Monarch

Monarch is a screen manager for the Defold game engine.

Installation

You can use Monarch in your own project by adding this project as a Defold library dependency. Open your game.project file and in the dependencies field under project add:

https://github.com/britzl/monarch/archive/master.zip

Or point to the ZIP file of a specific release.

Usage

Using Monarch requires that screens are created in a certain way. Once you have one or more screens created you can start navigating between the screens.

Creating screens

Monarch screens are created in individual collections and loaded through collection proxies. The recommended setup is to create one game object per screen and per game object attach a collection proxy component and an instance of the screen.script provided by Monarch. The screen.script will take care of the setup of the screen. All you need to do is to make sure that the script properties on the screen.script are correct:

• Screen Proxy (url) - The URL to the collection proxy component containing the actual screen. Defaults to #collectionproxy.
• Screen Id (hash) - A unique id that can be used to reference the screen when navigating your app.
• Popup (boolean) - Check this if the screen should be treated as a popup.
• Popup on Popup (boolean) - Check this if the screen is a popup and it can be shown on top of other popups.
• Transition Url (url) - Optional URL to call when the screen is about to be shown/hidden. Use this to trigger a transition (see the section on transitions).
• Focus Url (url) - Optional URL to call when the screen gains or loses focus (see the section on screen focus).

Navigating between screens

The navigation in Monarch is based around a stack of screens. When a screen is shown it is pushed to the top of the stack. When going back to a previous screen the topmost screen on the stack is removed. Example:

• Showing screen A
• Stack is [A]
• Showing screen B
• Stack is [A, B] - (B is on top)
• Going back
• Stack is [A]

Showing a new screen

You show a screen in one of two ways:

1. Post a show message to the screen.script
2. Call monarch.show() (see below)

Showing a screen will push it to the top of the stack and trigger an optional transition. The previous screen will be hidden (with an optional transition) unless the screen to be shown is a popup.

NOTE: You must ensure that the init() function of the screen.script has run. The init() function is responsible for registering the screen and it's not possible to show it until this has happened. A good practice is to delay the first call by posting a message to a controller script or similar before calling monarch.show() the first time:

function init(self)
	msg.post("#", "show_first_screen")
end

function on_message(self, message_id, message, sender)
	monarch.show(hash("first_screen"))
end

Preventing duplicates in the stack

You can pass an optional clear flag when showing a screen (either as a key value pair in the options table when calling monarch.show() or in the message). If the clear flag is set Monarch will search the stack for the screen in question. If the screen already exists in the stack and the clear flag is set Monarch will remove all screens between the current top and the screen in question. Example:

• Stack is [A, B, C, D] - (D is on top)
• A call to monarch.show(B, { clear = true }) is made
• Stack is [A, B]

As opposed to if the clear flag was not set:

• Stack is [A, B, C, D] - (D is on top)
• A call to monarch.show(B, { clear = false }) is made
• Stack is [A, B, C, D, B] - (B is on top)

Going back to a previous screen

You navigate back in the screen hierarchy in one of two ways:

1. Post a back message to the screen.script
2. Call monarch.back() (see below)

Input focus

Monarch will acquire and release input focus on the game objects containing the proxies to the screens and ensure that only the top-most screen will ever have input focus.

Popups

A screen that is flagged as a popup (see list of screen properties above) will be treated slightly differently when it comes to navigation.

Popup on normal screen

If a popup is shown on top of a non-popup the current top screen will not be unloaded and instead remain visible in the background:

• Stack is [A, B]
• A call to monarch.show(C) is made and C is a popup
• Stack is [A, B, C] and B will still be visible

Popup on popup

If a popup is at the top of the stack and another popup is shown the behavior will depend on if the new popup has the Popup on Popup flag set or not. If the Popup on Popup flag is set the underlying popup will remain visible.

• Stack is [A, B, C] and C is a popup
• A call to monarch.show(D) is made and D is a popup with the popup on popup flag set
• Stack is [A, B, C, D]

If the Popup on Popup flag is not set then the underlying popup will be closed, just as when showing a normal screen on top of a popup (see above).

• Stack is [A, B, C] and C is a popup
• A call to monarch.show(D) is made and D is a popup without the popup on popup flag set
• Stack is [A, B, D]

Screen on popup

If a screen is shown on top of one or more popups they will all be removed from the stack:

• Stack is [A, B, C, D] and C and D are popups
• A call to monarch.show(E) is made and E is not a popup
• Stack is [A, B, E]

Transitions

You can add optional transitions when navigating between screens. The default behavior is that screen navigation is instant but if you have defined a transition for a screen Monarch will wait until the transition is completed before proceeding. The Transition Url property described above should be the URL to a script with an on_message handlers for the following messages:

• transition_show_in (constant defined as monarch.TRANSITION.SHOW_IN)
• transition_show_out (constant defined as monarch.TRANSITION.SHOW_OUT)
• transition_back_in (constant defined as monarch.TRANSITION.BACK_IN)
• transition_back_out (constant defined as monarch.TRANSITION.BACK_OUT)

When a transition is completed it is up to the developer to send a transition_done (constant monarch.TRANSITION.DONE) message back to the sender to indicate that the transition is completed and that Monarch can continue the navigation sequence. Monarch comes with a system for setting up transitions easily in a gui_script. Example:

Monarch comes with a system for setting up transitions easily in a gui_script using the monarch.transitions.gui module. Example:

local transitions = require "monarch.transitions.gui"
local monarch = require "monarch.monarch"

function init(self)
	-- create transitions for the node 'root'
	-- the node will slide in/out from left and right with
	-- a specific easing, duration and delay
	self.transition = transitions.create(gui.get_node("root"))
		.show_in(transitions.slide_in_right, gui.EASING_OUTQUAD, 0.6, 0)
		.show_out(transitions.slide_out_left, gui.EASING_INQUAD, 0.6, 0)
		.back_in(transitions.slide_in_left, gui.EASING_OUTQUAD, 0.6, 0)
		.back_out(transitions.slide_out_right, gui.EASING_INQUAD, 0.6, 0)
end

function on_message(self, message_id, message, sender)
	self.transition.handle(message_id, message, sender)
	-- you can also check when a transition has completed:
	if message_id == monarch.TRANSITION.DONE and message.transition == monarch.TRANSITION.SHOW_IN then
		print("Show in done!")
	end
end

Predefined transitions

The predefined transitions provided by monarch.transitions.gui are:

• slide_in_right
• slide_in_left
• slide_in_top
• slide_in_bottom
• slide_out_right
• slide_out_left
• slide_out_top
• slide_out_bottom
• scale_in
• scale_out

Custom transitions

You can create and use your own transition as long as the provided transition function has the following function signature:

custom_transition(node, to, easing, duration, delay, cb)

PARAMETERS

• node (node) - Gui node to animate.
• to (vector3) - Target position.
• easing (number) - One of gui.EASING_* constants.
• duration (number) - Transition duration in seconds.
• delay (number) - Transition delay in seconds.
• cb (function) - This function must be called when the transition is completed.

Dynamic orientation and resized windows

When using dynamic screen orientation together with gui layouts or using transitions on a platform where the window can be resized it's important to make sure that the created transitions adapt to the change in orientation or window size. The transition system takes care of layout changes automatically, but when it comes to changes in window size you need to notify the transition manually:

local transitions = require "monarch.transitions.gui"

function init(self)
	self.transition = transitions.create(gui.get_node("root"))
end

function on_message(self, message_id, message, sender)
	if message_id == hash("my_resize_message") then
		self.transition.window_resized(message.width, message.height)
	end
end

Screen focus gain/loss

Monarch will send focus gain and focus loss messages if a Focus Url was provided when the screen was created. The focus gained message will contain the id of the previous screen and the focus loss message will contain the id of the next screen. Example:

local monarch = require "monarch.monarch"

function on_message(self, message_id, message, sender)
	if message_id == monarch.FOCUS.GAINED then
		print("Focus gained, previous screen: ", message.id)
	elseif message_id == monarch.FOCUS.LOST then
		print("Focus lost, next screen: ", message.id)
	end
end

Callbacks

Both the monarch.show() and monarch.back() functions take an optional callback function that will be invoked when the transition_show_in (or the transition_back_in in the case of a monarch.back() call) transition is completed. The transition is considered completed when a transition_done message has been received (see section on transitions above).

Monarch API

monarch.show(screen_id, [options], [data], [callback])

Show a Monarch screen. Note that the screen must be registered before it can be shown. The init() function of the screen.script takes care of registration.

PARAMETERS

• screen_id (hash) - Id of the screen to show.
• options (table) - Options when showing the new screen (see below).
• data (table) - Optional data to associate with the screen. Retrieve using monarch.data().
• callback (function) - Optional function to call when the new screen is visible.

The options table can contain the following fields:

• clear (boolean) - If the clear flag is set Monarch will search the stack for the screen that is to be shown. If the screen already exists in the stack and the clear flag is set Monarch will remove all screens between the current top and the screen in question.
• reload (boolean) - If the reload flag is set Monarch will reload the collection proxy if it's already loaded (this can happen if the previous screen was a popup).

monarch.back([data], [callback])

Go back to a previous Monarch screen

PARAMETERS

• data (table) - Optional data to associate with the screen you are going back to. Retrieve using monarch.data().
• callback (function) - Optional function to call when the previous screen is visible.

monarch.preload(screen_id, [callback])

Preload a Monarch screen. This will load but not enable the screen. This is useful for content heavy screens that you wish to be able to show without having to wait for it load.

PARAMETERS

• screen_id (hash) - Id of the screen to preload.
• callback (function) - Optional function to call when the new screen is preloaded.

monarch.data(screen_id)

Get the data associated with a screen (from a call to monarch.show() or monarch.back()).

PARAMETERS

• screen_id (hash) - Id of the screen to get data for

RETURN

• data (table) - Data associated with the screen.

monarch.screen_exists(screen_id)

Check if a Monarch screen exists.

PARAMETERS

• screen_id (hash) - Id of the screen to get data for

RETURN

• exists (boolean) - True if the screen exists.

monarch.debug()

Enable verbose logging of the internals of Monarch.