[3.0] Custom UI (ModHelperComponents)

3.0 helps with both the creation of new menu screens as well as just creating general new UI. This guide is about general UI. For creating custom menu screens, see Custom Menus.

For creating custom UI, it's highly recommended that you use the UnityExplorer mod to help whenever you have to edit the Unity objects directly.

ModHelperComponents

ModHelperComponents are custom Unity components that wrap / control base Unity components like Buttons, Scroll Panels, Dropdowns etc. Using them alongside the new VanillaSprites list lets you create UI elements just like default BloonsTD6 ones much more easily.

All ModHelperComponents can easily add any other as a child using their AddX(...) methods like AddPanel(...).

ModHelperPanel

ModHelperScrollPanel

The Info struct

All methods of creating a ModHelper Component involve creating an Info object for it that defines the properties of it's Unity RectTransform like it's positions, scale, anchor, pivot etc. To make best use of these objects, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of Unity UI Layout

Some tips about creating Info objects:

• Sometimes it'll be easier to create an Info struct with the C# object initialization syntax

new Info("Name") 
{
    Width = 500, Height = 200, Anchor = new Vector2(0, 1)
}

• You can use the new Info(string name, InfoPreset preset) constructor to use a common preset pattern like FillParent or Flex (more will be added over time)
• The Size property is really the "sizeDelta" field. The delta comes from the fact that the width and height values really refer to the difference in size between your component and the rectangle formed by AnchorMin and AnchorMax. It's just that the default for both anchors is right in the middle at (.5, .5) so expanding from that ends up being the final width and height. But, when you have an anchor set up like FillParent, a width and height of 0 really means "change the width and height by 0", and negative values then become margins.
• The Pivot property defines the point between (0, 0) and (1, 1) that scaling and rotation should happen around.