Unable to Move the Canvas or Change Any of the Transform Values - user-interface

I am using Unity 5 and I started to make a menu scene. When I made the canvas, all of values under the Rect Transform component are locked and it says "some values driven by Canvas." The only thing I can change is the z position when using the gizmo in the editor. I can't reset the position or anything. Why is this happening?

This means that the canvas's canvas component has it's render mode set to Screen space - overlay. This forces it to be the size of the screen. Change it to World Space and it will allow you to resize it and move it around.

Changing the Render mode is not an ideal solution; neither is Overlay mode the reason why this is happening at all. World Space is just a render mode that changes the way your whole UI behaves and would mean a whole different set up and a whole lot more work just to get a child UI object to move independently.
Here is the description of what World Space is for from the Unity site:
In this render mode, the Canvas will behave as any other object in the
scene. The size of the Canvas can be set manually using its Rect
Transform, and UI elements will render in front of or behind other
objects in the scene based on 3D placement. This is useful for UIs
that are meant to be a part of the world. This is also known as a
“diegetic interface”.
The Rect Transform usually gets locked because it is a child of another Canvas Object which controls its Transforms. The way to fix this is to overwrite it by adding a “Layout Element” component to it. From there you can configure it to work the way you like and it can have transforms independent of the Parent UI Object.
For full details, see this Unity support page: https://support.unity3d.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000179163-How-to-overwrite-Width-and-Height-values-that-are-driven-by-a-Layout-Group-in-runtime-

Canvas is depend on game tab in your window panel.
Adjust panel by use of close tab or resize panel or doc game panel.
It will help you make default 800 X 600 canvas.

Related

Misplaced UI made with UI in hololens emulator

I got a small problem and I can’t really find the source of it. I just created a Canvas and put a Panel in the top right corner. I got it to the right scale at 3: for the Hololens and loaded it up in the Holoemulator. The problem is that even though the panel is supposed to be in the corner, it is placed almost in the middle of the screen in the end.
Is there anything I can do to fix this or is there something I am missing?
If I need to provide more information then please tell me.
Could you double-check the [Render mode] of your Canvas? Is it set as World Space? In this render mode, the Canvas will behave as any other 3D object and will render in front of or behind other objects in the scene based on 3D placement in the scene. You need to adjust the position of the canvas from the perspective of the camera.
However, according to your post, it seems that you want to place UI elements on the screen rendered on top of the scene. If so, You should turn the [Render mode] to [Screen Space - Camera]. More information please see: Canvas

UI doesn't show up in #Screen tab in Unity 4.6

I have just upgraded Unity to version 4.6 and tried to create a button by Create -> UI -> Button.
However, this button doesn't show up in #Screen tab but it does in Game tab.
Please look at the screen shoot below:
Another question is: The default width and height when creating a new button is 160 x 30. When I change the source image with my own image button, I have to change the width and height parameters in rect transform. Is there any faster way to automatically obtain new width and height based on the image which I insert?
Thank you very much!
First, double click the button in your hierarchy and see that it indeed does not show in the Scene view, excluding any kind of zoom problem. (By the way, I'm assuming you mean "Scene" and not "Screen", right?) Things in different cameras or canvases might have very different scales but appear correctly in the Game view. I don't know how used you are to Unity, so I'm sorry if this sounds obvious. :)
Next, check the dropdown labeled "Layers" on top of Unity's editor, to the right of the Play, Pause and Step buttons. See if the layer of your button (which in this case is "UI") is visible. It should have an open eye icon next to it.
Regarding your other question, after dragging your sprite to the Image component, you can press the "Set Native Size" button, which will set the size of your object to the dimensions of your Sprite. Regarding the new UI, I think this is as automatic as it gets. Note that "Set Native Size" will only appear if your Image type is set to Simple (probably what you want) or Filled in the component.
I had the same problem before and here's a possible solution.
By default, the editor camera (Scene Tab) renders the World Space,
so your Canvas component's render mode should be set to "World Space".
The problem may only occur when you're trying to (or supposedly) render your UI in Screen Space - Overlay or Screen Space - Camera in the Canvas component.
So if you want to properly edit UI objects in the scene tab/window; set the Canvas component's render mode to World Space.
We don't have this problem in Unity 4.x before because I think Unity automatically renders any render mode from the Canvas component, however, that doesn't happen in Unity 5.x. I'm guessing it's either intentional that they do that or it's a bug on Unity UI feature.

Unity 4.6 - How to scale GUI elements to the right size for every resolution

The new Unity 4.6 comes with a new GUI, when I change de resolution on Unity the UI Button scales perfectly but when I test on the Nexus 7 device the Button looks too small. Any idea how to solve this?
Unity's new GUI system uses "anchors" to control how gui elements (like buttons) scale in relation to their parent container.
Unity has a tutorial video on how to use the new "Rect Transform" component (where the anchors are configured) here: http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/ui/rect-transform.
The last half of the tutorial is all about anchors. That page has links to the entire tutorial series. It's not too long. You should watch the whole thing.
Specific to your question:
The anchors are visible in your first screen shot. They are those 4 little arrows at the top left of your button.
Right now, your button is only anchored by it's top left corner.
The two right anchors need to be dragged to the right so that the right edge of your button is anchored to a space inside its parent container.
Depending on your situation, the two bottom arrows may need to be dragged down so that the bottom edge of your button is anchored as well.
The video I linked above covers all this in detail.
Lastly, for the font size to scale nicely on different resolutions, you will need to add and configure a reference resolution component to the base canvas of your UI, as Ash-Bash32 wrote earlier.
Update: The best way to add a Reference Resolution component is through the inspector window for the base canvas in your UI.
1) click the "Add Component Button" at the bottom of the inspector.
2) type the word "Reference" in the search filter field.
3) select the "Reference Resolution" component in the search results.
The Reference Resolution is now renamed as Canvas Scaler.. Along with the renaming they have added many more features for the dynamicity of the Canvas. You can go through the Unity Doc of Canvas Scaler and also take a look at this article for a practical example of how and why to use Canvas Scaler. Also make sure you use the Anchor Points to good effect to make this more robust...
To Scale UI added the ReferenceResolution Component to the Canvas you want to scale.
P.S. Theres no Documention for ReferenceResolution
If you want the button to be the same size for all screens and resolutions, you have to add the canvas scaler component to the canvas and the set the screen match mode to: match width or height, here is the link to the docs, this helps a lot if you want to aim to different sizes or resolutions:
http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/HOWTO-UIMultiResolution.html
This becomes giant and convoluted once you start laying things out in code AND using a canvas scaler, so I wish to provide a thorough answer to save someone the hours I went through.
First, don't use anchoredPosition to position anything, unless you fully realize it is a 0.0 to 1.0 number. Use the RectTransform localPosition to do the actual laying out, and remember it's in relation to the parent anchor. (I had to lay out a grid from the center)
Second, put a canvas scaler on the parent layout object AND the inner ui pieces. One makes the layout in the right position, the other will resize your elements so they actually show up right. You can't rely on the the parent unless the children also have scalers (and Graphic Raycasters to touch them).
Third, if you have a scaler, DON'T use Screen.width and height, instead assume the screen is the same value you put for the scalers (hopefully you used the same, or know what you're doing). The screen width always returns the actual device pixels, retina devices too, but the canvas scalers DO NOT account for this. This probably gives unity the one remaining way to find actual screen dpi if your game wants it. Edit: This paragraph applies to any parent canvas connected to the code doing your laying out. Not stray canvases, you can probably mix it up. Just remember unity's guidelines on performance with canvases.
Fourth, the canvas is still a bit buggy. Even with the above working, some things don't render until you delete and recreate a canvas, if you re-open the scene or it crashes. Otherwise, the above is the general "rules" I've found.
To center a "grid of things" you can't just use half of the canvas scaler's width or height, you have to calculate the height of your grid and set the offset by half of it, otherwise it will always be slightly off. I just added this as an extra tip. This calculation works for all orientations.

Mapping user input from one DOM element to the renderer element using Three.js and TrackballControls.js

I am trying to create a small container where the user will be able to move the mouse/drag his finger in order to control the renderer DOM element, in another container. The problem is that TrackballControls.js, a controller script included with THREE.js, maps the controls to event.clientX and event.clientY, so when I drag with in the small container I created, I don't see the desired effect. I was wondering what a proper way to map the input from a small area and effect the renderer element as if the user had the entire rendering area to give input?
The reason I need to do this is because I am integrating a CSS3D view into a normal, 2D page, and the mobile experience is awful if I do not disable to touch controls on TrackballControls.js- the user will be scrolling down the page as normal, and when he hits the 3D div, the 3D controls take over and the user can no longer scroll out of that area back to the rest of the page content. So I need a little small area where the user can spin, zoom, and pan my 3D visualization but then be able to scroll on the rest of it to escape.
Thanks!

"CoreAnimation: surface is too large"

I'm creating a custom (layer-hosting) document view, which is contained within a scroll view. The root layer has two sub layers of the same size--one for the view's content, and one for anything that needs to hover over the main content. I set the frame to 2500x2500 and added a number of cells to the content layer, which was fine. On adding a translucent clone of one of the cell's layers to the overlay layer, the whole view clears briefly, and I get a log message 'core animation: surface 2502x2502 is too large'. This happens between adding the new layer and the next cycle of the event loop, so I guess when core animation renders the new layer.
I knew that a layer's content size is related to opengl texture size, but didn't think its frame mattered. I'm not drawing anything to these layers, not setting any style properties, and remove offscreen sub layers. All I'm really using them for is to handle the geometry of the document view. Is this an appropriate use of CA layers? If not, are there better ways of handling a large core animation-based document view?
Edit:
I've had this problem again, caused by an implicit animation on adding sublayers to the large parent. So in addition to what is suggested below, that's one to check if you run into this.
I would check to make sure that you're not setting any properties on your 2500x2500 layers which could require offscreen rendering. (This causes the layer to try and create a full-size buffer off-screen and render its contents into that buffer, rather than just rendering the contents to the screen directly.)
For example, setting an opacity, masksToBounds, mask, shouldRasterize, etc, could cause offscreen-rendering. You can see if offscreen-rendering is happening with the Core Animation instrument. (There's a checkbox to highlight offscreen-rendered areas.)

Resources