How Can One Script Detect Clicked Events of Multiple Buttons

Help and Feedback Scripting Support
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#1

I want one script to be able to detect MouseButton1Down events of multiple buttons that do not exist before runtime. I understand that one script may have several connections to pre-existing buttons, but that is not what I’m looking for. I want the script to, in real time, find all buttons under the GUI and connect a function to their MouseButton1Down events. Currently, I have one script that is Cloned and placed inside the button such that each button has its own script. However, I feel that this is inefficient because there are extensive amounts of the same, copied script throughout my GUI.

For reference, this is the code of my current script:

script.Parent.MouseButton1Down:Connect(function()
	if script.Parent.Name == "SellButton" then
	--do stuff
	elseif script.Parent.Name == "BuyButton" then
	--do stuff
    end
end)

An example of this use is my custom leaderboard. As players join, there are additional buttons that weren’t there before runtime, and now I want the game to recognize and act on their events without cloning a script into the buttons. How may I go about a more efficient method?

#2

Yes, you definitely want to have just one script doing this. Have a script directly parented to the Gui object and use WaitForChild() to pause the script and wait for each of the buttons to load in.

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#3

Then just used the Descendant added event to the screen gui and check if its a button then set up the connection:

local ScreenGui = --insert here
ScreenGui.DescendantAdded:Connect(function(Descendant)
    if Descendant:IsA("TextButton") or Descendant:IsA("ImageButton") then
        --set up the connection
    end
end)
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#4

The only problem with using an Added event is that if the button has already loaded in by the time the script is running, that button won’t be included.

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#5

then he can use a loop before and execute it on all buttons.

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#6

True, but then WaitForChild() would be the simpler option.

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#7

Not really, it would make no sense to parent a script to each button when you can just use a loop and the descendant added event.

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#8

I am not suggesting having a script for each button.

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#9

He said in the post the buttons wont be available at runtime.

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#10

What you could also do is when your creating the new button just set up the connection from that local script as well.

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#11

Then that’s exactly why you’ll need to call Instance:WaitForChild() either in some sort of loop, to ensure all instances you’ll index will exist when you do, using DescendedAdded the implementation won’t function perfectly for this purpose .

The below response is what I’m talking about, that way you can ensure all objects will have replicated to the client.

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#12

Alright let me give an example of what I mean:

local buttonNames = {"button1", "button2", "button3"}

for _, buttonName in ipairs(buttonNames) do
    local button = screenGui:WaitForChild(buttonName)
    button.MouseButton1Down:Connect(...)
end
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#13

I just tested your method, and it works very well!

function buyButton()
	print("Buy")
end

function sellButton()
	print("Sell")
end

script.Parent.DescendantAdded:Connect(function(item)
	if item:IsA("TextButton") or item:IsA("ImageButton") then
		if string.match(string.lower(item.Text), "sell") then
			item.MouseButton1Down:Connect(sellButton)
		end
		if string.match(string.lower(item.Text), "buy") then
			item.MouseButton1Down:Connect(buyButton)
		end
	end
end)

This script perfectly does what I need it to do. As for the pre-existing buttons that I know will always exist, I can always connect functions to those very easily. Thanks for the help everyone!

3 Likes
#14

he said some of the buttons will be created later on so this is why your solution is invalid, please in the future read the entire post.

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#15

I guess I kind of assumed he was just wanted to wait for all instances to load in on the client before running the code. I did read the entire post and that’s just how I interpreted it. Anyway doesn’t matter now, problem is solved.

3 Likes