How can I start the development of my UI and continue it with UMG?

Development Programming & Scripting UI
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1

Hi Laury,

UMG is indeed in progress at the moment. UMG is a two-part process:

  1. Build a Visual Editor for Slate. (As part of this, expose Slate to Blueprints)
  2. Add more whiz-bang run-time features to Slate so that fancier visuals can be achieved.

From the above you might surmise that UMG uses the Slate runtime. In fact it generates Slate widgets. In theory it will be possible to use both. However, as we haven’t tested this out thoroughly, we aren’t sure how far that workflow can be pushed.

What you should do in the mean time really depends on what kind of UI your are building?
Is it a minimal HUD? Is it a complicated RPG menu? Is it an options screen? The optimal solution will be different for each one right now. In the future we do hope that the answer to all of those will be “use UMG”.

2

Hi,
I’m in internship in a company who use ue4. My job is the UI.
For weeks, i try to do it with blueprint, but i think that’s not the best way.
I know c++, but i’m not a master, so i don’t know if i’ll exactly make a perfect UI by using code.
I see that UMG will coming, but i can’t wait so long …

So, my question is : how can i start develop my UI properly and continue it with UMG later (without repeating what I have already) ?
I don"t know if the actual blueprint way will be totally compatible with UMG.
I guess UMG will do much better than what i do in blueprints, so i don’t know which way will be the most reusable : Slate & C++ or Blueprint (or neither) ?

Thanks !

3

Thanks for the quick answer !
I’m working on an MMORPG, that’s the reason why i think i’ll have some problems using c++ or blueprint …

4

Slate might be OK for an MMO UI. It depends on the specific requirement. UMG is not yet ready. Have you looked at Coherent and any other UI plugins?

5

Sorry for shameless plug but:
https://github.com/iniside/ActionRPGGame/tree/master/Source/ActionRPGGame/HUD/Widgets

You can take a look at my code (it’s main reason why it exist after all). You should check out classes:

ARInventoryItemWidget

ARInventoryWidget

It’s bit rough, and there is a lot of hacking around, copy-paste and calling myriad of other classes (notably PlayerController and Equipment Manager).
But it currently work under networking situation, supports drag&drop over UI, and you can see how this system can be used for things like Equiping armor to character or weapons.

I would advice to do not directly copy&paste this code, as it is probably not the best one, and I will probably change in the future. But it works for testing purposes.