Module directional_navigation

A navigation framework for moving between focusable elements based on directional input.

While virtual cursors are a common way to navigate UIs with a gamepad (or arrow keys!), they are generally both slow and frustrating to use. Instead, directional inputs should provide a direct way to snap between focusable elements.

Like the rest of this crate, the InputFocus resource is manipulated to track the current focus.

Navigating between focusable entities (commonly UI nodes) is done by passing a CompassOctant into the navigate method from the DirectionalNavigation system parameter.

Under the hood, the DirectionalNavigationMap stores a directed graph of focusable entities. Each entity can have up to 8 neighbors, one for each CompassOctant, balancing flexibility and required precision. For now, this graph must be built manually, but in the future, it could be generated automatically.

Structs

DirectionalNavigation

A system parameter for navigating between focusable entities in a directional way.

DirectionalNavigationMap

A resource that stores the traversable graph of focusable entities.

DirectionalNavigationPlugin

A plugin that sets up the directional navigation systems and resources.

NavNeighbors

The up-to-eight neighbors of a focusable entity, one for each CompassOctant.

Enums

DirectionalNavigationError

An error that can occur when navigating between focusable entities using directional navigation.