Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but does anyone know of an extension that make it easy to do a main menu screen. This is the 4th time I had to redo a game due to the cumbersome task of setting up a menu UI which takes far longer than I would like. And I’m sure i’m not the only one here with that sentiment. I just want to get to the fun part of designing gameplay, not messing with a menu UI for days lol.
Usually I just make a tileset called “Menu Pieces” and then use that as well as adding the necessary things like text objects and variables as well as buttons and such!
That’s just me though
Would be fine if I only needed a simple 1 page menu. Unfortunately when you’re trying to make a full multi layered menu system (as in multiple sub menus nested in various options). this quickly falls apart.
ah alr, fair enough then
ive been trying to make a ui framework for GDevelop for quite some time, but its a monstrous task, even if its one that is incredibly important… there was some beginnings, with SlickUI, but it didnt go very far.
I see, glad to know I haven’t gone insane it seems.
what youre asking is nearly impossible haha, i get it. heres a simple way: put multiple panes on layers, and create one button object with an object variable with an actionID and a title, then set those in code for each button. Now you can reuse just one button object
a…not simple way would be to use HTML, which you can do if you want.
the problem with my framework is just…HOW do you make the ui? theres no user friendly way to do this in gdevelop because its not built for layouts
And also, just for a little bit of user research, would you be comfortable not being able to create the ui directly in gdevelop?
Did that in the past, and it use to work, but the way I use to make menus is broken now, and I’m scrambling to figure out how to make it work without having a metric f*** ton of variables and code blocks that looks like a rat’s nest lol.
Depends on how annoying it would be to integrate it into a development pipeline
think about it…Javascript in gdevelop is not fun. Events to create UI is not…fun, and its hard to parse. sooo not much options. ideally i think id want to use a json file for the ui
So… what you’re saying is, unless I do JS coding, I may be screwed?
no! you cannot do that anyway. im talking about my own ui framework. and JSON, not JS.
its just ive realized its more important of a project then i thought
I see, and I’d say so, because my project has been effectively halted until a solution is found. Not sure how much pull you have with the dev team. But yeah, this is pretty darn important.
may you elaborate more about it? i might be able to craft a solution for you
The actual gameplay doesn’t really matter much, but just in case it does, the game focuses on runs instead of a long playthrough. But I’m trying to get a fully working menu system that allows you to change game modes, upgrades, unlocks, and the obligatory options and extras to round it all off. But doing all of that in a single screen is pretty much impossible without blowing up the object count sky-high. And even then, it’s iffy at best
oh god…alright i kinda understand you now. its not just text and buttons and sliders. its icons, dynamic lists that need to change, etc.
How does using HTML sound?
Remind me what HTML is in this context? I know it involves browser games, but not too knowledgeable outside of that
oh, boy…well no, HTML is a “markup language”, its the foundation of the entire internet, at least the one you can see with a web page. its what the website youre using right now to talk to me is made in. but think of HTML as the bones. CSS makes it pretty, and JS (JavaScript) makes it work. All three of those things have been abstracted into “web frameworks” that handle different things for you, but often have a different workflow, like React. Thats pretty much all of web development history right there
So, GDevelop obviously has to use HTML as it creates web games, however, it uses a JavaScript render named Pixi.JS. So that means it doesnt use HTML or CSS technologies to make the actual games. Thats where we step in. What if you manipulated it, and injected your own HTML, CSS, and JS to create your own UI? CSS is technically the most advanced layout/ui creator, and gets even more advanced with web frameworks. it would be tough, but it might fix your problem.