NGUI is great.... almost

[damocles]

So I've been playing around with NGUI, and most of the features are great - they work great and it really feels like a quality product.  All except for one feature, which feels like a massive glaring omission in quality - the Input field.  This is really subpar and not worthy of the title 'next gen'.  In my opinion, any next gen GUI input field should have the following:

• Ability to navigate the caret position using cursor keys
• Ability to change caret position via mouse click events
• Ability to select, copy, paste, and delete areas of text
• A graphical caret, with blinking/pulsing. NOT just a character stuck on the end of the text

These are features that have existed in most OS GUIs for nearly twenty years, and are features any player will expect when they click into a text field to start typing.  When they find they can't perform the most basic of text-field standards they will immediately associate that lack of quality with the game they are playing.

Sorry if this comes across harsh, but I really like NGUI and think it's great, and it would be near perfect if you could bring the input fields into the 21st century.  Do you have plans to implement any of these features in the near future?

PS if any of these features are already in NGUI and it's just my stupidity for not seeing them, then apologies.

[ArenMook]

Input field is severely limited by what Unity exposes to us tool devs -- which in this case, isn't much.

[damocles]

You can get mouse events and keyboard events, what more do you need to create an input field?

[ryan]

I know Michael has commented on the lack of access to the system's copy/paste buffer in the past, which is definitely a hindrance, but I think the other three features listed would be a big plus on PC/Mac, and should be possible.  Fortunately it's less of an issue on iOS, where the native keyboard popup handles that functionality for you.

[damocles]

For a simple input field you don't even need a clipboard, you can simply saved copied text into a string.  I wouldn't expect NGUI to make contents available on the system clipboard, that's something for individual devs to add if they desire it.

Although admittedly, pasting from the system clipboard would be nice, but yeah - a major pain in a multi-platform engine like Unity.

[tonyM]

Check this out:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/8455

[RobBrooks]

Did this one ever get added?

"Ability to change caret position via mouse click events"

It's just that I've had a request to make that happen.... :/

Thanks in advance.

[ArenMook]

Ages ago, yeah.

[RobBrooks]

Thanks Aren,

We're right at the end of a project so I'm not sure that making the necessary update just for this feature is going to fly, but thanks for the headsup in any case.