Hello,

I'm new at modding but my intuition tells me global variables should be avoided whenever possible.

In my case I can't use locals to keep track of some quest progress, is using journal updates any better than globals ? (taking into account the journal entry already exists and has a value, so it doesn't even create a new variable)

If so, is there any way to get an empty journal update (it doesn't appear in the journal, that much is possible) WITHOUT the "Your journal has been updated" message appearing for the player ?

I don't want to clutter the journal with small stuff, and I don't want to tell the player his journal has been updated when there's nothing new in it.

The message does not appear when you issue the empty Journal command from dialogue's action box.