Use the Button element to create clickable buttons in a UI. For example, when a user clicks or taps on a Button element, it triggers an action or event, such as opening a new window, submitting a form, or playing a sound effect.
You can create a Button with UI Builder, UXML, or C#. The following C# example creates a Button with a label:
var button = new Button(() => { Debug.Log("Button clicked"); }) { text = "Click me" };
You can enhance the visual appeal of your Button by incorporating an icon, such as a Texture, Render TextureA special type of Texture that is created and updated at runtime. To use them, first create a new Render Texture and designate one of your Cameras to render into it. Then you can use the Render Texture in a Material just like a regular Texture. More info
See in Glossary, SpriteA 2D graphic objects. If you are used to working in 3D, Sprites are essentially just standard textures but there are special techniques for combining and managing sprite textures for efficiency and convenience during development. More info
See in Glossary, or Vector image asset that exists in your project. For information on how to reference an image asset, refer to AssetsAny media or data that can be used in your game or project. An asset may come from a file created outside of Unity, such as a 3D Model, an audio file or an image. You can also create some asset types in Unity, such as an Animator Controller, an Audio Mixer or a Render Texture. More info
See in Glossary.
To add an icon for a Button with UI Builder:
To add an icon for a Button with UXML, provide the image source to the icon-image
attribute:
<ui:Button name="Button" text="Button text" icon-image="/path/to/image-file.png" />
To add an icon for a Button with C#, assign the image source to the iconImage
property:
Button myButton = new Button();
var buttonIconImage = Resources.Load<Texture2D>("image-file");
myButton.text = "Button text";
myButton.iconImage = buttonIconImage;
When you add an icon to a Button, it adds two read-only sub-elements to the Button:
You can’t edit the sub-elements but you can change their layout using the USS flex-direction
property for the Button element. By default, the icon is added on the left of the button text.
To reposition the button icon, adjust the Button’s flex-direction
with the following:
row-reverse
.column
.column-reverse
.The Button element allows you to provide additional information to the user with the text
, iconImage
properties, and the background-image
style property. As with any visual elementA node of a visual tree that instantiates or derives from the C# VisualElement
class. You can style the look, define the behaviour, and display it on screen as part of the UI. More info
See in Glossary, you can also add sub-elements in a Button’s hierarchy, such as a Label or Image, to provide additional information to the user if you want to have more fine-grained control over the appearance and behavior of those elements.
In general, use sub-elements in the following situations:
Use properties for the following purposes:
The following UXML example creates a Button:
<UXML xmlns="UnityEngine.UIElements" xmlns:uie="UnityEditor.UIElements">
<Button text="UXML Button" name="the-uxml-button" />
</UXML>
The following C# example illustrates some of the customizable functionalities of the Button:
/// <sample>
// Action to perform when button is pressed.
// Toggles the text on all buttons in 'container'.
Action action = () =>
{
container.Query<Button>().ForEach((button) =>
{
button.text = button.text.EndsWith("Button") ? "Button (Clicked)" : "Button";
});
};
// Get a reference to the Button from UXML and assign it its action.
var uxmlButton = container.Q<Button>("the-uxml-button");
uxmlButton.RegisterCallback<MouseUpEvent>((evt) => action());
// Create a new Button with an action and give it a style class.
var csharpButton = new Button(action) { text = "C# Button" };
csharpButton.AddToClassList("some-styled-button");
container.Add(csharpButton);
/// </sample>
To try this example live in Unity, go to Window > UI Toolkit > Samples.
C# class: Button
Namespace: UnityEngine.UIElements
Base class: TextElement
This element has the following member attributes:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
icon-image |
Object |
The Texture, Sprite, or VectorImage that will represent an icon within a Button element. |
text |
string |
text |
This element inherits the following attributes from its base class:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
binding-path |
string |
Path of the target property to be bound. |
display-tooltip-when-elided |
boolean |
When true, a tooltip displays the full version of elided text, and also if a tooltip had been previously provided, it will be overwritten. |
double-click-selects-word |
boolean |
Controls whether double-clicking selects the word under the mouse pointer. |
emoji-fallback-support |
boolean |
Specifies the order in which the system should look for Emoji characters when rendering text. If this setting is enabled, the global Emoji Fallback list will be searched first for characters defined as Emoji in the Unicode 14.0 standard. |
enable-rich-text |
boolean |
When false, rich text tags will not be parsed. |
focusable |
boolean |
If false, this prevents the element from being focused. The element can only be focused if its canGrabFocus property is true. |
parse-escape-sequences |
boolean |
Determines how escape sequences are displayed. When set to true , escape sequences (such as \n , \t ) are parsed and transformed into their corresponding characters. For example, ‘\n’ will insert a new line. When set to false , escape sequences are displayed as raw text (for example, \n is shown as the characters ’' followed by ‘n’). |
selectable |
boolean |
Returns true if the field is selectable. |
tabindex |
int |
An integer used to sort focusable elements in the focus ring. Must be greater than or equal to zero. Setting the tabIndex value to less than 0 (for example, −1 ) removes the element from the focus ring and tab navigation. |
text |
string |
The text to be displayed. Changing this value will implicitly invoke the INotifyValueChanged_1.value setter, which will raise a ChangeEvent_1 of type string. |
triple-click-selects-line |
boolean |
Controls whether triple-clicking selects the entire line under the mouse pointer. |
This element also inherits the following attributes from VisualElement
:
Name | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
content-container |
string |
Logical container where child elements are added. If a child is added to this element, the child is added to this element’s content container instead. When iterating over the VisualElement.Children of an element, the element’s content container hierarchy is used instead of the element itself. This can lead to unexpected results, such as elements being ignored by the navigation events if they are not directly in the content container’s hierarchy. Refer to IFocusRing for more information.If the content container is the same as the element itself, child elements are added directly to the element. This is true for most elements but can be overridden by more complex types. The ScrollView , for example, has a content container that is different from itself. In that case, child elements added to the scroll view are added to its content container element instead. While the physical parent (VisualElement.Hierarchy.parent ) of the child elements is the scroll view’s content container element, their logical parent (VisualElement.parent ) still refers to the scroll view itself. Since some of the scroll view’s focusable children are not part of its logical hierarchy, like its Scroller elements, these focusable children are not considered by default when using sequential navigation. Refer to How can I change what element is focused next for an example of a workaround solution if the default navigation rules don’t correspond to your needs. |
data-source |
Object |
Assigns a data source to this VisualElement which overrides any inherited data source. This data source is inherited by all children. |
data-source-path |
string |
Path from the data source to the value. |
data-source-type |
System.Type |
The possible type of data source assignable to this VisualElement. This information is only used by the UI Builder as a hint to provide some completion to the data source path field when the effective data source cannot be specified at design time. |
enabled |
boolean |
Returns true if the VisualElement is enabled locally.This flag isn’t changed if the VisualElement is disabled implicitly by one of its parents. To verify this, use enabledInHierarchy . |
language-direction |
UIElements.LanguageDirection |
Indicates the directionality of the element’s text. The value will propagate to the element’s children. Setting languageDirection to RTL can only get the basic RTL support like text reversal. To get more comprehensive RTL support, such as line breaking, word wrapping, or text shaping, you must enable Advance Text Generator. |
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 the target of pointer events or picked by IPanel.Pick queries.Elements can not be picked if: - They are invisible- Their style.display is set to DisplayStyle.None Elements with a picking mode of PickingMode.Ignore never receive the hover pseudo-state. |
style |
string |
Sets the style values on a VisualElement .The returned style data, computed from USS files or inline styles written to this object in C#, doesn’t represent the fully resolved styles, such as the final height and width of a VisualElement. To access these fully resolved styles, use resolvedStyle .For information about how to use this property and all the supported USS properties, refer to the Apply styles in C# scripts and USS properties reference manual pages. |
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, such as tree expanded states, scroll position, or zoom level. This key is used to save and load the view data from the view data store. If you don’t set this key, the persistence is disabled for the associated VisualElement . For more information, refer to View data persistence in the Unity Manual. |
The following table lists all the C# public property names and their related USS selector.
C# property | USS selector | Description |
---|---|---|
ussClassName |
.unity-button |
USS class name of elements of this type. Unity adds this USS class to every instance of the Button element. Any styling applied to this class affects every button located beside, or below the stylesheet in the visual tree. |
iconUssClassName |
.unity-button--with-icon |
The USS class name for Button elements with an icon. Unity adds this USS class to an instance of the Button element if the instance’s Button.iconImage property contains a valid Texture. Any styling applied to this class affects every button with an icon located beside, or below the stylesheet in the visual tree. |
iconOnlyUssClassName |
.unity-button--with-icon-only |
The USS class name for Button elements with an icon only, no text. Unity adds this USS class to an instance of the Button element if the instance’s Button.iconImage property contains a valid Texture and no text is set. Any styling applied to this class affects every button with an icon located beside, or below the stylesheet in the visual tree. |
ussClassName |
.unity-text-element |
USS class name of elements of this type. |
selectableUssClassName |
.unity-text-element__selectable |
USS class name of selectable text elements. |
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.
Did you find this page useful? Please give it a rating:
Thanks for rating this page!
What kind of problem would you like to report?
Thanks for letting us know! This page has been marked for review based on your feedback.
If you have time, you can provide more information to help us fix the problem faster.
Provide more information
You've told us this page needs code samples. If you'd like to help us further, you could provide a code sample, or tell us about what kind of code sample you'd like to see:
You've told us there are code samples on this page which don't work. If you know how to fix it, or have something better we could use instead, please let us know:
You've told us there is information missing from this page. Please tell us more about what's missing:
You've told us there is incorrect information on this page. If you know what we should change to make it correct, please tell us:
You've told us this page has unclear or confusing information. Please tell us more about what you found unclear or confusing, or let us know how we could make it clearer:
You've told us there is a spelling or grammar error on this page. Please tell us what's wrong:
You've told us this page has a problem. Please tell us more about what's wrong:
Thank you for helping to make the Unity documentation better!
Your feedback has been submitted as a ticket for our documentation team to review.
We are not able to reply to every ticket submitted.