TextMesh Pro Dropdown List

[Jasper Flick]

Stephan and I have created an alternative for the Unity UI dropdown list. It uses TextMesh Pro labels instead of standard Text labels. The package contains a script for the component and another script for its editor support. It was made with TexMesh Pro 0.1.52 beta 3.1 and Unity 5.3.1.

You can create a default dropdown via GameObject / UI / TextMeshPro Dropdown. Its menu position is right above the default dropdown. This gives you a dropdown with three items and scrolling support, the same as Unity's default.

The dropdown component is Unity's own code with minimal tweaks. Some other code needed to be copied as well, because it's not accessible outside Unity's own DLLs.

Note that the dropdown isn't very memory friendly. It creates and destroys objects and starts corourtines when interacted with. Not really an issue for desktops, but something to keep in mind for mobiles.

[Ha7den]

Wow I was just logging on to suggest this! Thank you guys.

[timothyallan]

Fantastic, going to work with this very soon.

[Henning]

Love it Saved me a lot of time... Again.

I do have a small question, is it the implementation you did that is having problems with masks? or is it Unity and multiple masks within a canvas hierarchy?
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As you can see the main object of the Dropdown follows the mask as expected, but the Dropdown part, ignores the mask, and the text is gone as soon as I activate a mask on a parent object.

I'll keep digging for answers, but any feedback would be appreciated

[Jasper Flick]

When using a Mask component, a nested dropdown list will ignore the mask when opened. This happens because it overlays a new canvas which overrides the sorting order. If you don't want that, you can use a RectMask2D component instead of a Mask. It uses stencil clipping instead of masking. Unity does apply the stencil to the overlaid canvas, even when it overrides the sorting order. Whether this difference is intentional or a bug, I do not know.

Unity's UI is unfortunately inconsistent and buggy when masking is involved. TextMesh Pro is rather vulnerable to the masking shenanigans, but Unity's own stuff also runs into consistent trouble. I have submitted another bug report relevant to this issue.

[Henning]

Thanks for the feedback

RectMask2D solved my problem, as I only need rect mask for this project.

[callguinness]

Thanks so much for this Dropdown add-on.

FYI this broke in the Unity 5.4 betas (TextMeshProUGUI MissingReferenceException as soon as you select anything).

Edit: It seems they removed an IsActive() check from Graphic.cs for some reason?

[Stephan B.]

Thanks so much for this Dropdown add-on.

FYI this broke in the Unity 5.4 betas (TextMeshProUGUI MissingReferenceException as soon as you select anything).

Edit: It seems they removed an IsActive() check from Graphic.cs for some reason?

I am looking to see where they shifted this IsActive().

[Stephan B.]

Gah! Just spend two days tracking down this issue due to changes Unity made to the GraphicRegistry handling and caching of the Canvas as the Dropdown changes parenting of objects.

This is now fixed on my end. I have also included the Dropdown into TextMesh Pro so it will no longer be necessary to download this version separately.
 

[callguinness]

Awesome, you're the best.

[patrick_c]

Thanks very much for this, I just purchased TMP this morning, and before evening I was able to convert the whole project (2 1/2 years of work) to TMP, and rip out every instance of UIText/UIInputField/UIDropdown.
Freedom!

[fisj]

Hi Stephan,

Having some issues getting TMPro text to actually show in the dropdown options tmpro text if its inside a scrollview. It looks like this is related to masks and the sort order. If the parent scroll view doesn't have a mask the TMPro dropdown shows the text fine, but using a Mask or 2DRect mask, the text won't display. Similarly, disabling the sort order on the dropdown canvas works also, but that's also undesirable.

I'm using TMPro 0.1.54b3, Unity 5.3.3.3p3.

PS. We love TMPro, it's seriously saved our bacon on our game UI. Huge thanks for all your hard work.

[Jasper Flick]

Using a RectMask2D on the viewport should work, at least for Unity 5.3.4 and up. Unfortunately, Unity's new UI isn't mature yet and can change a lot between point releases.

[fisj]

I just tried 5.3.4 as per your suggestion, and sure enough the Rect Mask 2D works. You're right, I am surprised that a single point release was that much of a change, but happy to have it work. Much obliged!

[patrick_c]

I noticed a small thing, not sure if the standard Unity dropdown behaves the same way or not.
We have a pretty long drop-down, players select an option somewhere in the middle after scrolling a few pages.
Next time they open the drop-down again, it's all the way up-top, and if they want to select the next option to the one they have currently selected, they have to scroll all the way down again, and so on.
I added this at the bottom of the Show() method in TMP_Dropdown.cs to change it so it auto-scrolls down to the currently selected item:

Code: [Select]

contentRectTransform.anchoredPosition = new Vector2(0, m_Value * itemSize.y);

Just thought someone might find it useful, could be nice to have it as an option in the Dropdown (ex: "Auto-scroll to selected item when opening" or similar).

Thanks!