;

end

Sp, you know what a startup message is but this message is "entered". The entered message is sent when a sector or thing is entered. Anyway, lets look at the code section. In the middle is a word "entered:". This is the start of the entered section. This section ends with "return;". In between is the code of the cog. When the entered message is received the code in the entered section is run. In this case it is this:

Print("you have entered the sector");

This line tells JK to print the message "you have entered the sector". So each time the sector "sec" is entered the cog will print "you have entered the sector" to the screen.

For more information on code verbs (like Print) and messages go to the Unoficcial JK file specs.

If you need more explaining or don't understand something please email me and I'll see if I can help you.

Evan C