Moving prefab into Hierarchy on U5 broken

[arkon3]

NGUI has a new most annoying bug in U5, If I drag a prefab that contains NGU components into my hierarchy as a child of a UIRoot/Camera it adds a new UIRoot/Camera to the hierarchy and puts the prefab there instead of where I dropped it. Worse it then changes all the layer names in the original UIRoot to the layer name of the prefab I was moving. It also takes that layer name out of the original UIRoot culling mask.

This is different from the last bug I reported as that does this in the other direction (Hierarch to Project)

It's made NGUI almost unusable at the moment, as I often drag prefabs into the UIRoot to edit them or add bits etc before moving them to a resources folder in the project. I reported the bug to Unity also but they passed the buck and said it's NGUI's problem.

[ArenMook]

I need more details here. When I try it on my end it works as expected.

1. New scene.
2. Open the Prefab Toolbar.
3. Drag any prefab into the scene.
4. Drag more prefabs. Everything works as expected, same UIRoot gets reused.

[devomage]

from what ive been reading - quite a bit of these issues revolve around an existing upgraded project...  rather than a fresh new scene.

[arkon3]

I need more details here. When I try it on my end it works as expected.

1. New scene.
2. Open the Prefab Toolbar.
3. Drag any prefab into the scene.
4. Drag more prefabs. Everything works as expected, same UIRoot gets reused.

This works when you follow what you have just written, but goes wrong if you have more than one panel with different layers.
Try this to see it go wrong:-
1. new scene
2. Create UIRoot with 3d option. (creates a UIRoot with a camera under it)
3. Create 2 panels as children of the camera
4. Create 2 layers with the layer drop down. One called HUD one Called Tower (doesn't matter the names)
5. create 1 prefab with it's layer set to Tower.
6. Drag the prefab into the hierarchy as a child of the Tower Panel.
7. Drag the prefab back out of where you dropped it back to the project window.
8 BANG! it leave another UIRoot in the hierarchy.

edit: I've just been experimenting and it's caused because the Layer UIRoot is on is different from the Layer the panels is on.
BUT this is how you told me to do it to be able to have sprites with different layers. My hierarchy looks like this:-

UIRoot                (Layer set to 0 default)
->Camera           (Layer set to 0 default)
->->PanelTower   (Layer set to 15)
->->->Tower1     (Layer set to 15)
->->PanelHUD     (Layer set to 16)
->->->Button      (Layer set to 16)
->->PanelEnemy  (Layer set to 17)
->->->Enemy1    (Layer set to 17)

[arkon3]

Any progress on this? It's so annoying, it practically destroys my hierarchy each time I move a prefab and takes me ages to clean it all back up again.

[ArenMook]

Open up NGUITools.cs and find the CreateUI function on line 759. Replace it with this:

1.         /// <summary>
2.         /// Create a new UI.
3.         /// </summary>
4.  
5.         static public UIPanel CreateUI (Transform trans, bool advanced3D, int layer)
6.         {
7.                 // Find the existing UI Root
8.                 UIRoot root = (trans != null) ? NGUITools.FindInParents<UIRoot>(trans.gameObject) : null;
9.  
10.                 if (root == null && UIRoot.list.Count > 0)
11.                 {
12.                         foreach (UIRoot r in UIRoot.list)
13.                         {
14.                                 if (r.gameObject.layer == layer)
15.                                 {
16.                                         root = r;
17.                                         break;
18.                                 }
19.                         }
20.                 }
21.  
22.                 // Try to find an existing panel
23.                 if (root == null)
24.                 {
25.                         for (int i = 0, imax = UIPanel.list.Count; i < imax; ++i)
26.                         {
27.                                 UIPanel p = UIPanel.list[i];
28.                                 GameObject go = p.gameObject;
29.  
30.                                 if (go.hideFlags == HideFlags.None && go.layer == layer)
31.                                 {
32.                                         trans.parent = p.transform;
33.                                         trans.localScale = Vector3.one;
34.                                         return p;
35.                                 }
36.                         }
37.                 }
38.  
39.                 // If we are working with a different UI type, we need to treat it as a brand-new one instead
40.                 if (root != null)
41.                 {
42.                         UICamera cam = root.GetComponentInChildren<UICamera>();
43.  
44. #if UNITY_4_3 || UNITY_4_5 || UNITY_4_6
45.                         if (cam != null && cam.camera.isOrthoGraphic == advanced3D)
46. #else
47.                         if (cam != null && cam.GetComponent<Camera>().orthographic == advanced3D)
48. #endif
49.                         {
50.                                 trans = null;
51.                                 root = null;
52.                         }
53.                 }
54.  
55.                 // If no root found, create one
56.                 if (root == null)
57.                 {
58.                         GameObject go = NGUITools.AddChild(null, false);
59.                         root = go.AddComponent<UIRoot>();
60.  
61.                         // Automatically find the layers if none were specified
62.                         if (layer == -1) layer = LayerMask.NameToLayer("UI");
63.                         if (layer == -1) layer = LayerMask.NameToLayer("2D UI");
64.                         go.layer = layer;
65.  
66.                         if (advanced3D)
67.                         {
68.                                 go.name = "UI Root (3D)";
69.                                 root.scalingStyle = UIRoot.Scaling.Constrained;
70.                         }
71.                         else
72.                         {
73.                                 go.name = "UI Root";
74.                                 root.scalingStyle = UIRoot.Scaling.Flexible;
75.                         }
76.                 }
77.  
78.                 // Find the first panel
79.                 UIPanel panel = root.GetComponentInChildren<UIPanel>();
80.  
81.                 if (panel == null)
82.                 {
83.                         // Find other active cameras in the scene
84.                         Camera[] cameras = NGUITools.FindActive<Camera>();
85.  
86.                         float depth = -1f;
87.                         bool colorCleared = false;
88.                         int mask = (1 << root.gameObject.layer);
89.  
90.                         for (int i = 0; i < cameras.Length; ++i)
91.                         {
92.                                 Camera c = cameras[i];
93.  
94.                                 // If the color is being cleared, we won't need to
95.                                 if (c.clearFlags == CameraClearFlags.Color ||
96.                                         c.clearFlags == CameraClearFlags.Skybox)
97.                                         colorCleared = true;
98.  
99.                                 // Choose the maximum depth
100.                                 depth = Mathf.Max(depth, c.depth);
101.  
102.                                 // Make sure this camera can't see the UI
103.                                 c.cullingMask = (c.cullingMask & (~mask));
104.                         }
105.  
106.                         // Create a camera that will draw the UI
107.                         Camera cam = NGUITools.AddChild<Camera>(root.gameObject, false);
108.                         cam.gameObject.AddComponent<UICamera>();
109.                         cam.clearFlags = colorCleared ? CameraClearFlags.Depth : CameraClearFlags.Color;
110.                         cam.backgroundColor = Color.grey;
111.                         cam.cullingMask = mask;
112.                         cam.depth = depth + 1f;
113.  
114.                         if (advanced3D)
115.                         {
116.                                 cam.nearClipPlane = 0.1f;
117.                                 cam.farClipPlane = 4f;
118.                                 cam.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(0f, 0f, -700f);
119.                         }
120.                         else
121.                         {
122.                                 cam.orthographic = true;
123.                                 cam.orthographicSize = 1;
124.                                 cam.nearClipPlane = -10;
125.                                 cam.farClipPlane = 10;
126.                         }
127.  
128.                         // Make sure there is an audio listener present
129.                         AudioListener[] listeners = NGUITools.FindActive<AudioListener>();
130.                         if (listeners == null || listeners.Length == 0)
131.                                 cam.gameObject.AddComponent<AudioListener>();
132.  
133.                         // Add a panel to the root
134.                         panel = root.gameObject.AddComponent<UIPanel>();
135. #if UNITY_EDITOR
136.                         UnityEditor.Selection.activeGameObject = panel.gameObject;
137. #endif
138.                 }
139.  
140.                 if (trans != null)
141.                 {
142.                         // Find the root object
143.                         while (trans.parent != null) trans = trans.parent;
144.  
145.                         if (NGUITools.IsChild(trans, panel.transform))
146.                         {
147.                                 // Odd hierarchy -- can't reparent
148.                                 panel = trans.gameObject.AddComponent<UIPanel>();
149.                         }
150.                         else
151.                         {
152.                                 // Reparent this root object to be a child of the panel
153.                                 trans.parent = panel.transform;
154.                                 trans.localScale = Vector3.one;
155.                                 trans.localPosition = Vector3.zero;
156.                                 SetChildLayer(panel.cachedTransform, panel.cachedGameObject.layer);
157.                         }
158.                 }
159.                 return panel;
160.         }

[arkon3]

That worked thanks. Glad to see someone supporting plugins on Unity5. I wish more people did.

[arkon3]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It still doesn't work correctly.  If you have a nested prefab is splits it into 2 parts when you drag it from hierarchy to project window. like this:

Hierarchy
UIRoot
>Camera
>>Panel
>>>Sprite (prefab)
>>>>Label

if you drag this from here to project this happens;

Hierarchy
UIRoot
>Camera
>>Panel
>>>Sprite (prefab)
>>>Label  <--- this moves up a level and gets left behind

[ArenMook]

I wonder if it's GetComponentInParent<> that got broken in Unity 5... it's like it's not finding it anymore.

Try opening up NGUITools.cs, line 1053 (FindInParents<T> function) and changing it to include only the code inside the #if UNITY_4_3 section.

1.         static public T FindInParents<T> (Transform trans) where T : Component
2.         {
3.                 if (trans == null) return null;
4.  #if UNITY_FLASH
5.                 object comp = trans.GetComponent<T>();
6.  #else
7.                 T comp = trans.GetComponent<T>();
8.  #endif
9.                 if (comp == null)
10.                 {
11.                         Transform t = trans.transform.parent;
12.  
13.                         while (t != null && comp == null)
14.                         {
15.                                 comp = t.gameObject.GetComponent<T>();
16.                                 t = t.parent;
17.                         }
18.                 }
19.  #if UNITY_FLASH
20.                 return (T)comp;
21.  #else
22.                 return comp;
23.  #endif
24.         }

[ArenMook]

And if that doesn't work, replace UIPanel.Find function (line 1819) with this:

1.         static public UIPanel Find (Transform trans, bool createIfMissing, int layer)
2.         {
3.                 UIPanel panel = NGUITools.FindInParents<UIPanel>(trans);
4.                 if (panel != null) return panel;
5.                 while (trans.parent != null) trans = trans.parent; // <-- this gets added
6.                 return createIfMissing ? NGUITools.CreateUI(trans, false, layer) : null;
7.         }

[arkon3]

Do i still need to add all these patches in or have you updated and fixed it in a new release?

[ArenMook]

3.8.1 was released prior to this thread, so these changes will be in 3.8.2.