UI Manager

UI in Sapiens is fairly complex. The UI manager doesn't help you build UIs, it just helps you manage their state. For example:

• Giving you mouse control when the UI is active
• Allowing you to press ESC to close the current UI (coming soon)
• Preventing OTHER ui from showing on top of your currently active UI (coming soon)

Requiring

local uiManager = mjrequire "hammerstone/ui/uiManager"

Using

The uiManager relies on the concept of 'elements'. A view is a place where UI can be put. For example, a GameElement covers (almost) the whole screen and captures the mouse.

Elements

Action Elements

Action Elements are rendered beside the radial menu that appears when selecting an object in the world. To register an Action Element, call registerActionElement on the uiManager like this:

local exampleActionElement = mjrequire "exampleMod/exampleActionElement"
uiManager:registerActionElement(exampleActionElement);

The Action Element module should look something like this:

-- Module setup
local exampleActionElement = {
	-- Required by the UI Manager
	view = nil,

	--  Required by the UI Manager
	name = "Example Action Element"
}

-- Requires
-- Add requires here

-- This function is called automatically from the UI manager
function exampleActionElement:init(viewContainer, gameUI, hubUI, world)
	-- Create a parent container
	self.view = View.new(viewContainer)

    -- Add any button/other UI components here
end

-- Module return
return exampleActionElement

Game Elements

Game Elements are shown nearly fullscreen to the user. To register a Game Elemenet, call registerGameElement on the uiManager like this:

local exampleGameElement = mjrequire "exampleMod/exampleGameElement"
uiManager:registerActionElement(exampleGameElement);

The Game Element module should look something like this:

local exampleGameElement = {
    gameUI = nil,
	name = "exampleGameElement",
	view = nil,
}

-- Requires
local mjm = mjrequire "common/mjm"
local vec3 = mjm.vec3
local vec2 = mjm.vec2
-- Add more requires here

-- Local state
local backgroundWidth = 1140
local backgroundHeight = 640
local backgroundSize = vec2(backgroundWidth, backgroundHeight)

-- Called when the UI needs to be generated
function exampleGameElement:init(gameUI)
    self.view = View.new(gameUI.view)
	self.view.size = backgroundSize
	self.view.relativePosition = ViewPosition(MJPositionCenter, MJPositionCenter)
end

-- Called every frame
function exampleGameElement:updateGameElement(gameUI)
	
end

return exampleGameElement

Manage Elements

Manage elements are the pages that open when you press Esc. The UI manager allows you to add new buttons to that menu, and automatically sets up all the supporting keybinds and tab logic. A manage element module looks like this:

local exampleManageElement = {
    name = "exampleManageElement",
	view = nil,
	parent = nil,
	icon = "icon_exampleManageElement",
}

function exampleManageElement:init(contentView)
	-- Do your magic!
end

return exampleManageElement