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[Deviator]

So I was wondering if someone can help me on my quest - "to find a good GUI for XNA"
I'm making 2d rpg/tactics

I can't define my "needs parameter" for GUI, but I think that simplicity would be the main factor, but I don't know....
I would need standard Menus, and inventory window, maybe something more complicated like characters skill tree
Also game planned to be released only on windows platforms, I don't actually need xbox or mobile.

Could you please advice something or comment?  

[Darren_D_Daley]

Well the best way to deal with this is to look at other games in the genre dissect what you feel works or not and then use that, obviously adjusting it to your game.

But lucky for you the good people over at Microsoft also supplied a decent RPG example that you can work off, which can also includes the full source code  It's not the best example in the world (in fact of what I played it's mediocre as hell) but you can modify to your
needs.

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/roleplaying_game

[RudyTheDev]

Are you asking for a C# XNA specific code and art assets for an RPG/Tactics-style GUI? Because that is a mighty specific request and I don't think you will find anything readily available that wouldn't need a lot of modification. You could always try to find an open source RPG/Tactics game.

You probably aren't looking for criticism, but -- as a general observation -- if you are designing your GUI before you know what you need in your GUI, you are probably doing it the wrong way.

[Deviator]

Monkey_D_Daley,
thank you very much, I missed that one on my google search, game seems to be compiling and working.
From what I can say it is an XBOX game, which does not use mouse, and I have sneaky suspicion that mouse does not implemented 

RudyTheDev,
Yes I'm looking for C# XNA user interface and I understand that without modifications it won't be possible to copy-paste them
And no, I don't need the "images"/art assets for GUI, I can find plenty of them myself it's not a character arts after all, so it's not the priority.

Priority for UI/controls is the reliability (no bugs) and quality (event handlers) which usually comes with easy to use experience, like official microsoft/not_a_free_source products.

Guys,
so far I found:
1) Windows controls )), it seems that it is possible to use XNA inside the Windows, which is uber cool from my perspective. But I afraid about unknown consequences, like maybe some restrictions from XNA or whatever can be, just inner feeling about this (definitely won't be working on XBOX and mobile but it is ok). It looks to good to be true. Since it has all the EVENTS handlers, and well it's a mighty windows controls after all...
http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/winforms_series_1
2) Awesomium controls. Google tells me that this is popular stuff but can't find any tutorials and mainly I can't find any person who can claim to have good experience with it, only two 20 seconds video of some guy tells that it works :]
http://awesomium.com/download/

[nikki]

I am no expert but I supose one of the questions you have to ask yourself (and us)
is : "Do I want the native look, or do i want a custom look for my game ui ?"

[starsrift]

And no, I don't need the "images"/art assets for GUI, I can find plenty of them myself it's not a character arts after all, so it's not the priority.

Assets for the GUI are the sticking point. There's no GUI without the Graphics. Everything else is just handling input.

Priority for UI/controls is the reliability (no bugs) and quality (event handlers) which usually comes with easy to use experience, like official microsoft/not_a_free_source products.

If you don't know how to handle input and events, I would strongly suggest making a much smaller game first, to exercise your learning.

My first mouse input game was tic tac toe, for example. The GUI was simple, and it taught me a lot.

[Deviator]

"Do I want the native look, or do i want a custom look for my game ui ?"

That is a philosophical question itself
and I can't tell "what I want" while I don't know what options do I posses...
I think itamization menu with drag-and-drop would be the edge of what I want, but how fancy I don't know...

If you don't know how to handle input and events, I would strongly suggest making a much smaller game first, to exercise your learning.

Experience in writing own event handlers or mouse pointer definition is not an issue I think. And "good" GUI by default should already contain such things, or I'm missing the point then.

Right now I'm eagerly looking to "windows forms". I think changing a "background" of windows forms and couple of fonts for buttons here and there could save a tremendous amount of time. At least I hope that this will look "decent" 

But this is just my theoretical thoughts.

[nikki]

"Do I want the native look, or do i want a custom look for my game ui ?"

That is a philosophical question itself
and I can't tell "what I want" while I don't know what options do I posses...
I think itamization menu with drag-and-drop would be the edge of what I want, but how fancy I don't know...

mmm well let's get practical then, with images..
native :




custom:

[Deviator]

mmm well let's get practical then, with images..

yes indeed native is not an option.

Besides this is a "native windows forms"
And here comes the idea of using windows forms but with specif backgrounds and couple of additional images.

Also I asked my very advanced .NET friend and he told me that there is a WPF - windows Presentation Foundation.
Which is basically a windows forms but with shiny graphical effects.

[rivon]

I'm not really sure that you can use WPF in XNA, but even if you can, the shiny graphical effects are done really hard and complicated.
Just creating a simple GUI in WPF is a simple drag and drop in VS but the moment you want to tweak the colors and effects it starts to get ugly. Expression Blend is the fucking worst piece of software I ever had to work with. Completely unintuitive.

[Darren_D_Daley]

Probably not the best idea to mix technologies inside a game anyway you really just need to look into mouse picking in the XNA environment.

You could start from here
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4524710/xna-2d-mouse-picking

Also you can look at 3D examples and figure out the best way to modify them

[Deviator]

Thanks for the warning, rivon 
From what I understood it is possible to use WPF inside the XNA, takes some workarounds but they are minimal, theoretically...

Probably not the best idea to mix technologies inside a game anyway

yes, that could come with a hidden price. But making you own controls definitely comes with time consuming work. And the worst of all custom home made "effects" will be looking like crap.

[nikki]

another upfront question you could ask yourself is "what gui widgets do I need?"

you say 'standard Menus, and inventory window, maybe something more complicated like characters skill tree' but what does that mean in gui sense?

break it down in actual gui elements.
don't be afraid of using paper $ pen in this process.

then you can make a more informed choice, sure It be nice if there was a framework that wouldn't get in your way and fixes all your needs, but as it stands you don't know what you need.

[Gregg Williams]

If you plan on using XNA to publish to the Xbox, you won't be using WinForms controls, or WPF, custom is the only route available.

[Deviator]

another upfront question you could ask yourself is "what gui widgets do I need?"

you say 'standard Menus, and inventory window, maybe something more complicated like characters skill tree' but what does that mean in gui sense?

break it down in actual gui elements.
don't be afraid of using paper $ pen in this process.

then you can make a more informed choice, sure It be nice if there was a framework that wouldn't get in your way and fixes all your needs, but as it stands you don't know what you need.

From my perspective inventory or skill controls which is kinda complicated from the first look, actually consists from simple buttons and panels. Theoretically all can be solved via same WPF controls with proper effects and custom control fonts.

Therefore I make conclusions that:
a) If I make own buttons - they looks like win 3.1 buttons and I'm wasting tremendous time on it.
b) If I copy-paste some stylish controls and simply change the color or background, they will look much more appealing and I'm save time.

Surely I understand that to make a "skill tree control" I will need logic behind it, but that's it, just drop 2 buttons 3 images and it is ready. But without special "effects" it will be ugly one. And making effects costs time, a lot of time...

If you plan on using XNA to publish to the Xbox, you won't be using WinForms controls, or WPF, custom is the only route available.

Yes it seems that using win forms won't work on Xbox or Mac. Actually that is my primary fears right now. Xbox is not a priority, but Mac would be very nice to have, and for this matter I'm investigation "monogame" thing, lovely advised me in another thread.

[nikki]

so you reckon you need
-buttons
-panels (what is 'panel'? movable/draggable or static or window with close button ?)

that's very good, especcialy since that's not alot.

I don't understand your conclusions though :
a) If you draw your own images (possibly with text) as buttons why will that look like win3.1?
b) what will you copy paste ? the xaml code ? taking screenshots ?
b2) why will that be faster then a) ?


I can imagine the native windows/directX gui library will not work on a mac
monogame is just an opensource xna translation to go on top of mono (opensource c#) so probably that will use the gtk / cocoa way of building native UI.

I believe you ought to think some more about it all and try to tell me what a  "skill tree control" is (If i google it i don't find anything/ find many differnt things)
If you really only need a button and a panel (container) there is no good reason to use some awfull framework for that. Especcialy not if it will give you headaches (with xbox, multiplatform, complex editors, strange non xna stuff, etc etc) Seeing that most gui frameworks are intented for native (100% same as your OS) aplication development.

if you for example try
https://www.youtube.com/results?q=xna+button
or
https://www.google.nl/search?q=xna+button

there are dozens of easy tutorials for building main menu's, buttons etc in xna

[Deviator]

I don't understand your conclusions though :
a) If you draw your own images (possibly with text) as buttons why will that look like win3.1?
b) what will you copy paste ? the xaml code ? taking screenshots ?
b2) why will that be faster then a) ?

The large difference between "my custom" button and lets say WPF (fancy windows controls) would be in the effect aspect. I personally can't make effects like Glowing or Shade effect:

Need to mention that the effects are Dynamic - it shines and gloving, and the animation is actually moving.
And this is already done for me!
Also I can switch those effects and suite my style of buttons. But if they where custom I need to rewrite all the code myself
And what if I will need a combo box, or a list box (not a clumsy one, but really good as a windows one), it's a 1 week of work just to create a single list box, which is unhealthy for the project itself.

And as you mentioned Mac won't support windows native controls which gives a large drawback for the idea of using windows controls. But again I'm more then confused right now since I don't know Mac vs PC market figures. And maybe I don't need Mac support at all.

monogame is just an opensource xna translation to go on top of mono (opensource c#) so probably that will use the gtk / cocoa way of building native UI.

Could you please comment this bit more, since I'm decided on whether use the monogame or not. Monogame claims to be able to port XNA written game to Windows 8 (it looks like XNA won't be working on win 8 without monogame)