Line View

Learn about Line View, a Dialogue View that displays a single line of dialogue on a Canvas.

Line View is a Dialogue View that displays a single line of dialogue inside a Unity UI canvas. When the Dialogue Runner encounters a line in your Yarn Script, the Line View will display it, wait for the user to indicate they're done reading it, and then dismiss it.

Line View only displays lines, and doesn't display options. You can use an additional Dialogue View to handle these, like an Options List View or a custom Dialogue View of your own.

Showing the Character's Name

If a line contains a character's name at the start, Line View can be configured to show the name in a separate text view to the line text itself. If the Character Name Text property is connected to a TextMeshPro Text object, then the character's name will appear in this object.

If you don't attach a Text object to the Character Name Text property, you can choose to either show the character name as part of the line (that is, in the Line Text view), or don't show it all.

Presenting Lines with Visual Effects

Line View can be configured to use visual effects when presenting lines.

• You can choose to have the Line View fade in when a line appears, and fade out when the line is dismissed.

• You can choose to have the text of the line appear, one letter at a time, with a "typewriter" effect.

Continuing to the Next Line

You can control how the player can decide to proceed to the next line.

You can set up a Button, or any other Unity UI control, to call the OnContinueClicked method on this line.

You can also make the Line View continue to the next line when the user performs some input:

• If you set the Continue Action Type to Key Code, you can select a key on the keyboard that will continue to the next line on press.

• If you set the Continue Action Type to Input Action, you can create an Action from an input device (such as from a keyboard, gamepad, or other method).

• If you set the Continue action Type to Input Action from Asset, you can attach an Action from an Input Actions asset that you've set up elsewhere.

If you want to use Input Actions, your project will need to be set up to use the new Unity Input System.

Inspector

Property	Description
Canvas Group	The Canvas Group that the Line View will control. The Canvas Group will be made active when the Line View is displaying a line, and inactive when not displaying a line.
Line Text	A TextMeshPro Text object that the text of the line will be displayed in.
Use Fade Effect	If this is turned on, the Line View will fade the opacity of the Canvas Group from 0% to 100% opacity when lines appear, and fade back to 0% when lines are dismissed.
Fade In Time	The duration of the Fade effect when fading a new line in, in seconds. If this is zero, the line will appear immediately.
Fade Out Time	The duration of the Fade effect when fading a line out, in seconds. If this is zero, the line will disappear immediately.
Use Typewriter Effect	If this is turned on, the text of the line will appear one character at a time. This will take place after the Fade effect, if enabled.
On Character Typed	A Unity Event that's called every time the Typewriter effect displays new text.
Typewriter Effect Speed	The number of characters per second to display when performing a Typewrite effect. Larger values means that text will appear faster.
Character Name Text	A TextMeshPro Text object that will display the name of the character currently speaking the line.
Show Character Name In Line View	If this is turned on, lines that contain a character's name will display the name in the Line Text section. If it is turned off, character names will not be shown at all. This option is only available when Character Name Text is empty.
Continue Action Type	A drop-down list that selects how user input will be used to continue to the next line. When set to None, the dialogue will not continue based on user input. When set to Key Code, the dialogue will continue when the user presses the keyboard key specified in Continue Action Key Code. When set to Input System Action, the dialogue will continue when the user performs the Action set up in Continue Action. When set to Input System Action from Asset, the dialogue will continue when the user performs the Action specified by the Continue Action Reference field.
Continue Action Key Code	The keyboard key that the user should press to continue to the next line.
Continue Action	An Input Action that the user should perform to continue to the next line.
Continue Action Reference	An Input Action, stored inside an Input Actions asset, that the user should perform to continue to the next line.
Continue Button	A game object that will be made active when the line has finished appearing. This is intended to be used for controlling the appearance of a button that the user can interact with to continue to the next line.