questions about a spellbook

I was thinking about making some sort of map based on the Ultima series, particularly around 7ish, and was thinking that instead of spells being player skills, they would be contained in a spellbook..

For this, I was thinking that the spellbook would be a simple item that is usable, not perishable, but does absolutely nothing. Triggers would, when the book is clicked, open up a dialog that would display spell levels, and when those are clicked, display spells within the level. When a particular spell is selected, it would then exit out and perform what is needed, i.e. effect or target, etc.

1) Is this possible?

2) If so, can it be done without anything beyond simple triggers, meaning no JASS?

3) I have an item set up for this book, but when I use the event "A Units (uses an item)", it doesn't register this item as being used.. Might something be wrong with the item's parameters?

This is possible: I've seen it done, I just don't know how to do it myself...

the answer to number 3 is easy. give the item a spell that does nothing at all. maybe base it off the spell the tome of agilty has. it adds 1 to agilty and that is all. just edit the tome of agilty abilty(not the item) and make it so the abilty does not add 1 agilty. than give the item that ability. than after you do all that instead of making it so when an item is used fire the trigger when the abilty is cast. that would make it work. let me know if you need help with the rest of the triggers. i don't wanna explain the dialogs tho so i hope you know how to do that part. dialogs take too much time. but the rest i will be glad to tell you what to do.

the best part comes when u "level-up" a magic in your spellbook....or learn a new one :)))))

Great idea Supra, that didn't even occur to me, thanks.. The dialogs themselves shouldn't prove to be a problem at all, I've done them before, but I'll see if I'm able to implement spell casting into it.. Triggers aren't my area of expertise =/

Shark: Yeah, but I'm not sure how I'd go about leveling up magics in a spellbook yet.. I'm also not sure if I want to base learning new spells on abilities like Intelligence or just finding scrolls for them..

at any rate let me give you a action that will help you a lot in the future. it's under the player category

action-
--disable (abilty name) for player (number)

this will make it so a player can't use this spell. meaning that you can add all the abilties to the unit and disable them all at map start. than when they trigger the spell book it turns one on. so you wouldn't be adding abilties and all. the unit will already have the abilties and you will just be making them able to see it.

Okay, I'm finally able to fool around with this stuff, but I'm getting very angry here..

I make a new item ability (let's say Agility +1), and to test it I don't even change the values. I make a custom item off of something that's actively used, and give it my custom ability. I'm not implementing triggers of any kind here, just seeing if my new item 1) is usable, and 2) actually casts the ability.

Testing it.. no, it doesn't. I changed nothing except assigning this new ability to a custom ability, and nothing happens when I click.. I've tried basing my custom item off of numerous things, from potions to scrolls and such...


*edit* Okay, so I created a new map to try this stuff and it works... whatever..