Hi,

I need basic GUI functionality (menu bar, buttons, status bar, labels, etc) in an application that has to be cross-plataform. I'm looking at monogame, and it appears it can be very helpful. I've been researching and found many GUI frameworks for XNA, both open and paid, but they seldom mention if they work for MonoGame, and the few that do, give a negative. Does anyone know of a GUI framework that works with MonoGame?

ARMED! started by using the GUI system in the XNA "State Management Sample"...

http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/game_state_management

... we've expanded it and added new controls over the last year or so.  We found it a great free starting point.

   - Tom

Any UI system made for XNA should work with MonoGame as long as you have the source and are able to build the code (so they can reference the MonoGame assembly not the XNA assemblies).

I've come across certain frameworks that include a UI System (XUI for example), but they come with .contentproj files, and so Monodevelop can't open them. How can I use this kind of project files?

XUI use much unsafe code. Not all platforms support that. And you can always rebuild the UI project.

Stuff that don't exists in Mono, that XUI use:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/bb975971(v=xnagamestudio.20)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.graphicsdevice.referencestencil(v=xnagamestudio.40).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.dynamicvertexbuffer.contentlost(v=xnagamestudio.40)

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.graphics.dynamicindexbuffer.contentlost(v=xnagamestudio.40)

I also started out with the game state mgt sample that Tom mentioned, as well as another UI sample here:

http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/sample/ui_controls

samssonart wrote:

I've come across certain frameworks that include a UI System (XUI for example), but they come with .contentproj files, and so Monodevelop can't open them. How can I use this kind of project files?

AT this stage, you would build the content project in a standard XNA project, then use the XNB files in your MonoGame project.  Until we get our own content build pipeline completed.

Does anyone have any idea how one would go about converting the GameStateManagement from Windows Phone to Android? I added the conditional compiler symbol for WINDOWS_PHONE to my Android build but it threw some rrors. Commenting some stuff out in other screens, I still ran into the "black screen of doom".

Any ideas on debugging this is appreciated. :) 

EDIT: With some further poking around, it looks like its mostly working. But like my issue with all MonOGame Android apps, sending it to the background causes it to black-screen on resume. =(