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Is there any GuiLibrary available, which works with MonoGame? I know there are some GUI Libraries for XNA but I assume most will not work with MonoGame.

Even simple stuff like Buttons and Inputfields would help me...

Thanks.

Marco
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4 Answers4

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I asked myself the exact same question a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything that suited my needs but what I did find might help.

Here are a few XNA GUI projects I've found that might be compatible with MonoGame. I'm not really sure which ones are better than others and I haven't really tried them, but I've collected a few options.

Sorry, I don't have enough rep to post hyperlinks.

xWinForms (sourceforge.net/projects/xwinforms/)

XNA Simple GUI (simplegui.codeplex.com)

Window System for XNA (wsx.codeplex.com)

Squid (www.ionstar.org)

Ruminate XNA 4.0 GUI (xnagui.codeplex.com)

Nuclex Framework (nuclexframework.codeplex.com)

CEGUI# (sourceforge.net/projects/ceguisharp/) a port of CEGUI (http://www.cegui.org.uk)

MQuickGUI (www.ogre3d.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=MQuickGUI) made for the Ogre / Mogre engine but could be adapted to XNA.

Xpf by Red Badger (red-badger.com/blog/2012/07/05/xpf-to-be-open-sourced/) - An implementation of WPF for mobile devices. It looks good but I can't see a way to download it. It was announced to be open sourced on 5 July 2012 but I don't think that has happened yet.

craftworkgames
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  • thx, I'll check the list – Marco Nov 05 '12 at 09:39
  • MQuickGUI and Squid have no licenses and are therefore illegal to distribute. The MonoGame port for Ruminate has no license, though the old version on codeplex is under the MIT license. Nuclex has a custom license, so it's risky. xWinForms and CEGUI# are LGPL, which might be a problem for some people. Most of the others I couldn't get to work on Linux. In short, it's a crapshoot; you might be better off rolling your own. – dhasenan Sep 21 '15 at 15:22
  • @dhasenan interesting point. I'm sure if you contacted the authors of the libraries directly you could get them to clear up the license issues for you. – craftworkgames Sep 21 '15 at 21:25
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NuclearWinter works with MonoGame.

enter image description here

HuseyinUslu
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One option that you have is GWEN port for the .Net if you don't mind writing the MonoGame adaptation layer. The original C++ library is written by Garry Newman. The layer is easy to create, and there are plenty of examples available in the code base.

While GWEN might not be outright better than other GUI libraries, it has following advantages:

  • Simple
  • Easy to theme
  • Has quite many controls available
  • It is not a framework, rather a library
  • Doesn't rely on XML or any other kind of markup

On the other hand, I've found out following downsides:

  • It may not be as flexible as other GUI libraries
  • It does not come with ready made layout managers
  • No XML
ollipekka
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  • Yeees... I think you'll find not having a textual representation is worse than having a textual representation :) Whether XML, JSON, or something else - it is still better to be able to have the option to change a UI via text. So don't be one of the many who complain about XML. It gets the job done. – Engineer Jul 13 '15 at 14:26
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This should've been a comment to @craftworkgames comment but it doesn't seem to be possible.

I wanted a GUI system for mobile games, I favor code simplicity, easy composition and, last but one of the most important, community / documentation / developer activity (improving the framework or just promoting it). From the link he posted, the ones that I liked more were:

  • CraftworkGUI, he's own framework, it's really close to what I was searching for
  • XNA Simple GUI (simplegui.codeplex.com)
  • Xpf by Red Badger. I liked this one more for the potential, haven't actually tried it yet. You can find this one on Github.

Researching for this has been really tedious and boring, but from what I've seen, I wish CraftworkGUI grows to be a good solution for mobile GUI dev.

vvolkgang
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  • If you really meant for this to be a comment, you should click the small "comment" link under that answer and copy some of it there. Then you can come back to your answer and remove it with the "delete". Since it's a review of a few things @craftworkgames posted, that might be appropriate. For other basic functions, read through the [faq]. Also the help links peppered through the pages are very helpful. – Seth Battin May 25 '13 at 16:08
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    There's no "add comment" link in any answer apart from mine now, I took it as some sort of mechanism preventing "low reputation bumps". – vvolkgang May 26 '13 at 02:51
  • I'm glad you like my GUI system, there's still a lot I'd like to do to make it better but it's pretty much usable now. You need to earn some rep to be able to comment, I believe this is a clever form of spam prevention. – craftworkgames May 26 '13 at 03:59