UXML element VisualElement

A VisualElement is the basic element that you can use as a container for other elements. You can use a VisualElement to group elements together and apply a common style to them. For example, you can use a VisualElement to group a label and a text field together, and then apply a common style to the VisualElement.

Create a VisualElement

You can create a VisualElement with UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary Builder, UXML, or C#. The following C# example creates a VisualElement with a label and a text field:

var myElement = new VisualElement();
myElement.Add(new Label("Hello World"));
myElement.Add(new TextField());
myElement.style.backgroundColor = Color.blue;
myElement.style.width = 200;
myElement.style.height = 200;

C# base class and namespace

C# class: VisualElement
Namespace: UnityEngine.UIElements
Base class: Focusable

Member UXML attributes

This element has the following member attributes:

Name	Type	Description
`content-container`	`string`	Child elements are added to it, usually this is the same as the element itself.
`name`	`string`	The name of this VisualElement. Use this property to write USS selectors that target a specific element. The standard practice is to give an element a unique name.
`picking-mode`	`UIElements.PickingMode`	Determines if this element can be pick during mouseEvents or `IPanel.Pick` queries.
`style`	`string`	Reference to the style object of this element. Contains data computed from USS files or inline styles written to this object in C#.
`tooltip`	`string`	Text to display inside an information box after the user hovers the element for a small amount of time. This is only supported in the Editor UI.
`usage-hints`	`UIElements.UsageHints`	A combination of hint values that specify high-level intended usage patterns for the `VisualElement`. This property can only be set when the `VisualElement` is not yet part of a `Panel`. Once part of a `Panel`, this property becomes effectively read-only, and attempts to change it will throw an exception. The specification of proper `UsageHints` drives the system to make better decisions on how to process or accelerate certain operations based on the anticipated usage pattern. Note that those hints do not affect behavioral or visual results, but only affect the overall performance of the panel and the elements within. It’s advised to always consider specifying the proper `UsageHints`, but keep in mind that some `UsageHints` might be internally ignored under certain conditions (e.g. due to hardware limitations on the target platform).
`view-data-key`	`string`	Used for view data persistence (ie. tree expanded states, scroll position, zoom level). This is the key used to save/load the view data from the view data store. Not setting this key will disable persistence for this `VisualElement`.

Inherited UXML attributes

This element inherits the following attributes from its base class:

Name	Type	Description
`focusable`	`boolean`	True if the element can be focused.
`tabindex`	`int`	An integer used to sort focusables in the focus ring. Must be greater than or equal to zero.

USS classes

The following table lists all the C# public property names and their related USS selector.

C# property	USS selector	Description
`disabledUssClassName`	`.unity-disabled`	USS class name of local disabled elements.

You can also use the Matching Selectors section in the Inspector or the UI Toolkit Debugger to see which USS selectors affect the components of the VisualElement at every level of its hierarchy.

Additional resources

UXML element BindableElement

UXML element BoundsField