ClearAllChildren([string classname])

Feature Requests Engine Features
#1

If I have a container with a bunch of GUI buttons, and an UIGridLayout, I might want to clear it fully, except for the UIGridLayout.

Currently, I’d need to run over all child instances of the container and remove each manually. With this feature, I could simply call

frame:ClearAllChildren("ImageButton")

and the Frame would be empty, except for the UIGridLayout. :open_mouth:

As compared to this:

for _, item in next, frame:GetChildren() do
	if item:IsA("ImageButton") then
		item:Destroy()
	end
end

My reasoning for clearing the container, is so that I can fill it up with new items when the user swaps pages that are dynamic, such as showing owned in-game items.

13 Likes
#2

To be honest, I think we need some sort of filter for these types of functions that’s not exclusive to a single method.

-- ClearAllChildren, FindFirstChild, GetChildren
frame:ClearAllChildren({
    ClassName = "ImageButton"
})

It would be much more powerful and useful.

5 Likes
#3

Easier to do this in Lua. A simple and robust API wins over the kitchen-sink approach.

local ClearSomeChildren do
	local function CheckProp(obj, prop, val)
		return obj[prop] == val
	end
	
	function ClearSomeChildren(obj, filter)
		for _, child in next, obj:GetChildren() do
			for prop, val in next, filter do
				local s, r = pcall(CheckProp, child, prop, val)
				if s and r then
					child:Destroy()
					break
				end
			end
		end
	end
end
3 Likes
#4

While it certainly gives room for more control, most of the cases I’ll just want to write something simple without needing to write it all from scratch - given your example, the same can be done with @woot3’s suggestion, which in many cases would suffice to what people may want to do when using ClearAllChildren and similar other API methods.

#5

“I just don’t feel like writing it from scratch”

That’s what code reuse is for :P Adding features just because of this just leads to API bloat.

Clearing children by ClassName is pretty specific, so I can’t imagine many use cases for it. In your case, a more appropriate solution may be to just keep track of the ImageButtons in a table, loop through that, and delete every item in it.

On the other hand, you and woot3 mention the need to filter multiple methods like this – that’s broad enough to be a feature. Can you provide some examples? Methods it’d be used for, what filters you’d use, and why you’d be using them.

#6

Roblox prefers to only add features in the context of something being impossible to do in Lua alone.

I do think it should be easier to find libraries for stuff like this though.

1 Like
#7

Not necessarily impossible, but it has to be either noticeably faster in C++ or have a very common use case.

5 Likes
#8

For those wondering, a cool historical example of this is raycasting.

It’s possible to do it in Lua, but much faster to do it in C++.

7 Likes