UI Manager

About

When we were working on Fishy Business I was getting tired of writing the same UI code over and over. So I decided to create a UI Manager that would handle all the UI in the game. After creating the system for the game I decided to make it more generic, so I could use it in future projects.

The system consists of 3 different scripts:

• ViewManager, responsible for managing all the views.
• View, a game view (e.g. hud, pause menu, etc.)
• ViewComponent, an element withing a game view (e.g. Money UI)

The View Manager is a system that manages the different views in the game. It handles transitions between different in-game screens and maintains a history for easy backtracking. You can open views by calling ShowView with either the view's type or a specific view instance. When using ShowView, you can choose the option to record the current view in the history stack, allowing for easy backwards navigation.

private readonly Stack<View> viewHistory = new();
private View activeView;
public void ShowView<T>(bool saveInHistory = true)
{
    foreach (View view in allViews)
    {
        if (view is not T)
            continue;
        if (activeView != null)
        {
            if (saveInHistory)
            {
                instance.viewHistory.Push(activeView);
            }
            activeView.Hide();
        }

        view.Show();
        activeView = view;
    }
}
                    

The View class is the base class for all views in the game. It contains methods for showing and hiding the view. Each view has a reference to all the components that need to be enabled when the view is shown. Let's say you have a money UI element, this element will be disabled when the view is hidden and enabled when the view is shown. This way you can re-use the same UI elements in different views.

[SerializeField] private ViewComponent[] viewComponents;
public virtual void Show()
    {
        gameObject.SetActive(true);
        ShowViewComponents();
    }

    public virtual void Hide()
    {
        gameObject.SetActive(false);
        HideViewComponents();
    }
                    

The ViewComponent class is the base class for all components that are part of a view. It contains methods for initializing, showing and hiding the component.

public abstract class ViewComponent : MonoBehaviour
{
    public virtual void Initialize() { }
    public abstract void Show();
    public abstract void Hide();
}