›

[Unity Plugin Development] First glance Snap UI for the new Unity UI, layout manager.

tbulfordtbulford
edited in Projects
Here at Celestial we have been particularly eager to get our hands on the new UI system. We very pleased with it even though we don't feel it completely meets our requirements just yet. In particular we want a better way to manage the look and feel and the layout. Also we miss the easy way the old GUI would allow us to build UI from code. With that in mind we have started building an extension we are calling Snap UI.

Snap UI is planned to assist with the following things for now.
  • Layout
  • Panels that can move or be scaled
  • Rollover hints
  • Look and feel management
  • API to assist with the UI construction from code
Some nice to have features we considering.
  • I18N (languages)
  • Menu and Sub menu system
We need more uniform control over the layout of our GUI the idea that we need to make adjustments to multiple panels across multiple screens just doesn't suit us. Also we aiming to be able to build the full UI from code as apposed to having to create ll UI in the drag and drop system.

First glance at Snap UI Column and Row layouts.
Column and Row layouts are the most basic of the layout types. We decided to build these first as they set up a lot of the layers we need to proceed with development.


Panel Manager
The Panel Manage makes panels drag-able on screen and also supports features for scaling them. There are quite a few modes to suit most anyone's requirements.
Thanked by 2wogan JPOlivier42

Comments

  • LazyLizzardLazyLizzard
    I love this kind of customization so much I need to apply the "dont do it" rule to myself, lol
  • tbulfordtbulford
    LazyLizzard said:
    I love this kind of customization so much I need to apply the "dont do it" rule to myself, lol
    Yeah I really looked hard for the stuff I needed. I am not a huge fan of drag and drop designed interfaces much prefer well managed code based systems.
  • TheFuntasticTheFuntastic
    So having looked at your video, it seems very similar to the unity Layout components. Are you aware of those? http://docs.unity3d.com/460/Documentation/Manual/comp-UIAutoLayout.html

    Though what you're saying about a code based approach is different from the unity editor centric approach.
  • woganwogan
    That looks pretty neat! I haven't done much UI work myself, but I can appreciate not having to fiddle with size and alignment properties forever :)

    Looking at it though, and maybe this is more a general UI question, but how do UIs handle changing resolutions? And does your Snap UI take that into account, just scaling everything up or down SVG style?
  • tbulfordtbulford
    Snap will be more then jus5 auto layout. I need code managed layout since I will be create great forms from code with changing attributes and values. That's ultimately my goals.

    The main significant change to the Unity layout components will he the scaling management and control. Fill but keep ratios etc. Grid and table layouts with proper view model controller systems. For lists of various items managed easily from code is the ultimate goal.

    I will have a new video soon with the additional scaling considerations and some extentions to the look and feel. Mostly for me it's about been able to build the UI from code though.

    Snap currently tires to use the panel space available and that means the panel will scale according to Unites rules. However we also introducing pack as a layout that resizes the panel.

    Thanks for the feedback and questions the earlier the better esp if something is there all ready and I should be using that.
  • JPOlivier42JPOlivier42
    This looks great. Are you expecting to release on the asset store? It seems Unity 4.6 is at release candidate 1 implying that they won't be putting in similar features.
    Thanked by 1tbulford
  • mattbenicmattbenic
    Very nice, and very Swing ;)

    I'm sure you've already picked this up, but "Vertical" not "Verticle"..
    We need more uniform control over the layout of our GUI the idea that we need to make adjustments to multiple panels across multiple screens just doesn't suit us. Also we aiming to be able to build the full UI from code as apposed to having to create ll UI in the drag and drop system.
    Based on that, are you planning on some kind of style system, so say the borders are optionally inherited from a style?
  • tbulfordtbulford
    JPOlivier42 said:
    This looks great. Are you expecting to release on the asset store? It seems Unity 4.6 is at release candidate 1 implying that they won't be putting in similar features.
    We building on 4.6. We have 5 now too. There are some features that are reasonably close to these but they don't lead to the end result I need. Will be in the asset store eventually we really building it because we need a better way to construct many UI's and manually dragging things around is pretty inefficient.

    @mattbenic
    Yip very swing-esk although far lighter I personally think swing was a little too heavy. Next build it almost ready for a video. Draggable and resizable windows with different resizing strategies and a memory.
    mattbenic said:
    Very nice, and very Swing ;)
    I'm sure you've already picked this up, but "Vertical" not "Verticle"..
    Don't be so sure :) my spelling is awful to start with and I am in what feels like a 6month game jam so just not sleeping.
  • tbulfordtbulford
    We finished a video on the Panel Manager and added it to the top of the post.
Sign In or Register to comment.