Serious question - how do you stay sane when working with Unity UI?

[piwakawaka]

2020.2 doesn’t behave quite as badly as the version @sampattuzzi is using in this video, but it’s still plagued by strange overrides, strange Rect Transform defaults, and other weirdness. Watching this video is a rollercoaster of emotions as Sam does sensible stuff and Unity says no, then Sam does arcane hand-waving to make everything fine again. For me, even backing out of the Prefab editor makes things randomly change around.

How does anyone stay sane when working with this system?

Has anyone managed to collate a set of Best Practices for working with Unity UI that helps to avoid these recurring problems? From what I can see, they just happen all over the place even if you’re careful.

[Brian_Trotter]

I feel your pain. I have said more than a few unprintable things while creating UI in Unity. My number one rule when working with UI is to uncheck the “Auto Save” button. This gives you the opportunity to walk away from your changes wholesale. The Undo system just doesn’t always get things back to normal, especially when dealing with layouts.
Beyond that, it’s patience, practice, and getting up at least once an hour to stretch (it won’t help the UI, but it’s good for your health).

[sampattuzzi]

@Brian_Trotter

uncheck the “Auto Save” button

This. It’s what I’m doing now in the Shops course and it really helps. I don’t get random spurious scene changes. 2020.2 also really helped.

[piwakawaka]

Alright, thanks for the tips, I’ll try that Disable Auto Save trick next time.

Aside, this is the first I’ve heard of the Shops course. I assume this is a continuation of these RPG courses? If so, that sounds interesting - when will it be available? Is there anywhere I can follow the progress of this?

[Brian_Trotter]

Shops And Abilities is currently being recorded and reviewed by our review group. I don’t have a specific release date yet, but I can tell you that the shops part of the course looks great!