Box
ColorField

Button

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.

Create a Button

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" };

Add an icon to a Button

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:

  • From the Button’s InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
    See in Glossary
    tab, choose the desired icon from the Icon Image dropdown list.
  • Alternatively, drag the icon from the Assets window to the Icon Image field located in the Button’s Inspector tab.

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;

Change the Button icon position

When you add an icon to a Button, it adds two read-only sub-elements to the Button:

  • An Image element to define the icon image.
  • A TextElement to define the button text.

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:

  • To shift the icon to the right of the button text, set it to row-reverse.
  • To move the icon above the button text, set it to column.
  • To place the icon below the button text, set it to column-reverse.

Use sub-elements of a Button

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:

  • Customization: Using sub-elements allows you to customize the appearance and behavior of each individual element separately. For example, you may want to use a custom font or color for the label text or add a specific animation to the image. When you add an Image element to your Button, you can add the element from your sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
    See in Glossary
    directly. In addition, an Image element also supports scale mode and repeat mode.
  • Dynamic content: If the content of the label or image is dynamic, using sub-elements allows you to update the content of each element separately without affecting the other properties of the button.
  • Interaction: If you want to add interactivity to a specific element within the button, such as allowing the user to click only the label (disregarding clicks on other elements of the button) to trigger an action, using sub-elements makes this possible.

Use properties for the following purposes:

  • Simple designs: If the design of the button is simple and doesn’t require customization or dynamic content, using properties is recommended.
  • Performance: If you have many buttons in your UI, using sub-elements for each one may negatively impact performance. In this case, it’s more efficient to use properties to set the appearance of the button.
  • Consistency: If you want to maintain consistency across your UI, using properties can ensure that all buttons have a consistent appearance and behavior.

Examples

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# base class and namespace

C# class: Button
Namespace: UnityEngine.UIElements
Base class: TextElement

Member UXML attributes

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

Inherited UXML attributes

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.

USS classes

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.

Additional resources


Did you find this page useful? Please give it a rating:

Box
ColorField