Implement 3D focusing for keyboard/joystick-based GUI

[Shadowblitz16]

Describe the project you are working on:
Space ship game

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project:
I keep having problems with keyboard and gamepad based gui because as you may have noticed controls games have nested focus based controls.

for example say you have a button that when pressed goes to a different part of the ui and when you press back you might go back to the previous parts of the ui.

you may also have a control that when selected automatically focuses onto a part of the gui.

Describe how this feature / enhancement will help you overcome this problem or limitation:
basically it would add 3 new focus neighbors to controls.

• auto (when the control is selected).
• enter (when you press ui_accept)
• escape (when you press ui_cancel)

and 4 flags to controls

• auto press flag (instead of focusing when you use keyboard or joystick input it tries to simulates a press)
• auto focus flag (if disabled it doesn't focus on anything unless specified as a focus neighbor )
• visible on focus flag (automatically makes your control visible when it or its children have focus)
• invisible on unfocus flag (automaticly makes your control invisible when it or its children don't have focus)

Show a mock up screenshots/video or a flow diagram explaining how your proposal will work:

Describe implementation detail for your proposal (in code), if possible:
just pseudo code but here is a example

extends Control


export(bool) var auto_press
export(bool) var auto_focus
export(bool) var visible_on_focus
export(bool) var invisible_on_unfocus

export(NodePath) var focus_neighbour_auto
export(NodePath) var focus_neighbour_enter
export(NodePath) var focus_neighbour_escape

# Called when the node enters the scene tree for the first time.
func _ready():
	connect("focus_entered", self, "_on_focus_enter");
	connect("focus_exited",  self, "_on_focus_leave");
	
func _gui_input(event):
	
	if(event.is_action_pressed("ui_accept")):
		if(focus_neighbour_enter != ""):
			get_node(focus_neighbour_enter).grab_focus()
			
	if(event.is_action_pressed("ui_cancel")):
		if(focus_neighbour_enter != ""):
			get_node(focus_neighbour_escape).grab_focus()	


func _on_focus_enter():
	
	if(auto_press):
		#simulate press
		#grab previus nodes focus
	
	if(check_all_children_and_me_focus(self, true)):
		visible = true;
		
	if(focus_neighbour_auto != ""):
		get_node(focus_neighbour_auto).grab_focus()
		
func _on_focus_leave():
	var was_keyboard_or_gamepad_input = #get weather or not the focus lost was keyboard or gamepad
	var was_a_focus_neighbour         = #get weather ot not focus was lost to a focus neighbour
	if(!auto_focus && was_keyboard_or_gamepad_input && !was_a_focus_neighbour):
		grab_focus();
	
	if(check_all_children_and_me_focus(self, false)):
		visible = false;
		
func check_all_children_and_me_focus(node, value):

	
	for n in node.get_children():
		if (!check_all_children_and_me_focus(n,value)):
			return false;
			
	return node.has_focus();

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?:
this would probably be used alot for console games and might be doable with a script but it probably would require more then a few lines.

but again, it would be a really nice feature to have and would be used alot for things like menus.
(EDIT) I don't know if this is doable actually since there is no real way to simulate something like a button press

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?:
easability with console games

[Shadowblitz16]

so I am trying to implement this and have seemingly did the 3 new focus neighbors (although I haven't tested it yet)

anyways I have come across problems when trying to implement the click_instead_of_focus.

basically I have realized that controls themselves don't have pressed logic and I need a universal way of reverting to the previous focus after the press is done or I guess ui_accept is released?

I'm not quite sure how to go about this without having to implement it in every control that can be pressed.

[Shadowblitz16]

https://github.com/Shadowblitz16/godot
here is my godot fork if anyone is interested in helping.
there are alot of things that need to be implimented before this can be added.

• auto selection for 3d controls if nodepath is not specified.
• mouse support for 3d focusing
• click instead of focus functionality (this might require the pressed state to be processed from control)
• show_on_focus_enter doesn't work all the way with invisible controls.

here is a project to test with the latest version
Debug.zip

I kinda need someone that knows the gui source better then me.

[follower]

FWIW, I noticed while researching something else that there is some existing support for remembering the previous focus item, implemented for modal dialogs: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/blob/cf8c679a23b21d6c6f29cba6a54eaa2eed88bf92/scene/main/viewport.cpp#L2716-L2730

Perhaps that might be a starting point for you?