How to wait between instructions, for keypress for example, inside a method

[JimWebs]

I’ve been using Unity for about two weeks (almost) and quite new to C#. I suppose I’m what you would call a newbie. So this may seem like a really stupid question:

I’d like to know how to wait between instructions, for keypress for example, inside a method. I don’t see any way to do this except in coroutines or update. But even if I use a coroutine, it will only wait for keypress simultaneously while running the method, so it still won’t wait in the method and the same with update.

Let’s say I want to show text on the screen and wait for the user to read it and click the mouse before showing the next page and so on…

public void Someroutines()
{
  Routine1();
  waithereforinput
  Routine2();
  waithereforinput
  Routine3();
}

If I use a coroutine for waithereforinput, it will not hold up the flow of the instructions in the method and neither will update.

[bugfinders]

correct, couroutines are a little like having a pal and sending them off to do something. you get to keep doing what you need. Depending on your input and what exactly you need, you that whole list to the coroutine so yield while input1 not met, yield while input2 not met etc… or, you do routine 1 i dunno set an int to 1 as you did stage 1. then when an input happens call the next routine in the list., while setting the int to 2 etc.

[Kurt-Dekker]

If this is just canned (eg, the same every time), make an animation and be done with it. You only need code in order to kick it off and even that can be automatic at scene load.

Otherwise…

Coroutines in a nutshell:

Destroying the object then restarting the scene

Hey Epoch, here’s how it goes down. A coroutine is just an IEnumerator object, and you make one by just calling a coroutine. When you do that, nothing happens. It’s like a water pump that needs to have its crank pumped, but nobody is pumping it so it sits there and does nothing. In Unity there’s a special agreement: if you hand that IEnumerator object into StartCoroutine(), which is a method belonging to the object where that StartCoroutine() call is located, what Unity does is starts “pumpin…

Proper way to stop coroutine?

Coroutines are an IEnumerator object. They have their own internal state. It’s different from just calling InvokeRepeating(), which would restart a fresh function call each time. Here is ALL you need to know about coroutines in Unity: they are an IEnumerator, also known in some languages as a Generator. It is an object with a .MoveNext() method on it that “yields” the next thing with each subsequent call. That is what you create by calling an IEnumerator: you create the object, you do NOTHIN…

Splitting up larger tasks in coroutines:

Best Way to Split a Long-Running Function So it's Non-Blocking?

Technically, yeah, there’s always a way. But in practice, in the general sense it can get really hairy. Also, in the particular case of adding lots of GameObjects, I know they’re not linear: last I checked, adding 1000 GameObjects is WAY more than 10x slower than adding 100 Gameobjects, I presume due to inefficiencies in newly-added stuff, not sure/ No way to tell with a closed-source engine like Unity. Trying to tie into system timers and judge how long things have taken so far will get you …

Coroutines are NOT always an appropriate solution: know when to use them!

“Why not simply stop having so many coroutines ffs.” - orionsyndrome on Unity3D forums

Things to check before starting a coroutine?

The main thing to check before calling / making a coroutine is to ask yourself, “Does this even need to be a coroutine?” Generally, if your design requires you to call StopCoroutine(), then don’t make it a coroutine. If you just need something to happen a bit later, this is a more-robust approach: https://gist.github.com/kurtdekker/0da9a9721c15bd3af1d2ced0a367e24e If you’re flipping from one value to another, such as fading in, fading out, changing speeds slowly, etc., coroutines are an AW…

Heartbeat courutine fx

There’s never a need. As @PraetorBlue pointed out in a recent post of his, nobody NEEDS coroutines. They do solve a certain class of problem nicely however, primarily problems of sequencing a set of data or events to happen. Coroutines CAN be interrupted and restarted but doing so exponentially increases your chance of a bug, negating a lot of their inherent benefits. A lot of human behaviors are good coroutines: “Go take a shower.” So that breaks down to: get undressed start the shower …

Our very own Bunny83 has also provided a Coroutine Crash Course:

Coroutines IEnumerator not working as expected

I’m kinda suprised that until now nobody has asked a question like this. Even though I have explained what a coroutine actually is several times in other questions it just shows that there is still quite a misunderstanding what a coroutine actually is. Lets just step back for a moment. Unity implements coroutines by utilizing a C# feature called “iterator blocks” or iterator methods (which are more generally known as Generator methods). C# ships with two relevant interfaces (IEnu…

[PraetorBlue]

@JimWebs

I’ve been using Unity for about two weeks (almost) and quite new to C#. I suppose I’m what you would call a newbie. So this may seem like a really stupid question:
I’d like to know how to wait between instructions, for keypress for example, inside a method. I don’t see any way to do this except in coroutines or update. But even if I use a coroutine, it will only wait for keypress simultaneously while running the method, so it still won’t wait in the method and the same with update.

Let’s say I want to show text on the screen and wait for the user to read it and click the mouse before showing the next page and so on…
public void Someroutines()
{
Routine1();
waithereforinput
Routine2();
waithereforinput
Routine3();
}
If I use a coroutine for waithereforinput, it will not hold up the flow of the instructions in the method and neither will update.

If you want to wait for things, use a coroutine! This holds for waiting for other coroutines too.

public IEnumerator Someroutines()
{
  yield return StartCoroutine(Routine1());
  yield return new WaitUntil(() => Input.anyKeyDown));
  yield return StartCoroutine(Routine2());
  yield return new WaitUntil(() => Input.anyKeyDown));
  yield return StartCoroutine(Routine3());
}

[zulo3d]

    void Update()
    {
        if (Input.anyKeyDown)
        {
            Invoke("Routine"+f,0);
            f++;
        }
    }

[JimWebs]

@zulo3d

    void Update()
    {
        if (Input.anyKeyDown)
        {
            Invoke("Routine"+f,0);
            f++;
        }
    }

Thanks. In the end, I did something similar, but problem I have is detecting whether mouseclick was on a button or just general mouseclick to proceed with next step.

[JimWebs]

Thanks for all the replies.

[zulo3d]

@JimWebs

Thanks. In the end, I did something similar, but problem I have is detecting whether mouseclick was on a button or just general mouseclick to proceed with next step.

How you handle this will depend on which input system you’re using. The input systems are generally event driven and so it’s easy to know if the cursor is over a particular button but not so easy to know if the cursor isn’t over any buttons at all.

It may be best to just add a ‘continue’ button. Or if all your buttons are around the edges of the screen then perhaps you can detect if the user has clicked away from the screen edges and then continue.