Menu made of gameobjects C#

Archived Forums Questions & Answers
1

Hallo
I was trying to make a menu where my buttons will be 3D object.
Right now all the code is supposed to do is cycle trough the 3 menu objects and move them. (visualize selection)

If I put only 2 buttons in the script it works, however with all 3 of them help and options always gets skipped and it seems that the input is not register the right way.

I can’t figure out why it works with 2 buttons but not all 3.
Thanks in advance.

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Menu : MonoBehaviour {


	public GameObject menuNewGame;
	public GameObject menuContinue;
	public GameObject menuHelpOptions;
	public float rSpeed;
	public float menuMoveSpeed;
	public bool selectNewGame;
	public bool selectContinue;
	public bool selectHelpOptions;


	
	// Update is called once per frame
	void Update () 
	{
	
		var wasUpHit = Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.UpArrow);
		var wasDownHit = Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.DownArrow);
		var wasLeftHit = Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.LeftArrow);
		var wasRightHit = Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.RightArrow);



		if(selectNewGame == true)
		{
			selectContinue = false;
			selectHelpOptions = false;

			//menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.5f);

			menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,0.74f,-6.5f);
			//menuNewGame.transform.Translate(0f,0f,-0.14f);

			if(selectNewGame == true && wasDownHit == true)
			{
				selectContinue = true;
				//selectHelpOptions =false;
				//selectNewGame = false;
			}
			if(selectNewGame == true && wasUpHit == true)
			{
				selectHelpOptions =true;
				//selectContinue = false;
				//selectNewGame = false;
			}

			
		}

		if(selectContinue == true)
		{
			selectNewGame = false;
			selectHelpOptions =false;

			//menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.5f);
			menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,0.1f,-6.5f);

			
			if(selectContinue == true && wasDownHit == true)
			{
				selectHelpOptions =true;
				//selectNewGame = false;
				//selectContinue = false;
			}

			if(selectContinue == true && wasUpHit == true)
			{
				selectNewGame = true;
				//selectHelpOptions =false;
				//selectContinue = false;
			}


		}

		if(selectHelpOptions == true)
		{
			selectNewGame = false;
			selectContinue = false;

			//menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.5f);
			menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,-0.53f,-6.5f);


			
			if(selectHelpOptions == true && wasUpHit == true)
			{
				selectContinue = true;
				//selectNewGame = false;
				//selectHelpOptions =false;
			}
			if(selectHelpOptions == true && wasDownHit == true)
			{
				selectNewGame = true;
				//selectContinue = false;
				//selectHelpOptions =false;

			}

		}




		if(selectNewGame == false)
		{
			//menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.35f);
			menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,0.74f,-6.35f);

		}

		if(selectContinue == false)
		{
			//menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.35f);
			menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,0.1f,-6.35f);

		}

		if(selectHelpOptions == false)
		{
			//menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3 (transform.position.x,transform.position.y,-6.35f);
			menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3 (-4.78f,-0.53f,-6.35f);

		}


	}
}
2

If you need to learn about programming then please go through some scripting tutorials, i.e…

Suppose when you reach line 79 you have set selectHelpOptions = true due to wasXHit=true. Then you still have to run lines 79-101 which causes selectHelpOptions to be set to not true. To avoid doing so you would normally use if/else if/else instead of 3 consecutive ifs.

However your code could be better written if you used enumerators, switch statements, and by using multiple methods.

Enums

You are using 3 variables, selectNewGame, selectContinue, and selectHelpOptions to represent 1 value: the selected button. Instead you can use an enumerator. Declaring an enumerator is done like so:

public enum MainMenuButton
{
        NewGame, Continue, HelpOptions, 
}

Then you can use the enumerator as a type

MainMenuButton selected=MainMenu.NewGame;

Switch

Like if/else, switch statements are a control mechanism. They can check a value and take an action depending on what the value is. For instance

switch(selected)
{
      case MainMenuButton.NewGame:
            selected=MainMenuButton.Continue;
            break;
      case MainMenuButton.Continue:
            selected=MainMenuButton.HelpOptions;
            break;
      case MainMenuButton.HelpOptions:
            selected=MainMenuButton.NewGame;
            break;
}

Multiple Methods
Your method is long which is a bad sign. Generally each method should do one thing and a long method is typically a sign that the method is doing multiple things. Of course there are long methods that do one thing but this is not one of them.

Your method decides what action to take based on the input, does those actions, then moves the transform. It would be better to make a method that decides what action to take based on the input, a method for each of those actions, and a method to move the transform. For instance:

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class Menu : MonoBehaviour
{
    public GameObject menuNewGame;
    public GameObject menuContinue;
    public GameObject menuHelpOptions;


    private enum MainMenuButton
    {
        NewGame, Continue, HelpOptions,
    }

    MainMenuButton selected;

    void Start()
    {
        selected = MainMenuButton.NewGame;
        UpdateDisplay();
    }

    void Update()
    {
        if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.UpArrow))
        {
            MoveUp();
            UpdateDisplay();
        }

        if (Input.GetKeyDown(KeyCode.DownArrow))
        {
            MoveDown();
            UpdateDisplay();
        }
    }

    private void MoveDown()
    {
        switch (selected)
        {
            case MainMenuButton.NewGame:
                selected = MainMenuButton.Continue;
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.Continue:
                selected = MainMenuButton.HelpOptions;
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.HelpOptions:
                selected = MainMenuButton.NewGame;
                break;
        }
    }

    private void MoveUp()
    {
        switch (selected)
        {
            case MainMenuButton.NewGame:
                selected = MainMenuButton.HelpOptions;
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.Continue:
                selected = MainMenuButton.NewGame;
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.HelpOptions:
                selected = MainMenuButton.Continue;
                break;
        }
    }

    private void UpdateDisplay()
    {
        switch (selected)
        {
            case MainMenuButton.NewGame:
                menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.74f, -6.5f);
                menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.1f, -6.35f);
                menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, -0.53f, -6.35f);
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.Continue:
                menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.74f, -6.35f);
                menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.1f, -6.5f);
                menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, -0.53f, -6.35f);
                break;
            case MainMenuButton.HelpOptions:
                menuNewGame.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.74f, -6.35f);
                menuContinue.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, 0.1f, -6.35f);
                menuHelpOptions.transform.position = new Vector3(-4.78f, -0.53f, -6.5f);
                break;
        }
    }
}
3

The Problem

In short, your code is falling through because you aren’t using if-else. You are setting a variable, and then using that variable with the result you just set. And this happens multiple times.

  • If you 'selectNewGame; and then hit
    down, you will set ‘selectContinue.’

    Then you immediately fall through to
    ‘selectContinue’.

    Then from there, since downWasHit is
    true, and selectcontinue is true, you
    automatically select Help Options.

The fix:

Use If-Else instead of just If. If should not be used if you are comparing the same variable, and the variable changes values often, unless that is intended functionality.

If this is still not working for you then let us know.