Unity UI features and ORK
Forum › ORK Support
My question is, how can I use the menu development outside of ORK and native to Unity while still using ORK to program functionality into the menus? Below is a rant and explanation, at some length, as to what I am currently confused, befuddled, or might simply be completely off base about. Also remember that I love ORK, and Gil, your the best for making this thing so awesome!
I am new to ORK. I preface with this because I am also new to Unity 5 and the UI changes from 4.6. I am also an artist. If the world depended on me writing original code we would all be doomed.
When I first got unity 5 I started diving into the new UI. After only a couple of hours I have found it to be intuitive and slick, at least from an artists perspective. After spending two days with the ORK framework I have fallen in love as well as found a deep sense of dread whenever I have to do anything art related. As if the endeavor is some great feat to be overcome.
As I mentioned before about my lack of coding ability, I purchased ORK for it's resoundingly elegant way it can make even someone lacking in coding prowess such as myself appear to be an all inclusive developer while only being one mere human being. This is where ORK, from my point of view, is so effective. However, and this is the shoe dropping, whenever I try to use the built in GUI stuff or follow tutorials or just use my own art in a way that Unity has ingrained in me from past personal or professional projects ORK will swiftly kick me in the pants. The two days I mentioned were in fact two 16 hour days while ORK deleted my entire UI setup after hitting the play button. This was such a bother due to the necessity of having a UI that would scale with the players aspect ratio and resolutions. I eventually gave up and just started using the Legacy GUI because the new UI tuts were just so lacking. http://forum.orkframework.com/discussion/1803/new-gui-in-depth/p1 linking because I believe this is sorely needed. Only because I hate to lose did I eventually return and find a work around that didn't delete my canvas scripts or remove my images from the panel and image sub objects.
My issue, now that the rant is over, is or might just be with the wording and the workflow for building a UI in ORK using Unity's new UI system. When I am outside of ORK I am able to build a UI layout with images and buttons and padding and it all looks awesome. It doesn't do much but it looks like what I designed. When I attempt to edit the GUI I get a grid. I can't seem to zoom out the grid view in the GUI editor so I can get an overall "feel" for asset placement, nor have I found a way to access the canvas and sub objects of the canvas created at run-time because nothing appears to be called canvas. Or panel. Or header. Or image. Or anything remotely resembling the terminology Unity uses when creating a UI asset for a menu. You provide a coordinates system which is great, except that I have never really understood how to use it as effectively as just moving something until it appears right. That is more a personal issue except that the GUI editor allows you to do that but without it allowing you to view the whole area with a zoom in and out, that may or may not be there. Then while viewing what is in the GUI editor things appear to just be these grey boxes that do not correspond with the created at run-time UI. An example might be the name box and the choice buttons. I already named the choice buttons continue and new game, however in the editor they appear as choice 0 and choice 1. Also, I didn't define the name box and there is one there.
There is also a requirement for prefabs when using the new UI system through ORK. Making a canvas a prefab creates a run-time error for mismatched even systems. Since I haven't discovered a way to make a canvas outside of the hierarchy this is kind of an issue. I may just be missing something here but I can't seem to find a work around for this and still stay in ORK.
I am new to ORK. I preface with this because I am also new to Unity 5 and the UI changes from 4.6. I am also an artist. If the world depended on me writing original code we would all be doomed.
When I first got unity 5 I started diving into the new UI. After only a couple of hours I have found it to be intuitive and slick, at least from an artists perspective. After spending two days with the ORK framework I have fallen in love as well as found a deep sense of dread whenever I have to do anything art related. As if the endeavor is some great feat to be overcome.
As I mentioned before about my lack of coding ability, I purchased ORK for it's resoundingly elegant way it can make even someone lacking in coding prowess such as myself appear to be an all inclusive developer while only being one mere human being. This is where ORK, from my point of view, is so effective. However, and this is the shoe dropping, whenever I try to use the built in GUI stuff or follow tutorials or just use my own art in a way that Unity has ingrained in me from past personal or professional projects ORK will swiftly kick me in the pants. The two days I mentioned were in fact two 16 hour days while ORK deleted my entire UI setup after hitting the play button. This was such a bother due to the necessity of having a UI that would scale with the players aspect ratio and resolutions. I eventually gave up and just started using the Legacy GUI because the new UI tuts were just so lacking. http://forum.orkframework.com/discussion/1803/new-gui-in-depth/p1 linking because I believe this is sorely needed. Only because I hate to lose did I eventually return and find a work around that didn't delete my canvas scripts or remove my images from the panel and image sub objects.
My issue, now that the rant is over, is or might just be with the wording and the workflow for building a UI in ORK using Unity's new UI system. When I am outside of ORK I am able to build a UI layout with images and buttons and padding and it all looks awesome. It doesn't do much but it looks like what I designed. When I attempt to edit the GUI I get a grid. I can't seem to zoom out the grid view in the GUI editor so I can get an overall "feel" for asset placement, nor have I found a way to access the canvas and sub objects of the canvas created at run-time because nothing appears to be called canvas. Or panel. Or header. Or image. Or anything remotely resembling the terminology Unity uses when creating a UI asset for a menu. You provide a coordinates system which is great, except that I have never really understood how to use it as effectively as just moving something until it appears right. That is more a personal issue except that the GUI editor allows you to do that but without it allowing you to view the whole area with a zoom in and out, that may or may not be there. Then while viewing what is in the GUI editor things appear to just be these grey boxes that do not correspond with the created at run-time UI. An example might be the name box and the choice buttons. I already named the choice buttons continue and new game, however in the editor they appear as choice 0 and choice 1. Also, I didn't define the name box and there is one there.
There is also a requirement for prefabs when using the new UI system through ORK. Making a canvas a prefab creates a run-time error for mismatched even systems. Since I haven't discovered a way to make a canvas outside of the hierarchy this is kind of an issue. I may just be missing something here but I can't seem to find a work around for this and still stay in ORK.
You will always fail at what you do not try.
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When using your own new UI canvas, it's probably best (if it's removed due to that behaviour) to use the legacy GUI with ORK.
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If you're creating a custom UI that should display ORK infos or start ORK functions, you'll need to write components that handle that for you, e.g. updating a text and pulling the info from ORK.
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