Button
UnityEngine.UIElements.Button
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Use the Button element to create clickable buttons in a UI. For example, when a user clicks or taps on a Button element, it triggers an action or event, such as opening a new window, submitting a form, or playing a sound effect.
Create a Button
You can create a Button with UI Builder, UXML, or C#. The following C# example creates a Button with a label:
var button = new Button(() => { Debug.Log("Button clicked"); }) { text = "Click me" };
Add an icon to a Button
You can enhance the visual appeal of your Button by incorporating an icon, such as a Texture, Render Texture, Sprite, or Vector image asset that exists in your project. For information on how to reference an image asset, refer to Assets.
To add an icon for a Button with UI Builder:
- From the Button's Inspector tab, choose the desired icon from the Icon Image dropdown list.
- Alternatively, drag the icon from the Assets window to the Icon Image field located in the Button's Inspector tab.
To add an icon for a Button with UXML, provide the image source to the attribute:
icon-image<ui:Button name="Button" text="Button text" icon-image="/path/to/image-file.png" />
To add an icon for a Button with C#, assign the image source to the property:
iconImageButton myButton = new Button();var buttonIconImage = Resources.Load<Texture2D>("image-file");myButton.text = "Button text";myButton.iconImage = buttonIconImage;
Change the Button icon position
When you add an icon to a Button, it adds two read-only sub-elements to the Button:
- An Image element to define the icon image.
- A TextElement to define the button text.
You can't edit the sub-elements but you can change their layout using the USS property for the Button element. By default, the icon is added on the left of the button text.
flex-directionTo reposition the button icon, adjust the Button's with the following:
flex-direction- To shift the icon to the right of the button text, set it to .
row-reverse - To move the icon above the button text, set it to .
column - To place the icon below the button text, set it to .
column-reverse
Use sub-elements of a Button
The Button element allows you to provide additional information to the user with the , properties, and the style property. As with any visual element, you can also add sub-elements in a Button's hierarchy, such as a Label or Image, to provide additional information to the user if you want to have more fine-grained control over the appearance and behavior of those elements.
texticonImagebackground-imageIn general, use sub-elements in the following situations:
- Customization: Using sub-elements allows you to customize the appearance and behavior of each individual element separately. For example, you may want to use a custom font or color for the label text or add a specific animation to the image. When you add an Image element to your Button, you can add the element from your scene directly. In addition, an Image element also supports scale mode and repeat mode.
- Dynamic content: If the content of the label or image is dynamic, using sub-elements allows you to update the content of each element separately without affecting the other properties of the button.
- Interaction: If you want to add interactivity to a specific element within the button, such as allowing the user to click only the label (disregarding clicks on other elements of the button) to trigger an action, using sub-elements makes this possible.
Use properties for the following purposes:
- Simple designs: If the design of the button is simple and doesn't require customization or dynamic content, using properties is recommended.
- Performance: If you have many buttons in your UI, using sub-elements for each one may negatively impact performance. In this case, it's more efficient to use properties to set the appearance of the button.
- Consistency: If you want to maintain consistency across your UI, using properties can ensure that all buttons have a consistent appearance and behavior.
Examples
The following UXML example creates a Button:
<UXML xmlns="UnityEngine.UIElements" xmlns:uie="UnityEditor.UIElements"> <Button text="UXML Button" name="the-uxml-button" /></UXML>
The following USS example styles the Button:
.some-styled-button { -unity-font-style: bold;}
The following C# example illustrates some of the customizable functionalities of the Button:
// Action to perform when button is pressed. // Toggles the text on all buttons in 'container'. Action action = () => { container.Query<Button>().ForEach((button) => { button.text = button.text.EndsWith("Button") ? "Button (Clicked)" : "Button"; }); }; // Get a reference to the Button from UXML and assign it its action. var uxmlButton = container.Q<Button>("the-uxml-button"); uxmlButton.RegisterCallback<MouseUpEvent>((evt) => action()); // Create a new Button with an action and give it a style class. var csharpButton = new Button(action) { text = "C# Button" }; csharpButton.AddToClassList("some-styled-button"); container.Add(csharpButton);
To try this example live in Unity, go to Window > UI Toolkit > Samples.
C# base class and namespace
C# class:
ButtonNamespace:
UnityEngine.UIElementsBase class:
TextElementMember UXML attributes
This element has the following member attributes:
Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| | The Texture, Sprite, or VectorImage that will represent an icon within a Button element. |
Inherited UXML attributes
This element inherits the following attributes from its base class:
Name | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| | Path of the target property to be bound. |
| | When true, a tooltip displays the full version of elided text, and also if a tooltip had been previously provided, it will be overwritten. |
| | Controls whether double-clicking selects the word under the mouse pointer. |
| | Specifies the order in which the system should look for Emoji characters when rendering text. If this setting is enabled, the global Emoji Fallback list will be searched first for characters defined as Emoji in the Unicode 14.0 standard. |
| | When false, rich text tags will not be parsed. |
| | Whether an element can potentially receive focus. If false, the element can't receive focus. If true, the element receives focus only when its |
| | Determines how escape sequences are displayed. When set to |
| | Returns true if the field is selectable. |
| | An integer used to sort focusable elements in the focus ring. Must be greater than or equal to zero. Setting the |
| | The text to be displayed. Changing this value will implicitly invoke the |
| | Controls whether triple-clicking selects the entire line under the mouse pointer. |
This element also inherits the following attributes from :
VisualElementName | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| | Logical container where child elements are added. If a child is added to this element, the child is added to this element's content container instead. When iterating over the If the content container is the same as the element itself, child elements are added directly to the element. This is true for most elements but can be overridden by more complex types. The |
| | Assigns a data source to this VisualElement which overrides any inherited data source. This data source is inherited by all children. |
| | Path from the data source to the value. |
| | The possible type of data source assignable to this VisualElement. This information is only used by the UI Builder as a hint to provide some completion to the data source path field when the effective data source cannot be specified at design time. |
| | Returns true if the This flag isn't changed if the VisualElement is disabled implicitly by one of its parents. To verify this, use |
| | Indicates the directionality of the element's text. The value will propagate to the element's children. |
| | The name of this VisualElement. Use this property to write USS selectors that target a specific element. The standard practice is to give an element a unique name. |
| | Determines if this element can be the target of pointer events or picked by Elements can not be picked if: - They are invisible- Their Elements with a picking mode of |
| | Sets the style values on a The returned style data, computed from USS files or inline styles written to this object in C#, doesn't represent the fully resolved styles, such as the final height and width of a VisualElement. To access these fully resolved styles, use For information about how to use this property and all the supported USS properties, refer to the Apply styles in C# scripts and USS properties reference manual pages. |
| | Text to display inside an information box after the user hovers the element for a small amount of time. This is only supported in the Editor UI. |
| | A combination of hint values that specify high-level intended usage patterns for the |
| | Used for view data persistence, such as tree expanded states, scroll position, or zoom level. This key is used to save and load the view data from the view data store. If you don't set this key, the persistence is disabled for the associated |
USS classes
The following table lists all the C# public property names and their related USS selector.
C# property | USS selector | Description |
|---|---|---|
| | USS class name of elements of this type. Unity adds this USS class to every instance of the Button element. Any styling applied to this class affects every button located beside, or below the stylesheet in the visual tree. |
| | The USS class name for Button elements with an icon. Unity adds this USS class to an instance of the Button element if the instance's |
| | The USS class name for Button elements with an icon only, no text. Unity adds this USS class to an instance of the Button element if the instance's |
| | USS class name of elements of this type. |
| | USS class name of selectable text elements. |
| | USS class name of local disabled elements. |
You can also use the Matching Selectors section in the Inspector or the UI Toolkit Debugger to see which USS selectors affect the components of the at every level of its hierarchy.
VisualElement