Feature: UIBlock fixed size aspect ratio "lock"?

[drew-512]

I think we can all agree is valuable is to design a UI layout that is totally scale (size) driven by a single dimension -- this is a common situation.

I'm hoping I'm just missing how to use Nova properly, but here's what's coming up...

Consider a row of vertical sliders (part of a larger panel) where each slider has a 3x1 aspect sliding "thumb". The "driving" dimension is typically % of the parent size (or some other given size) and the "dependent" dimension is desired to be a fixed % (ratio) of the input dimension (or some function of the input dimension). In this case, the width of each vertical slider footprint in turn drives the width of the thumb and ideally drives the height of the thumb (to 33% of the width).

It would be huge to be able to "lock" a dimension to a fixed % of the other dimension allows an entire layout to be made without fixed values. Otherwise, elements with a fixed aspect (e.g. the 3x1 thumb), get painful or everything has to be specified by V (vs a fixed %). Even if the thumb was 1x1, specifying the dependent dimension now becomes painful in some cases to be scale-independent. Naturally, playing with Image doesn't accomplish anything since it is totally dependent on the finalized UIBlock size.

Or perhaps there is a script template that would basically accomplish this? That would be lovely to have a workaround, not be hard-coding in dependent sizes. Longer term, this seems more appropriate as built-in feature since it would cause various Editor UI elements to gray out since they are driven, etc.

Thanks,
Drew

[adgray1]

Nova currently supports locking the aspect ratio of a UIBlock and allows you to designate a controlling axis. As the controlling axis resizes (either due to manual adjustment, % based sizing relative to its parent, or autosizing), the dependent axis will adjust as well to maintain the locked aspect ratio.

In that feature's current form, you don't configure a % for the dependent axis explicitly. Instead, you just set the size (e.g. 3x1, 30x10, 300x100, etc.), lock the aspect ratio, choose the controlling axis (defaults to X in the editor), and then can adjust the controlling axis as usual.

Is that roughly what you're looking for?

[drew-512]

YES. Totally missed that. HUGE. Excited to see what that unlocks -- that is one of the most important features for me that "just works". Hopefully it even drops work for the UIBlock layout system on a good day, no? i.e. pruning work? smaller parameter space idk

Looking fwd to showing you our work and would be happy to deal in and showing you our MVP. Slightly pushed to the right now :\

[adgray1]

It's technically more work for the layout system to do the "lock aspect ratio" step, but, thanks to Burst, the performance impact is imperceptible.

I'm going to mark this post as "feature added", since the feature is already there :)

Whenever you're interested/willing/ready to share your work, you know where to find us!

[drew-512]

Love it!