buttonGUI

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 4:20 pm

OK, so you may wondering why did anyone bother to write yet another GUI for Ogre? Especially when I do not claim that this one is neither the most powerful nor the most optimized?

Most of the GUI solutions were too complex for what I needed... I just wanted buttons and text fields, the two I found closest to what I needed were Navi and BetaGUI. Here are some of the positives and negatives that led me to make buttonGUI:
*I in no way claim the following to be a comprehensive list of positives and negatives of navi or betaGUI... these are only the ones that relate to buttonGUI.

Navi positives:
- extremely easy and intuitive to use
- very well documented
- fading

Navi negatives:
- not readily multiplatform
- does not allow custom fonts
- requires > 10 MB of dependencies

betaGUI positives:
- extremely easy to setup/integrate
- readily multiplatform
- small yet feature rich
- only dependency is Ogre
- custom font supported

betaGUI negatives
- hit and miss documentation
- not all versions compile
- was hard for me to understand/modify the code (sorry Betajaen, I still think you are awesome though!!)... it could be because i am not a professional programmer.

So I decided to make buttonGUI in an attempt to join the positives of Navi and betaGUI into a single GUI.
...and also in a secret attempt to bump betaGUI from its slot of "GUI to use when you just need something in there to start." (sorry again Betajaen >_<)

betaGUI positives + Navi positives = buttonGUI!!!
- brain-dead easy to setup/integrate
- readily multiplatform
- allows for custom fonts and colors
- fading buttons
- small yet feature rich
- easy and intuitive to use (as much as i could, anyway

)
- well documented
- only dependency is Ogre (and a little OIS)
- allows 3D meshes on your buttons (idea ripped from myGUI, except not with RTT, mesh is simply loaded into an Overlay)

A special thanks to ajs15822, a bunch of his code is inside buttonGUI, and a special thanks to betajaen ( I think there might be a sliver of betaGUI code left in there too ^_^ )

Here are some details (excerpt from readme):

ButtonGUI is based on the idea that there are no widgets, everything is a button.

One of the goals of buttonGUI is to be able to simply drop in buttonGUI.h and buttonGUI.cpp into your project and get started with an a relatively robust GUI system in just a few minutes.

Every button can be configured to report any combination of 4 events (aka enum buttonAction):
- onClick
- onRelease
- mouseOver
- mouseOff
Every 'button' can have 4 types of children:
- other buttons
- textAreas*
- buttonMeshes*
- textInputAreas (a special type of button that can send more than the basic 4 events)
* these do not send buttonEvents and are generally handled as attributes of buttons.

So I hope I reached my goal... please keep in mind I am not a professional programmer, but I did my best to make something that anyone could use really quickly and easily.
If you find bugs, need support, or have a feature you would like to add please use the forum I set up HERE

DOWNLOAD HERE:
BUTTONGUI DEMO
buttonGUI.h
buttonGUI.cpp
buttonGUI.readme (with usage instructions)

buttonGUI might be right for you if:

you just need an interface in and working quickly
you don't care for complex widgets, tabs, radio buttons etc.
you are a beginner or not a professional programmer
you require a multiplatform solution
you feel a GUI should be as simple as "user click = GUI DO!"

buttonGUI might NOT be right for you if:

you will need to have more than 20 separate 2D elements on screen at a time during a game
your application requires tabs, submenus, sliders or other intricate widgets
your application requires users to be able to dynamically size GUI windows

PS
I realize the cpp and h are a little bit cumbersome to have several classes in a single file. This is simply for ease of integration.

Post by **betajaen** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:06 pm

Very Nice! I'm glad you've used BetaGUI as your inspiration. We seriously can't have enough GUI's for Ogre.

I've been working on BetaGUI Embedded for the last three days. The plan is to reduce the footprint of code AND resources to 8192 Bytes in total - including the glyphs and font (which is embedded in the C code; compressed to about 1/10th of it's original size!), it's intended use is for Flour but I shall be releasing it as soon as it's complete.

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:36 pm

betajaen wrote:Very Nice! I'm glad you've used BetaGUI as your inspiration. We seriously can't have enough GUI's for Ogre.

I've been working on BetaGUI Embedded for the last three days. The plan is to reduce the footprint of code AND resources to 8192 Bytes in total - including the glyphs and font (which is embedded in the C code; compressed to about 1/10th of it's original size!), it's intended use is for Flour but I shall be releasing it as soon as it's complete.

very cool, I can't wait to see what you've made (and how you will compress your font???)

And yes, I thought we needed something else like betaGUI where the focus isn't maximum functionality, but maximum usability.
Thanks for your work betajaen ^_^

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:38 pm

and for quick reference here are
USAGE INSTRUCTIONS:

Code: Select all

// you must set this on your camera,  or any changes to the resolution or fov will mess up the alignment of any buttonMeshes.
camera->setAutoAspectRatio(true);


//create a text scheme
textScheme myTextScheme("myFont",20, 0,1,0,1);

//instance the buttonManager
buttonMgr = new buttonGUI::buttonManager("myTextAreaMaterial",myTextScheme, sceneMgr,"MainCam");

//create a button
buttonMgr->createButton("building", "buildingMat", buttonPosition(TOP_RIGHT, 300,300), 64,64);

//in your update loop call getEvent() until it returns NULL
Update()
{
	buttonEvent * e = buttonMgr->getEvent();			//THE FOLLOWING LOOP IS HOW TO GET EVENTS FROM buttonGUI
	while(e)
	{
		handleButtonEvent(e);
		e = buttonMgr->getEvent();			
	}	
	buttonMgr->update();
}

//do something with the event
void handleButtonEvent(buttonEvent * e)
{
	std::string name;
	if (e->actionButton)
		name = *(e->actionButton->getName()) ;  //store the name of the main button.

	if ((e->action == ONCLICK)&&(name == "building"))
	{
			//do stuff...
	}
}

//call this if your resolution ever changes to realign all the buttonMeshes to proper locations.
buttonMgr->resetScreenResolution();


//when you are done.
if (buttonMgr)
{
	buttonMgr->shutdown();
	delete buttonMgr;
	buttonMgr = NULL;
}

ajs15822 · Post by **ajs15822** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:41 pm

What a cool little library! Great job, the demo is very nice (anything with dinosaurs is on my hot-list).

I'm flattered that you took inspiration from NaviLibrary-- best of luck with future development!

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:48 pm

ajs15822 wrote:What a cool little library! Great job, the demo is very nice (anything with dinosaurs is on my hot-list).

I'm flattered that you took inspiration from NaviLibrary-- best of luck with future development!

thanks ajs ^_^ a compliment from you means a lot to me.

Post by **betajaen** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 5:49 pm

metaldev wrote:very cool, I can't wait to see what you've made (and how you will compress your font???)

Compressing a font is much easier if you drop all non-English characters, and shove it into the same image that your widgets are in. All 256x112 pixels of it.

KungFooMasta · Post by **KungFooMasta** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:23 pm

Looks cool! So is this using Overlays, or your own textured quads?

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 7:24 pm

KungFooMasta wrote:Looks cool! So is this using Overlays, or your own textured quads?

its all Overlays

sisyphus · Post by **sisyphus** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 8:58 pm

From personal experience it is always better to have an overabundance of options rather than a dearth of options. Especially when it comes to GUI implementations.

Thanks for a providing another option to the OGRE community, I will be checking this out!

Nauk · Post by **Nauk** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 12:30 pm

Looks great and definately useful

my.name · Post by **my.name** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 1:33 pm

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:58 pm

my.name wrote:=)

HAHAHA yea... i will interpret that as "buttonGUI is like a cute tiny newborn baby brother of myGui"

...which I would be proud if you felt that way

btw if any of you GUI masters spot some bad practice please let me know. I want to learn!!

my.name · Post by **my.name** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:15 pm

almondega · Post by **almondega** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 6:49 pm

amazing

but

DO NOT USE if: you will need to have more than 20 separate 2D elements on screen at a time during a game

so, a bottom bar, like world of warcraft with skills, or a lineage with same type
will not be good to use buttonGUI for it?

and a sugestion of name
to be more agressive, buttonGUI should be named ButtonGUI

Wasted · Post by **Wasted** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:25 pm

Idea is pretty the same as my Control System GUI
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42494

Anyway, nice work, keep going

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:18 pm

almondega wrote:amazing

but

DO NOT USE if: you will need to have more than 20 separate 2D elements on screen at a time during a game
so, a bottom bar, like world of warcraft with skills, or a lineage with same type
will not be good to use buttonGUI for it?

and a sugestion of name
to be more agressive, buttonGUI should be named ButtonGUI

well... one option might be to not use blending on the numerous buttons(neither use blend_alpha for their material nor use the fade functionality of buttonGUI) then you might be able to do it without taking a big dump on performance... but i dunno, because they are still different render calls. buttonGUI was made with priorities in the following order: 1. easy integration 2. easy use 3. performance
As you can see in the demo there is a big performance boost when you hide elements.

as far as butttonGUI vs ButtonGUI... i dunno i always preferred the standard of first letter lowercase!

Wasted wrote:Idea is pretty the same as my Control System GUI
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=42494

Anyway, nice work, keep going

yes it is indeed similar! one big difference was that i didnt feel like bothering with 'window based' GUI... one might see it as a limitation, but i see it as ok to leave that to the artist to figure out how a window should look in the name of keeping the system simple (although buttonGUI did grow a lot (relatively) with the buttonMesh feature and the delete button feature)

aoos · Post by **aoos** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:04 am

Hi! i compiled the demo but when i run it i get an exception, heres from Ogre.log:

Code: Select all

01:55:32: OGRE EXCEPTION(2:InvalidParametersException): Option named 'sRGB Gamma Conversion' does not exist. in D3D9RenderSystem::setConfigOption at ..\src\OgreD3D9RenderSystem.cpp (line 310)

I'm using Ogre 1.4.8

Anyone help?

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:12 am

aoos wrote:Hi! i compiled the demo but when i run it i get an exception, heres from Ogre.log:
Code: Select all
01:55:32: OGRE EXCEPTION(2:InvalidParametersException): Option named 'sRGB Gamma Conversion' does not exist. in D3D9RenderSystem::setConfigOption at ..\src\OgreD3D9RenderSystem.cpp (line 310)
I'm using Ogre 1.4.8

Anyone help?

im no expert, but it sounds like you have something messed up in your ogre.cfg
try running with openGL instead of DX9?

EDIT: also i created buttonGUI with Ogre 1.6... so it may be some incompatability there.

aoos · Post by **aoos** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 12:25 am

maybe its incompatable i'll try it with the new version..
Also i see now that sRGB gamma correction is added in Soggoth version and thats exactly reports my exception! what's this? Anyway downloading now..."

buckED · Post by **buckED** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:26 pm

Good to see people are still trying to make the existing chioces yet easier

As I am looking for a GUI with OGRE as it's only dependeny and want to use as few GUI elements as possible, I am defenetly putting button GUI on my "do research on this" list. (Along with BetaGUI and QuickGUI

)

Thanks a lot for this one

aoos · Post by **aoos** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:47 pm

Ok i upgraded to 1.6.0 and buttonGui runs fine! i going to look deeper at it .. thanks!

Beauty · Post by **Beauty** » Wed Sep 24, 2008 10:57 pm

By the way: Metaldev created a wiki page for buttonGUI

I think it's good to collect all important informations there.
www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/ButtonGUI

alexdbkim · Post by **alexdbkim** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:44 am

metaldev · Post by **metaldev** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:02 am

DerMuffin wrote:Nevertheless, QuickGUI was on pole position before I decided to play around with dynamic textures and the assertion, that everything is a clickable text-panel (aka button)

yea pretty much that is exactly what i realized when i started thinking about writing a gui, nearly all functionality needed from a GUI can be abstracted to simple square target areas. Hence buttonGUI was born.

Ogre Forums

buttonGUI

buttonGUI

Thanks!

Re: buttonGUI