Will there ever be an easier way to make guis? Kind of like the gui designer in visual studio?
Making GUIs in ROBLOX is already pretty easy as it is. Of course, it would be awesome if we could resize it like in Visual Studio, though. Heck, that may even be a project for me at some point.
Personally I see way more in ‘Kits’ built by other Developers on ROBLOX, then an actually Studio for ROBLOX GUIs
What’s hard about making GUIs?
A few years ago Roblox had me write a plugin to manipulate GUIs. It ended up being quite ambitious, becoming more of an entire application within the studio. There were also plenty of encounters with bugs with GUIs themselves (a few of which have yet to be fixed, by the way). These are a few reasons why it was never able to go anywhere.
Looking at it now, it’s pretty well polished for what’s there. After a few minor fixes, I’m surprised that everything still appears to work. Luckily, I had enough foresight to use git, so I could throw it on github if anyone is interested. Keep in mind that it is very, very outdated.
Edit:
Here’s the repository:
Since it’s so complex, the plugin was developed with multiple files, then combined into one (this was before new plugins and ModuleScripts, mind you). Building it should be trivial, requiring nothing more than a lua interpreter:
lua plugin.lua
If I recall, adding a [tt]-p[/tt] flag will attempt to write the plugin directly to whatever folder the studio’s PluginsDir settings points to. Not sure if it still works.
lua plugin.lua -p
Not sure if this is what you mean, but this plugin allows you to resize using draggers
It has some bugs but I’ve found it useful for converting in and out of offset, centering images, and resizing/positioning ui
edit: and I also use Jojomen’s plugin
Now, I’m no Anaminus, but my [b]Utility Plugin[/b] helps me a lot when making GUIs.
Here are a few things taken from its official thread that relate to GUIs:
[ul]
[li]It can convert any GUI object into another (frame to scrolling frame, scrolling frame to ImageLabel, ImageLabel to TextLabel, and so on).
[li]
[size=2]The scale property cannot be edited at the moment. :([/size][/li]
[li]
[size=2]Might be outdated because of the recent updates; will check up on that.[/size][/li]
And, the most recent update (that I am so proud of):
[li]
[size=2]Select an object that contains any sort of color property (TextColor3, BrickColor, FogColor, BorderColor3, Value (Brick/Color3 Value objects), SparkleColor, SecondaryColor, to name a few), the plugin will allow you to set the property you want, while letting you see the changes as you drag the cursor across the panel.[/size][/li][/ul]
Now as I’ve said before, this is nothing too extraordinary, but I’m sure it’s helped a few people, including myself.
This is amazing. Would you mind if I added my own features?
Go for it. There’s plenty of useful code in there, which could certainly be used to make a better plugin.