Libraries
This page documents the functions for working with on-screen captions.
Overview
The caption library provides helpers to display short messages (“captions”) on players’ screens.
On the server, captions are sent to a single player via the StartCaption / EndCaption network messages, allowing optional custom durations.
On the client, captions are shown locally with the Source engine’s built-in gui.AddCaption.
Two utility methods are exposed on the global lia.caption table:
-
lia.caption.start– show a caption -
lia.caption.finish– clear the current caption
The net strings StartCaption and EndCaption are registered automatically when the file is executed on the server.
lia.caption.start
Purpose
Sends a caption to the specified player for a given duration.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
| ---------- | ------ | -------------------------------------------------- |
| client | Player | The target player who should see the caption. |
| text | string | The caption text. |
| duration | number | How long (in seconds) the caption stays on screen. |
Realm
Server
Returns
- nil: This function does not return a value.
Example
lia.caption.finish
Purpose
Clears any caption currently displayed to the player.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
| -------- | ------ | ------------------ |
| client | Player | The target player. |
Realm
Server
Returns
- nil: This function does not return a value.
Example
lia.caption.start
Purpose
Displays a caption on the local player’s screen.
Parameters
| Name | Type | Description |
| ---------- | ------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| text | string | The caption text. |
| duration | number | (Optional) Duration in seconds. If omitted, defaults to #characters × 0.1. |
Realm
Client
Returns
- nil: This function does not return a value.
Example
lia.caption.finish
Purpose
Removes the caption shown on the local player’s screen.
Parameters
(None)
Realm
Client
Returns
- nil: This function does not return a value.
Example