Dialogue History (Backlog)

The dialogue history (backlog) lets players review lines they have already read. It is maintained by the runtime service KonadoDialogueHistory, and the default dialogue template ships with a ready-to-open history panel.

Behavior

• The history is session-scoped: it lives in memory only and is never written to a save file, so the existing save format is untouched and old saves keep loading.
• Entries are recorded per atomic transaction: only dialogue instructions committed by the virtual machine enter the history. Cancelled, failed, or superseded instructions leave no trace.
• The line currently on screen but not yet advanced is exposed as a pending entry, so a panel can show the current line when it opens.
• The number of entries is bounded by max_dialogue_history_entries (default 256); the oldest entries are evicted first.

Runtime API

@export var dialogue_manager: KonadoDialogueManager

# Entries in chronological order; include_pending also returns the current line
var entries: Array[Dictionary] = dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.entries(0, true)

# Committed entries only
var committed: Array[Dictionary] = dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.entries(0, false)

# Number of committed entries
var count: int = dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.size()

# Clear the history (also drops the pending entry)
dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.clear()

Each entry contains the following fields:

Field	Description
kind	Entry type: dialogue, choice, or screen_text
speaker	The resolved speaker name
text	The interpolated, localized body text; for choice, the selected option
options	Every option text presented for that choice (only for choice entries)
instruction_id	The stable instruction ID, e.g. ks:id:start
shot_path	The source script path of the shot
line	The source line number of the line or choice
serial	The matching virtual machine commit serial
pending	Whether this is the current, not-yet-advanced line

Live notifications

dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.entry_committed.connect(
    func(entry: Dictionary) -> void:
        print("New line: ", entry["speaker"], entry["text"])
)

Choice history

Player choices are recorded as well. Selecting a branch writes a kind of choice whose text is the selected option and whose options lists every option presented at the time. The default panel lists all options and highlights the selected one with ▶. Choices follow the same atomic transaction rules: only a committed selection enters the history.

Screen text history

Screen text (the screentext command, the NVL full-screen body) is recorded as one entry with a kind of screen_text: text joins every line with newlines and lines holds the per-line text. The default panel renders each line separately. It follows the same atomic transaction rules: the block enters the history only after it finishes playing and commits.

Transactions and rollback

History entries map one-to-one onto virtual machine atomic transactions. The default TRIM policy keeps the history consistent with the timeline after a rollback or checkpoint restore: rolled-back lines are removed. Use KEEP for the classic visual novel behavior where everything seen is retained:

dialogue_manager.dialogue_history.rollback_policy = (
    KonadoDialogueHistory.RollbackPolicy.KEEP
)

Every row of the backlog is also a rollback entry point: clicking a committed entry rolls back to that line (see "Backlog jump" in Dialogue Rollback (Previous Line)). Entries carry the VM commit serial, so a custom UI can drive the same path:

dialogue_manager.timeline.can_rollback_to_entry(serial)
dialogue_manager.timeline.rollback_to_entry(serial)

Default template

The default dialogue template adds a "Backlog" button to the function bar and instantiates res://addons/konado/templates/default/backlog_panel.tscn, whose script is res://addons/konado/runtime/ui/backlog/konado_backlog_panel.gd. If a custom template leaves these exports unset, the feature is disabled automatically and nothing else is affected.