.. _doc_gui_tutorial:

GUI tutorial
============

Introduction
~~~~~~~~~~~~

If there is something that most programmers hate with passion, it is
programming graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It's boring, tedious and
unchallenging. Several aspects make matters worse, such as:

-  Pixel alignment of UI elements is difficult (such that it looks just
   like the designer intends).
-  UIs are changed constantly due to design and usability issues that
   appear during testing.
-  Handling proper screen re-sizing for different display resolutions.
-  Animating several screen components, to make it look less static.

GUI programming is one of the leading causes of programmer burnout.
During the development of Godot (and previous engine iterations),
several techniques and philosophies for UI development were put into
practice, such as immediate mode, containers, anchors, scripting, etc.
This was always done with the main goal of reducing the stress
programmers had to face while putting together user interfaces.

In the end, the resulting UI subsystem in Godot is an efficient solution
to this problem, and works by mixing together a few different
approaches. While the learning curve is a little steeper than in other
toolkits, developers can put together complex user interfaces in very
little time, by sharing the same set of tools with designers and
animators.

Control
~~~~~~~

The basic node for UI elements is :ref:`Control <class_Control>`
(sometimes called "Widget" or "Box" in other toolkits). Every node that
provides user interface functionality descends from it.

When controls are put in a scene tree as a child of another control,
its coordinates (position, size) are always relative to the parent.
This sets the basis for editing complex user interfaces quickly and
visually.

Input and drawing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Controls receive input events by means of the
:ref:`Control._input_event() <class_Control__input_event>`
callback. Only one control, the one in focus, will receive
keyboard/joypad events (see
:ref:`Control.set_focus_mode() <class_Control_set_focus_mode>`
and :ref:`Control.grab_focus() <class_Control_grab_focus>`).

Mouse motion events are received by the control directly below the mouse
pointer. When a control receives a mouse button pressed event, all
subsequent motion events are received by the pressed control until that
button is released, even if the pointer moves outside the control
boundary.

Like any class that inherits from :ref:`CanvasItem <class_CanvasItem>`
(Control does), a :ref:`CanvasItem._draw() <class_CanvasItem__draw>`
callback will be received at the beginning and every time the control
needs to be redrawn (the programmer needs to call
:ref:`CanvasItem.update() <class_CanvasItem_update>`
to enqueue the CanvasItem for redraw). If the control is not visible
(yet another CanvasItem property), the control does not receive any
input.

In general though, the programmer does not need to deal with drawing and
input events directly when building UIs (that is more useful when
creating custom controls). Instead, controls emit different kinds of
signals with contextual information for when action occurs. For
example, a :ref:`Button <class_Button>` emits
a "pressed" signal when pressed, a :ref:`Slider <class_Slider>` will
emit a "value_changed" when dragged, etc.

Custom control mini tutorial
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before going into more depth, creating a custom control will be a good
way to get the picture on how controls works, as they are not as
complex as it might seem.

Additionally, even though Godot comes with dozens of controls for
different purposes, it happens often that it's easier to attain a
specific functionality by creating a new one.

To begin, create a single-node scene. The node is of type "Control" and
has a certain area of the screen in the 2D editor, like this:

.. image:: /img/singlecontrol.png

Add a script to that node, with the following code:

::

    extends Control

    var tapped=false

    func _draw():

        var r = Rect2( Vector2(), get_size() )
        if (tapped):
            draw_rect(r, Color(1,0,0) )
        else:
            draw_rect(r, Color(0,0,1) )

    func _input_event(ev):

        if (ev.type==InputEvent.MOUSE_BUTTON and ev.pressed):
            tapped=true
            update()

Then run the scene. When the rectangle is clicked/tapped, it will change
color from blue to red. That synergy between the events and the drawing
is pretty much how most controls work internally.

.. image:: /img/ctrl_normal.png

.. image:: /img/ctrl_tapped.png

UI complexity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As mentioned before, Godot includes dozens of controls ready for use
in a user interface. Such controls are divided in two categories. The
first is a small set of controls that work well for creating most game
user interfaces. The second (and most controls are of this type) are
meant for complex user interfaces and uniform skinning through styles. A
description is presented as follows to help understand which one should
be used in which case.

Simplified UI controls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This set of controls is enough for most games, where complex
interactions or ways to present information are not necessary. They can
be skinned easily with regular textures.

-  :ref:`Label <class_Label>`: Node used for showing text.
-  :ref:`TextureFrame <class_TextureFrame>`: Displays a single texture,
   which can be scaled or kept fixed.
-  :ref:`TextureButton <class_TextureButton>`: Displays a simple textured
   button, states such as pressed, hover, disabled, etc. can be set.
-  :ref:`TextureProgress <class_TextureProgress>`: Displays a single
   textured progress bar.

Additionally, re-positioning of controls is most efficiently done with
anchors in this case (see the :ref:`doc_size_and_anchors` tutorial for more
information).

In any case, it will happen often that even for simple games, more
complex UI behaviors are required. An example of this is a scrolling
list of elements (for a high score table, for example), which needs a
:ref:`ScrollContainer <class_ScrollContainer>`
and a :ref:`VBoxContainer <class_VBoxContainer>`.
These kind of more advanced controls can be mixed with the regular ones
seamlessly (they are all controls after all).

Complex UI controls
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the controls (and there are dozens of them!) are meant for
another set of scenarios, most commonly:

-  Games that require complex UIs, such as PC RPGs, MMOs, strategy,
   sims, etc.
-  Creating custom development tools to speed up content creation.
-  Creating Godot Editor Plugins, to extend the engine functionality.

Re-positioning controls for these kind of interfaces is more commonly
done with containers (see the :ref:`doc_size_and_anchors` tutorial for more
information).
