Along the lines of what Adammadam posted -
1 & 2. Pixie or Jay (or another) will likely stroll along and help with the first two questions you have.
3. I just finished something similar in my game. That is, using a computer to essential look things up. Here is what I did:
A. I added a computer object.
B. In my case I had the computer on already and not able to be turned off seeing as there was no need for that.
C. When the player types 'use computer', I use a 'get input' script. In your case you might first print a message like "What search engine would you prefer to use - 1. 'Google', 2. 'Yahoo', or 3. 'Bing'?" followed by a 'get input' script. Under the 'Then' run a 'Switch' script and add the 'cases' you want. For your cases, you might have "1","Google","google" and "2","Yahoo","yahoo" and "3","Bing","bing".
D. Double click the "1","Google","google" case and you will have a pop-up Script Editor Box. Add a 'print message' script with something like "What would you like to search on google?" followed by another 'get input' 'then' 'switch' script.
E. Add your relevant cases again and offer information for their searches.
F. Under the 'default' part of the 'switch' script, add a 'print message' like "You search for that on Google, but nothing really catches your attention.
G. After <b>every</b> possible search they can perform, add a 'print message' at the end of the information you present to them that reads something like this. "Would you like to perform another search? Yes or No?"
H. After this, add another 'get input', 'switch' with 'yes' and 'no' cases.
I. Add a function. Bottom of your menu screen on the left in the editor page. Give it a name like "google loop"
J. Under the 'yes' option, add a 'call function' and call "google loop". Under the 'no' option print a message like "You decide to take a break from searching the internet." *I'm not sure if the following is required or not (I don't think so), but I didn't want to screw up my function too bad, but I also put a 'move object to current room' and moved my player to that room. Try it without, and if the no part of the script isn't working, add that last bit... =P
K. Copy your A-J steps above and paste them in the function you've created called "google loop".
This should create a never ending internet search loop until the player chooses to type 'no'.
This should work unless my description above has a fatal flaw. But, from memory, those are the steps I used and it is working with 99% accuracy!
Also, you will DEFINITELY want to make sure you type carefully in the case scripts. If you are searching for cats, for example... After you click (+case), there will be a little box there. You need to type it in exactly as you want it. For example, in the box --> "Cats","cats","cat","Cat","Feline","feline","Felines","felines"
If you accidentally have --> "cats"... ... ... "cats" it will crash the script. I know there is a way to ignore capital letters and run partial inputs only and correct for misspellings, but I was not willing to learn it because it looked pretty complicated. Someone on here may give you an easier way to input cases to make you work a little simpler.
I hope I didn't muddle that up too bad.
Good luck! Ask questions if you don't understand, and if anyone notices a mistake in my little format there, please correct it before DGN gets too confused!! Thanks!
XanMag
EDIT.. I see your recent post and I would suggest NOT adding them as objects if all you have to do is search for information on them! =)
For clarification (maybe! =)
Below is a very small portion of the code I used for the program. This first section is where the computer has been hacked already...
if (GetBoolean(computer, "hacked")) {
msg ("You punch in the password again and are prompted with your program choice again.")
msg ("Which program would you like to run (type 'stop' to stop using the computer)?<br/>1 - Dingo Database<br/>2 - Compound Information<br/>Stop - stop using computer")
get input {
switch (result) {
case ("1") {
msg ("<br/>The screen clears and a single prompt appears in green.<br/><br/>Please type the last name of the person you would like to search or type 'stop' to quit using the computer or type 'return' to return to the program selection screen:")
get input {
switch (result) {
case ("Dingo", "dingo") {
play sound ("alarm.mp3", false, false)
msg ("CLASSIFIED...I added a classified return here because he is the head bad guy.")
wait {
computer loop
}
}
case ("Magoo","magoo") {
msg ("Here is the info returned on a search for an 'NPC' name Magoo.")
wait {
computer loop
}
}
There are only two of my gazillion names that could be searched above... I think you get the point, right? The above code was my person search program. I did the exact same thing for program number two but with rooms in the compound. Make sure you have a default for an irrelevant search query that ends with the call function (in my case it was titled computer loop). I had a 'stop' case in there when the player was done searching which automatically ended the computer loop.