(!!!) Improving NGUI: Voice your opinion

[kitgui]

NGUI doesn't really handle multiple controllers at the moment.

I'm working on a local-coop game for up to 3 players where the screen is divided into 3 columns, and each player has their own menu that needs to accept input from just 1 specific controller.

There are numerous ways to work around this, at the moment we've decided to wrap UICamera and override ProcessOthers() to differentiate input devices, but it would be great if future versions took this into account

Thanks for the great framework Michael, you're doing a great job!

[mrobitaille]

I've been using NGUI for almost 5 months now and I have to say that it is a great tool.

Just a couple of things:
- Better sorting algorithm in BetterList, it does 3k+ comparison for 50 elements
- Fonts in general, we are building for mobiles, so dynamic fonts are not an option and bitmap fonts, even when pixel perfect & pre-multiplied alpha, they don't always look good and down-scaling is ugly. It should be possible to have only one big bitmap font and downscale to fit the needs and saving memory by not having 4 different size of the same font in the atlas.
- Fonts effects, the designed with whom I work wanted a text glow, and I had to have the same font twice in the atlas with one of the two as a blurred version but it takes an incredible amount of space.
- A timeline system for animating the GUI would be nice (think flash timeline), I know it is a huge feature, but would be very nice 

Mathieu

EDIT:
- Better support of Perforce with the atlas maker, currently it ends in failure if I don't manually check out the texture files before updating the atlas because Unity only checks out the prefab file.

[Antiloco]

In UIinput ,please  add text selection.
In Textarea, use enter key for a new line (instead of control-enter).
Possibility ,in  UIPopupList ,  to change selection using index instead of only with value.
UIPanel has centered pivot point only, i think that would be useful to change pivot point ,like widget, in order to easily resizing with the parent contanier
Prevent , in UIDraggable object, drag outside of the screen.

Thanks

[r3dwolf]

Hello!

• Selection support in textbox (UInput)
• cut & paste
• cursor position in textbox
• textarea with real "enter"  (not ctrl+enter)

[laurentl]

NGUI is a very good event and display API, but not a UI API.

For it to become a UI API it needs to manage states and transition.

So the number one grief about NGUI is the lack of state machine.

[yarbsea]

Request UIPopup font section offer the same 'effect' setting as the UIlabel, namely the wonderful outline/shadow.

While your at it, why can't you offer us the option of BOTH outline AND shadow on text

THANKS!

[Bradamante3D]

I am just upgrading from 2.6.5 to 3.0.6 and it seems that the ProgressBars / Slider lost it's "centered" option, where the bar shrinks/grows to both the left and the right. If that option is really gone (instead of me just not seeing it), I'd like to get it back.
Other than that, the upgrade rocks! I haven't tested my most complicated stuff yet ...

[ArenMook]

Scroll bars still behave like that, but they won't do so at edit time. The foreground's starting size is the full size of the scroll bar: http://www.tasharen.com/forum/index.php?topic=6733.0

[Cabal]

Hi all,

Here is a quick suggestion that may make it easier for anybody who wishes to use NGUI with OnGUI events (for instance for a debug menu)
The idea is to use the existing onCustomInput delegate function but call it *before* processing mouse inputs so we can tell NGUI to not process any input by returning false.

The comments mention using the delegate to handle things like wp7 touches so I am unclear if there is a good reason for it to be called after mouse inputs.
If not, this small change makes it very easy to layer a simple OnGUI menu on top of NGUI and have the OnGUI element "eat" the event so NGUI doesn't receive it.

From UICamera.cs   
   void Update ()
   {
      // Only the first UI layer should be processing events
      if (!Application.isPlaying || !handlesEvents) return;

      bool shouldContinue = true;
      // Custom input processing
      if (onCustomInput != null)
      {
         shouldContinue = onCustomInput();
      }
      if (!shouldContinue) return;

      current = this;
      etc.

Note: this basically only moves the onCustomInput call earlier in the function and bail out if the callback returns false (currently the delegate returns void).

[wom]

The idea is to use the existing onCustomInput delegate function but call it *before* processing mouse inputs so we can tell NGUI to not process any input by returning false.
...
Note: this basically only moves the onCustomInput call earlier in the function and bail out if the callback returns false (currently the delegate returns void).

This would probably also help people who need to make Unity Remote work to hook it up as custom input, as in http://www.tasharen.com/forum/index.php?topic=6583.0

[Nicki]

Importing from Texture Packer with full rotation and everything would be a super nice thing for optimizing texture atlases. I assume the rotation is a unity limitation maybe? But their fonts seem to rotate.

[gyd]

Could you add a easy way to Play SFXs on/under specific UI?

[ArenMook]

Not sure what you mean, gyd.

[gyd]

Not sure what you mean, gyd.

Sorry

What I mean is,
if I have a Effect, made for 3D, sparkle effect for example, and I want to place the Effect on a UI permanently( or trigger by some event, like Click ).

The Effect is hard to set to right render queue, especially when I want to place it on some UI's forward, and the other's backward, like between Button and Background.

The best way I can figure out to make it possible is using a specific shader( in fact, I need more then few shaders to do this ).

sorry again, hope I explained clear enough.


modified:
is there any way to get current renderQueue of a sprite? the best way I can find now is to modify the renderQueue of a SFX's material to be sprite.renderQueue -1/+1, to make it under/above a sprite
   

[ArenMook]

1. UIWidget.drawCall.renderQueue + 3000