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Welcome to the renpy-line-brkr wiki! A command-line program which adds newline characters to your Text Displayables in your Ren'Py files.
As said on Ren'Py's Website, "Ren'Py is a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices."
By default, Ren'Py displays any Say Statement dialogue at a set position on the screen. For most developers, this default position is perfectly fine, and they can easily tailor this position to their needs if needed. However, this position remains the same for all Say Statement text.
For example, a normal Ren'Py Say Statement such as:
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat."
pause
In your script.rpy file will render the Say Statement like this:
This isn't inherently problematic, but for developers who desire more freedom when it comes to positioning text on the screen their only native option is Text Displayables. Ren'Py Text Displayables empower developers to position text anywhere on screen, but at the cost of developer flexibility. Unlike other common forms of Ren'Py Text, Text Displayables are treated as images instead of character data. As a result, Text Displayables have the possibility of rendering text off-screen if they're not positioned correctly.
For example, Ren'Py will center and break text within a Text Displayable as if it were centered on screen, so the following Text Displayable (including the pause keyword):
show text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
pause
In your script.rpy file will render the Text Displayable like this:
However, if you position the Text Displayable using Ren'Py Animation and Transformation Language anywhere else (in this case at 25% of the x axis and 50% of the y axis):
show text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.":
pos(0.25, 0.5)
pause
Will render the Text Displayable off-screen like this:
The only way a developer can resolve this while retaining the same position is by manually inserting Ren'Py newline characters (\n) within the text itself. Thus, to get the previous example to fully render on screen, you'd need to break the lines like this:
show text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit,\n sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut\n labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis\n nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi\n ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor\n in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu\n fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat\n cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia\n deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.":
pos(0.25,0.5)
pause
So Ren'Py will render the Text Displayable like this:
While doing one Text Displayable is perfectly feasible, if a developer wanted to present their visual novel in a more dynamic style (like a comic book or mangaka for example) they're worflow is reptitive to say the least. Not to mention that if a developer wanted to break the lines in a consistent way (say break the line if the line reaches 30 characters), they'd have to spend the time counting characters to attain this desired uniformity. Nonetheless, micromanaging the line breaks in potentially tens to hundreds of Ren'Py Text Displayables in one visual novel is oppressively tedious... but not anymore!
Introducing line_brkr.py a python program which uses a command-line interface to uniformly break your Ren'Py Text Displayables' lines to make them a easier to use!
For example, instead of inserting the newlines manually, you can enter this command (assuming line_brkr.py is in the same directory as your Ren'Py Project)
python line_brkr.py -r script.rpy -o -l 30
To turn this old example:
show text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.":
pos(0.25, 0.5)
pause
To this:
show text "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,\nconsectetur adipiscing elit,\nsed do eiusmod tempor\nincididunt ut labore et dolore\nmagna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim\nveniam, quis nostrud\nexercitation ullamco laboris\nnisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo\nconsequat. Duis aute irure\ndolor in reprehenderit in\nvoluptate velit esse cillum\ndolore eu fugiat nulla\npariatur. Excepteur sint\noccaecat cupidatat non\nproident, sunt in culpa qui\nofficia deserunt mollit anim\nid est laborum.":
pos(0.25,0.5)
pause
Which will render like this:
In microseconds.
This not only works on one Text Displayable at a time, but (by default) works on every valid Text Displayable in a .rpy with high speed and precision too.
To learn how to use line_brkr.py, consult the User Guide in the wiki.