Confused about the 4.6 UI integration

Announcements, support questions, and discussion for the Dialogue System.
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NashFM
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 12:41 am

Confused about the 4.6 UI integration

Post by NashFM »

I'm a bit confused about how the UI works in 4.6. I just purchased DS, seeing that it said "Unity 5 ready". But all the documentation about the new GUI seems to be outdated or wrong (for example, when I do Add Component menu > Dialogue System > UI > Unity UI, there is no sub-menu for Dialog as suggested in documentation like this).



2 main  questions:



1) Can I reuse elements such as Text and drag them into the UnityUIDialogueUI for multiple fields like both NPC and PC subtitle?  Similarly, can I reuse the NPC fields as the Reminder fields, or do I need to duplicate the objects?



2) Does everything really need to be a child of the one main UI object? So... no World Space Canvas for just the Response Menu (since that'd require being on a different canvas)?



I find it quite odd that for something called "Unity 5 ready", you've sequestered the new 4.6 UI stuff to a separate download and buried its content in the "Scripts" subfolder, and as stated, it is not even showing up for me in the Add Component menu. I'm sorry for the complaint, but was wondering if/when you might tidy up the 4.6 stuff?



Thanks!  Overall, I'm a happy customer.
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Tony Li
Posts: 21925
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2013 1:27 pm

Confused about the 4.6 UI integration

Post by Tony Li »

Hi,



Thanks for using the Dialogue System!



Many developers are still using Unity 4.5, and a couple are platform locked on 4.3 until their games ship, so Unity 4.6 and 5.0 features have been isolated to maintain compatibility.



Version 1.4.1 (just released) will be the last version to support Unity 4.3 - 4.5. The next version will require Unity 4.6+, which will provide more graceful support of Unity UI. The legacy Unity GUI system will still be fully supported, but Unity UI will become the default.



I plan to add more detailed Unity UI documentation and include more examples, including world space dialogue UIs. Although the current documentation isn't clear on this, there's no problem assigning a world space response menu on a different canvas.



Also, yes, you can reuse elements. You don't need to duplicate them.



I'm not sure why you don't see the Unity UI > Dialogue menu. After importing the "Unity UI Support" package, can you navigate to the menu item below?







NashFM
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Dec 15, 2014 12:41 am

Confused about the 4.6 UI integration

Post by NashFM »

Thanks for the speedy response! Your explanation of the slow transition to 4.6 makes total sense, and it's great to know you're going to expand it and make it default.



Also, great to know about reusing elements. Awesome.



Ah, indeed I do see that from the Component menu per your screenshot. Even stranger then that it's missing from the Add Component menu (in the Inspector). Not a big deal though, just FYI at this point.



Thanks for the help! I have some more questions popping up, but I'll post in another thread.


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