Implementing a GUI in DirectX

[Lycaon]

Im messing around with DX9c + VB.NET 2005, and am fishing around for the best (as in most efficient) way to implement a custom GUI in a fullscreen DirectX game.

The drawing isnt much of a problem, though currently ugly visually, I have an ObjectManager class that holds all the windows (and other game objects that need to be drawn) and each window has its own control collection to handle labels, textboxes, etc.

What Im looking for is a decent way to add in mouse / keyboard events. Im using DirectInput to handle them at the moment, however, Im not sure how to go about redirecting input to the topmost form that Ive got drawn over the game GUI, and of course, that means Ive got no clue how to do anything as involved as events...

So... Any suggestions?

 

[Tommi Laukkanen]

Hello,

RetinaX has clean and easily understandable window/widget framework with event and input implementation. You can find the project in source forge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/retinax/

best regards,
Tommi Laukkanen

PS. If you are interested in UI development with Managed DirectX maybe we could join forces.

Im messing around with DX9c + VB.NET 2005, and am fishing around for the best (as in most efficient) way to implement a custom GUI in a fullscreen DirectX game.

The drawing isnt much of a problem, though currently ugly visually, I have an ObjectManager class that holds all the windows (and other game objects that need to be drawn) and each window has its own control collection to handle labels, textboxes, etc.

What Im looking for is a decent way to add in mouse / keyboard events. Im using DirectInput to handle them at the moment, however, Im not sure how to go about redirecting input to the topmost form that Ive got drawn over the game GUI, and of course, that means Ive got no clue how to do anything as involved as events...

So... Any suggestions?

 

[Mykre]

For a really good example of a GUI System in Managed code you should look at www.c-unit.com, on the site Chad has a tutorial for creating a GUI System simular to the one used in the sample framework that is supplied in the SDK.