Better pattern for create UI elements

Unity Engine
,
1

Hello, I am displaying a UI when I click on a building.
Each building produces different items, what items can be produced are displayed on the UI.
I’ve made it so that in the GameObject list, I store the UI panel object with the object.
In OnEnable I’m destroy elements of this list and creating a new for given building. I’m not sure if this is the right way, if not I would ask for a better pattern.

Building class:

public class Building : MonoBehaviour
{
    public List<Item> itemsToCraft = new List<Item>();
   
    private void OnMouseDown()
    {
        Debug.Log("Clicked building " + gameObject);
       
        UIManager.Instance.ShowBuildingUI();
        UIManager.Instance._buildingUI.Init(itemsToCraft);
    }
}

BuildingUI class:

public class BuildingUI : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private GameObject itemsToCraftContainer;
    [SerializeField] private GameObject itemToCraftPrefab;

    private List<GameObject> createdPanels;
    private List<Item> _items;
   
    public void Init(List<Item> items)
    {
        _items = items;
        createdPanels = new List<GameObject>();

        CreatePanels();
    }
   
    private void OnEnable()
    {
        if (_items != null)
            CreatePanels();
    }

    private void CreatePanels()
    {
        if (createdPanels != null)
        {
            foreach (GameObject createdPanel in createdPanels)
                Destroy(createdPanel);
           
            createdPanels.Clear();
        }
       
        foreach (Item item in _items)
        {
            GameObject itemToCraftObject = Instantiate(itemToCraftPrefab, itemsToCraftContainer.transform);
            itemToCraftObject.GetComponent<ItemCraftUI>().Init(item.ItemName);
            createdPanels.Add(itemToCraftObject);
        }
    }
}

ItemCraftUI:

public class ItemCraftUI : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private Text itemNametext;
   
    public void Init(string itemName)
    {
        itemNametext.text = itemName;
    }
}
2

Without explaining to much overhead,

in terms of having many “Buildings” lets say, displaying different informations, usually this happens in RTS games,
you can have one single UI Element with different fields which will get filled out.

by having an Interface with a function which passes the Object to the UI, that way you can have a dynamic UI displaying behaviour.

Hope you can follow me, if not i will try to take later a bit more and explain a bit further and detailed

3

I think I need more explain, with example will be nice.

4

Your best bet is always to start with good tutorials for UI, or even perhaps tutorials for exactly the kind of game you’re making, something where you build buildings.

Once you understand the elements involved, you should be able to bring them up in your existing game.

How to do tutorials properly, two (2) simple steps to success:

Step 1. Follow the tutorial and do every single step of the tutorial 100% precisely the way it is shown. Even the slightest deviation (even a single character!) generally ends in disaster. That’s how software engineering works. Every step must be taken, every single letter must be spelled, capitalized, punctuated and spaced (or not spaced) properly, literally NOTHING can be omitted or skipped.

Fortunately this is the easiest part to get right: Be a robot. Don’t make any mistakes.
BE PERFECT IN EVERYTHING YOU DO HERE!!

If you get any errors, learn how to read the error code and fix your error. Google is your friend here. Do NOT continue until you fix your error. Your error will probably be somewhere near the parenthesis numbers (line and character position) in the file. It is almost CERTAINLY your typo causing the error, so look again and fix it.

Step 2. Go back and work through every part of the tutorial again, and this time explain it to your doggie. See how I am doing that in my avatar picture? If you have no dog, explain it to your house plant. If you are unable to explain any part of it, STOP. DO NOT PROCEED. Now go learn how that part works. Read the documentation on the functions involved. Go back to the tutorial and try to figure out WHY they did that. This is the part that takes a LOT of time when you are new. It might take days or weeks to work through a single 5-minute tutorial. Stick with it. You will learn.

Step 2 is the part everybody seems to miss. Without Step 2 you are simply a code-typing monkey and outside of the specific tutorial you did, you will be completely lost. If you want to learn, you MUST do Step 2.

Of course, all this presupposes no errors in the tutorial. For certain tutorial makers (like Unity, Brackeys, Imphenzia, Sebastian Lague) this is usually the case. For some other less-well-known content creators, this is less true. Read the comments on the video: did anyone have issues like you did? If there’s an error, you will NEVER be the first guy to find it.

Beyond that, Step 3, 4, 5 and 6 become easy because you already understand!