The text for UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary elements and text meshes can incorporate multiple font styles and sizes. The Text, GUIStyle, and TextMesh classes have a Rich Text setting which instructs Unity to look for markup tags within the text. The Debug.Log function can also use these markup tags to enhance error reports from code. The tags are not displayed but indicate style changes to be applied to the text.
The markup system is inspired by HTML but isn’t intended to be strictly compatible with standard HTML. The basic idea is that a section of text can be enclosed inside a pair of matching tags:-
We are <b>not</b> amused.
As the example shows, the tags are just pieces of text inside the “angle bracket” characters, <
and >
.
You place the opening tag at the beginning of the section. The text inside the tag denotes its name (which in this case is just b).
You place another tag at the end of the section. This is the closing tag. It has the same name as the opening tag, but the name is prefixed with a slash /
character. Every opening tag must have a corresponding closing tag. If you don’t close an opening tag, it is rendered as regular text.
The tags are not displayed to the user directly but are interpreted as instructions for styling the text they enclose. The b
tag used in the example above applies boldface to the word “not”, so the text appears ons creen as:-
We are not amused
A marked up section of text (including the tags that enclose it) is referred to as an element.
It is possible to apply more than one style to a section of text by “nesting” one element inside another
We are <b><i>definitely not</i></b> amused
The <i>
tag applies italic style, so this would be presented onscreen as
We are definitely not amused
Note the ordering of the closing tags, which is in reverse to that of the opening tags. The reason for this is perhaps clearer when you consider that the inner tags need not span the whole text of the outermost element
We are <b>absolutely <i>definitely</i> not</b> amused
which gives
We are absolutely definitely not amused
Some tags have a simple all-or-nothing effect on the text but others might allow for variations. For example, the color tag needs to know which color to apply. Information like this is added to tags by the use of parameters:-
We are <color=green>green</color> with envy
Which produces this result:
Note that the ending tag doesn’t include the parameter value. Optionally, the value can be surrounded by quotation marks but this isn’t required.
Tag parameters cannot include blank spaces. For example:
We are <color = green>green</color> with envy
does not work because of the spaces to either side of the =
character.
The following list describes all the styling tags supported by Unity.
Tag | Description | Example | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
b | Renders the text in boldface. | We are <b>not</b> amused. |
|
i | Renders the text in italics. | We are <i>usually</i> not amused. |
|
size | Sets the size of the text according to the parameter value, given in pixels. | We are <size=50>largely</size> unaffected. |
Although this tag is available for Debug.Log, you will find that the line spacing in the window bar and Console looks strange if the size is set too large. |
color | Sets the color of the text according to the parameter value. The color can be specified in the traditional HTML format. #rrggbbaa …where the letters correspond to pairs of hexadecimal digits denoting the red, green, blue and alpha (transparency) values for the color. For example, cyan at full opacity would be specified by color=#00ffffff …You can specify hexadecimal values in uppercase or lowercase; #FF0000 is equivalent to #ff0000 . |
We are <color=#ff0000ff>colorfully</color> amused |
Another option is to use the name of the color. This is easier to understand but naturally, the range of colors is limited and full opacity is always assumed. <color=cyan>some text</color> The available color names are given in the table below. |
material | This is only useful for text meshes and renders a section of text with a material specified by the parameter. The value is an index into the text mesh’s array of materials as shown by the inspector. | We are <material=2>texturally</material> amused |
|
quad | This is only useful for text meshes and renders an image inline with the text. It takes parameters that specify the material to use for the image, the image height in pixels, and a further four that denote a rectangular area of the image to display. Unlike the other tags, quad does not surround a piece of text and so there is no ending tag - the slash character is placed at the end of the initial tag to indicate that it is “self-closing”. | <quad material=1 size=20 x=0.1 y=0.1 width=0.5 height=0.5> |
This selects the material at position in the renderer’s material array and sets the height of the image to 20 pixels. The rectangular area of image starts at given by the x, y, width and height values, which are all given as a fraction of the unscaled width and height of the texture. |
The following table lists colors for which you can use a name instead of a hexadecimal tag in the <color>
rich text tag.
Color name | Hex value | Swatch |
---|---|---|
aqua (same as cyan) | #00ffffff |
|
black | #000000ff |
|
blue | #0000ffff |
|
brown | #a52a2aff |
|
cyan (same as aqua) | #00ffffff |
|
darkblue | #0000a0ff |
|
fuchsia (same as magenta) | #ff00ffff |
|
green | #008000ff |
|
grey | #808080ff |
|
lightblue | #add8e6ff |
|
lime | #00ff00ff |
|
magenta (same as fuchsia) | #ff00ffff |
|
maroon | #800000ff |
|
navy | #000080ff |
|
olive | #808000ff |
|
orange | #ffa500ff |
|
purple | #800080ff |
|
red | #ff0000ff |
|
silver | #c0c0c0ff |
|
teal | #008080ff |
|
white | #ffffffff |
|
yellow | #ffff00ff |
Rich text is disabled by default in the editor GUI system but it can be enabled explicitly using a custom GUIStyle. The richText
property should be set to true and the style passed to the GUI function in question:
GUIStyle style = new GUIStyle ();
style.richText = true;
GUILayout.Label("<size=30>Some <color=yellow>RICH</color> text</size>",style);
When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.
More information
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising. Some 3rd party video providers do not allow video views without targeting cookies. If you are experiencing difficulty viewing a video, you will need to set your cookie preferences for targeting to yes if you wish to view videos from these providers. Unity does not control this.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.