How can I get a UI Canvas to hide/appear on 'esc' button press?

Questions & Answers
1

I’ve been tackling with this script for a while and I don’t have much understanding of C# so that probably doesn’t help…

Still, this is the script I have so far (Has undergone MANY changes since the original, which made more sense but still didn’t work, so please excuse any painfully obvious problems with the script.)

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class MenuAppearScript : MonoBehaviour
{

    

    void Update()
    {
       
        if (Input.GetKeyDown("escape"))
        {
            GameObject.MenuCanvas = SetActive(true) ;
            }
        }
    }

Also, I’m using the Canvas that comes with 4.6.

3

Put this script on some other GameObject in the scene. I like to use an input manager or the canvas.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;
 
public class MenuAppearScript : MonoBehaviour {
 
    public GameObject menu; // Assign in inspector
    private bool isShowing;

    void Update() {
        if (Input.GetKeyDown("escape")) {
            isShowing = !isShowing;
            menu.SetActive(isShowing);
        }
    }
}
2

Add a CanvasGroup to the Canvas if not there already and then set the Alpha to 0 (for invisible) or 1 (for visible), Also set the Interactive and BlocksRaycast false (when invisible) and true if visible.

Note the Alpha is a float so you can fade in or out of being visible if you want.

see CanvasGroups

EDIT:

Easiest way is to create a public CanvasGroup so…

public CanvasGroup myCanvasGroup;

and reference that as myCanvasGroup.Alpha = x;

But you also need using reference at the top of the script:

using UnityEngine.UI;

Then in the inspector when the myCanvasGroup appears and is empty drag the canvas onto it.

I’m doing this in my head as I don’t currently have access to Unity, it should work but may contain typos!

Good luck.

5

I know this is an old question, but it kept coming up in my search and I found a much better solution that I will share for reference.

This solution is in C# and the script needs to be attached to the canvas GameObject itself. It uses .enabled which is essentially ticking on and off the checkbox next to the name in the inspector panel.

MenuToggle.cs:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class MenuToggle : MonoBehaviour {
	private Canvas CanvasObject; // Assign in inspector

	void Start()
	{
		CanvasObject = GetComponent<Canvas> ();
	}

	void Update() 
	{
		if (Input.GetKeyUp(KeyCode.Escape)) 
		{
			CanvasObject.enabled = !CanvasObject.enabled;
		}
	}
}

With .SetActive I was having to press the key multiple times as the OP mentioned in the comments to the other solution.

4

I guess this should work.

//makes canvas visible by default

private bool canvasOn = true;
void Update()
{
 if(Input.GetKeyDown("escape"))
 {
//if canvas is visible you have to hide it
   if(canvasOn)
    canvasOn = false;
    canvas.enabled = false;
  }
   else
   {
    canvasOn = true;
    canvas.enabled = true;
   }
 }
}