GuiManager is back

Posted on August 27, 2008

Maybe I'm wrong, but there still seems to be a lack of a killer 2D GUI solution in the XNA community, so here's my proposal. You can download a sample project by clicking on the GuiManager link in the Projects section on your left. XNA Framework 3.0 required.

To use the GuiManager, you first need to reference GUIManager30.dll in your project; you'll also need to add a reference to XMLPipeline30.dll to the references for the Content Pipeline (this is a custom extension to the content pipeline which the GUIManager uses to read its XML config files -- it basically reads and writes encrypted XMLs to disk, so that no one can modify your GUI configuration by editing config files).

After doing that, you'll need to define which elements you want in your GUI by compiling an XML file; you'll find all currently available elements in the Sample. Please note the in this early release the the XML tags inside each GUI element (e.g. inside a section) must be written in the same exact order in which they appear in the sample. This will be soon fixed by looking for tags by name and not by order.

You can also add elements programatically, if you want to. Some things (like event handlers) must be added programatically (the Sample shows how).

You also need to add gui_default_elems.png and gui_default_elems_desc.xml to your project, as they contain the definitions and the textures for GUI elements (like checkboxes). Be sure to edit gui_default_elems_desc.xml so that it points to the correct path of gui_default_elems.png in your project.

TIP: You can easily create a button by adding an event handler for mouse clicks to a TextureQuad or to an AnimatedTextureQuad.

Currently available events are:

public delegate void OnMouseClickMethod(GUIComponent sender);
public delegate void OnMouseOverMethod(GUIComponent sender);
public delegate void OnMouseInMethod(GUIComponent sender);
public delegate void OnMouseOutMethod(GUIComponent sender);
public delegate void OnUpdateMethod(GUIComponent sender);

public enum AnimationType
{
NoAnimation = 0,
SingleLeftToRight = 1,
SingleRightToLeft = 2,
RollingContinuous = 3,
AlternatingContinuous = 4,
}

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Jonathan Dixon (August 27, 2008 @ 12:07)

Hi, Thanks for this, is there any chance you could post some screenshots ?

THanks

Francesco (August 27, 2008 @ 16:07)

Just posted one :)

Bart S. (March 09, 2009 @ 19:03)

Sounds interesting, but I still don't see a screenshot, and the dll isn't in the zip file.

A google search only shows this page again, so is there any chance you could update this?

Francesco (March 20, 2009 @ 10:59)

I'll add the DLL inside the ZIP, which currently only contains the source files. If you browse my posts on the blog (use the calendar on the left), you'll see a screenshot depicting a hot air balloon: all the graphics is managed via the GuiManager30 library.