Your First Character

Characters is another name for a component, which you can attach to an instance by giving it a tag. It is essentially the same as creating a class and binding it to a CollectionService tag.

YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO

• Write your own Character

• Use your Character's lifecycles

• Set your Character's priority

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What is a Character?

A Character is synonymous with a component or an instance-attached class. Instead of creating a metatable and then defining an instance for it, Characters simplify this process by automatically assigning themselves to a given tag. You can then treat it as if it was a regular luau class by adding functions to the Character.

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Writing a Character

Every book needs its own characters! Here is how you might write your own Character for your workflow:

Method 1

ServerScriptService.server_book.characters.example.luau

-- "init" is a lifecycle hook that always runs first!
local function init(self) -- "self" passes an instance attached to the tag.
    print("Character is attached to " .. self.instance:GetFullName())
end

-- "destroy" is a lifecycle hook that runs on the instance being removed.
local function destroy(self)
    print("Character " .. self.instance:GetFullName() .. " has been destroyed!")
end

return {
    tag = "Example_Tag", -- This Character now binds to any instance with this tag.
    init = init,
    destroy = destroy,
}

Method 2

ServerScriptService.server_book.characters.example.luau

local example = {
    tag = "Example_Tag", -- This Character now binds to any instance with this tag.
}

-- "init" is a lifecycle hook that always runs first!
function example:init()
    print("Character is attached to " .. self.instance:GetFullName())
end

-- "destroy" is a lifecycle hook that runs on the instance being removed.
function example:destroy() -- Cleanup function.
    print("Character " .. self.instance:GetFullName() .. " has been destroyed!")
end

return example

If you did everything correctly, this should now print the full names of any instance that has the Example_Tag tag.

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Using a Character

WARNING ― As of right now, getting a Character from its instance is not possible with Quill. This is, however, an intended feature of Quill and will most likely come out in version 0.2.0-alpha.

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Summary

• Characters are components that provide functions to tagged instances.

• Lifecycle hooks are automatically called on runtime, allowing Characters to run automatically and independently.