Should I be Spawning menu buttons?

sambot13

I am having trouble figuring out how to create menus that are not always visible.

I have an actor that and I want a couple of buttons to appear around when it is touched. The problem is if I use Spawn Actor to create the buttons they will only have Prototype rules and cannot access the attributes of the scene. So for example, I want one of the buttons to draw a line between the selected actor and another actor in the scene. I can only do this with actors with instance rules, as far as I know, but I don't want the buttons to always be in the scene, only when the actor is selected.

Is there a general best practice for this type of feature?

Thanks!

jonmulcahy

keep them offscreen, and then change their x/y position when needed.

I always create my scenes with some extra space at the top or side for buttons and stuff.

sambot13

Thanks for the tip. I've got this working by setting the alpha to 0. Any reason that is a bad idea?

tatiang

Alpha 0 is an effective way to hide buttons IF you're not worried about the player accidentally pressing them. If the button rules are active, you'll run into problems this way. A safer way is to move them, as @jonmulcahy mentioned. If you decide to hide them, make sure to have a boolean that turns your buttons off or else use When self.color.Alpha≠0 --> [behaviors].