I'm hoping to avoid dialog views altogether because I simply don't like them and was wondering if there is any way around it in the dialog topics tab.

I find myself at an impasse because if I do have to use them I have the issue that I already have dialog topics created with voice and lip files and I can't find a way to create a dialog view using already existing topics. Is this possible? No tutorial seems to cover it.

Either way any help is appreciated.

You can avoid dialogue views entirely, they just provide an alternative, visual way of displaying the dialogue that's really stored in the other dialogue tabs. So for example you can enter most of your core dialogue directly in the "Player Dialogue" tab.

The question is how to link the topics in that tab view. There's no Choices like there used to be. I tried doing it in the Branches box but it didn't work. Maybe I did something wrong.

What DreamKing said below...

You can do it in two ways. You can define a specific set of possible player choices via the "Link To" box on the right side of the Topic Info window; I think that's closest to the old Oblivion "Choices" box. Or, you can control flow by splitting the responses into branches and setting the branches to be top-level, blocking, and so forth. Using branches works well if your dialogue follows a strict outline form, like a menu, with several topics each with their own nested subtopics, all of which the player can traverse. The "Link To" system is better for more flowing conversations where the player makes a sequence of choices. Of course, you can also combine the two methods.

I don't mean to hijack this thread but save making a new topic any chance you can answer my question DreamKing?

I'm not sure if I'm making dialogue wrong, or whether it's the dialogue/quest bug that's cropped up, but I'm having an issue where topics not discussed/clicked won't make the top topic stay white. It's hard explain, but I'll try.

Created in dialogue view. I have a branch. In that branch a topic where the player selects "I have some pelts to sell". Now I have also created a topic for every pelt type with conditions for GetItemCount on each pelt, linked to from the I Have Pelts to Sell topic.

My issue is say the player selects that, has enough wolf pelts, and selects Sell Wolf Pelts. Then they later comes back and has enough Bear Pelts to sell, "I Have Pelts to Sell" won't be white but greyed out, indicating that no new info can be read from that topic. Even though the topic Sell Bear Pelts has never been seen/clicked yet.

Am I making my topics wrong in some way?

Are you sure it's really "greyed out" or just "not bright white"? I don't think it's greyed out - as in disabled. I think the not bright white means it has already been selected, not that there are no new topics available. (I have seen this behavior since I started modding back in March.)

The white color is supposed to mean that unchosen subtopics are available, but as you say Sollar, it has always been unreliable. I haven't investigated in-depth, but I'm not sure the color-coding handles dialogue conditions properly. It seems to me that the system gets it right when there are additional unconditioned dialogue subtopics available, but often grays out a topic if the subtopics have conditions. I'm not 100% sure of that, though. But I don't think you're doing anything wrong, B1gBadDaddy; or at least, I've had the same problems.

Me too... (i.e. me too as in me too experiencing the same)
if I understand this correctly. the "I have pelts to sell" topic always will give the same dialog entry. From this entry, you'll have a branch of sub-topics for various pelts.
As the entry for "I have pelts to sell" is in fact the same, it will be "greyed out", but I bet the sub-topic for the new kind of pelts (bear-pelts or whatever) will be in white the first time you use it.

EDIT: Sulteric, I've avoided the dialog views completely, too. They are just annoying!

Got everything working. Thanks!

Thanks guys. The pelt topics are indeed white the first time the player sees them and clicks them. I just thought I was somehow linking them to the main topic wrong