Hotbar

A row of slots that hold anything the player can press: abilities, potions, weapons and tools, buildables, or content of your own. Each slot has a key. Your view draws the slots and lets the player drag content onto them.

Every field, its default and every member you can call: Hotbar reference.

Setup

1. Add Vantage → Hotbar → VtHotbar to the player.
2. Fill Slots with abilities, items or buildables. Empty slots stay empty.
3. Slot 1 presses Ability 1 (key 1 by default), slot 2 Ability 2, and so on. First Ability Action moves the whole bar: 7 puts slot 1 on key 7. A slot’s own Action replaces its key.

A player can carry several bars. For six item slots and four build slots, add two VtHotbars and set the second one’s First Ability Action to 7. If the unit also has VtAbilityHotkeys, leave its slots on the same keys empty so one key does not press twice.

What a press does

A hotbar that is part of the inventory

For games where the hotbar is a row of the inventory, put an Inventory Area in the bar’s slots, or call bar.AssignArea(hotbarArea, 0, 6). The first bar slot holding the area shows the area’s slot 0, the next one slot 1, and so on. Each bar slot shows that one stack: its icon, count and wear, so two stacks of wood are two slots. DurabilityLeft and DurabilityMax give the numbers behind the wear bar, such as 350 of 400 for a tool that copies were combined into.

• With a held slot on the same area, a press selects the slot, which puts its item in the hand; pressing the selected slot again uses its item, such as eating, or puts on armor kept there. An empty slot can be selected for empty hands. Active marks the selected slot.
• Without one, a press uses the item, or puts it on when it can be worn.

The bar can be wider than the area. Bar slots past the area’s current size read as Locked, and pressing them does nothing, until the area grows: a bar of six over an area of 4 that a backpack grows to 6 shows two locked slots without the backpack. Any split works, since the bar’s width and the area’s size and Size Stat are separate settings. Redraw on the inventory’s OnLimitsChanged.

The bar saves these slots as invslot:<area id> and finds the area on the unit when it loads, so the area needs no entry in the Definition Catalog. Items still work the old way for games whose bars point at items.

Drawing it

var bar = player.GetComponent<VtHotbar>();

for (int i = 0; i < bar.SlotCount; i++)
{
    VtHotbarSlotState slot = bar.Read(i);
    // slot.Icon / IconId / DisplayName, slot.Count (-1 = none), slot.Durability (0..1, -1 = none),
    // slot.DurabilityLeft / DurabilityMax (uses left and full durability, -1 = none),
    // slot.Usable, slot.Active (aiming, placing, worn), slot.Locked (not open yet),
    // slot.CooldownFraction, slot.Action for the key cap
}

bar.Press(i);                          // a click on the slot
bar.OnSlotsChanged += Redraw;

VtSlot from the UI module draws one slot, and its drag events map onto the bar:

if (VtHotbar.CanHold(dragged)) bar.Assign(targetSlot, dragged);   // dropped from the bag or build menu
bar.Move(fromSlot, toSlot);                                        // dragged between slots, swaps
bar.Clear(slot);                                                   // dragged off the bar

The slots are saved with the unit.

Your own content

Implement IVtHotbarHandler and register it once:

VtHotbar.RegisterHandler(new EmoteHotbarHandler());

A handler claims content (CanHold), fills the slot state (Read), does the press (Activate), and gives the content a save id under its Kind. Handlers registered later are asked first, so one can replace the built-in handling of abilities, items or buildables. A handler that needs to know which bar slot it draws, or that finds saved content on the unit, implements IVtHotbarSlotAwareHandler as well.