Interactive Buttons

This tutorial shows you how to make on-screen buttons for menus, interface actions, and more.

Button Types

There are two types of button objects that you can use in your UI designs:

TextButton	ImageButton
A TextButton is similar to a TextLabel except that players can activate it with a click/tap. It also shares many of the same visual properties — font, background color, stroke color, etc.	An ImageButton is like an interactive version of the ImageLabel object. It also shares most of the same properties as its non-button counterpart.

Creating a Button

The following steps show how to add an ImageButton to the screen and flip it between three appearances depending on the player's interaction.

1. In the Explorer window, hover over the StarterGui object, click the + button, and insert a ScreenGui.

   

2. Select the new ScreenGui object and, in a similar way, insert an ImageButton.

   

   This will add an empty image button to the corner of the game view.

   

3. As a best practice, rename the new button according to its purpose, for example MapButton.

   

Size

For the button to dynamically resize on various devices and screens, it's best to use Scale properties.

1. In the Properties window, locate the Size property and click the arrow to expand its tree.

   

2. Set the following size properties:

   

3. Constrain the button to a square bounding box by setting SizeConstraint to RelativeYY.

   

Scaling

The current size should work nicely on a phone, but the X/Y scale of 0.15 (15%) may appear too large on a computer screen. To correct this, you can add a UISizeConstraint.

1. Hover over the MapButton object and insert a UISizeConstraint.

   

2. Select the new size constraint object and set its MaxSize property to 90, 90.

   

Position

Buttons should typically be moved within a player's thumb reach on mobile devices, for instance the lower-right area of the screen.

1. Change the button's AnchorPoint property to 0.5, 1 so that positioning will be based around its bottom-center point.

   

2. Expand the button's Position tree and set the following property values. This will move the button near the default jump button that appears on phones/tablets.

   

   

Images

This button needs three custom images — its normal appearance on the screen, a hover-over appearance, and a final image for when the player presses it.

Normal

Hover

Pressed

Setting these appearances can be done through the Image, HoverImage, and PressedImage properties.

1. Locate the button's Image property and paste in rbxassetid://6025368017, or use your own asset.

   

2. For the HoverImage property, paste in rbxassetid://6025452347.

   

3. For the PressedImage property, paste in rbxassetid://6025454897.

   

Styling

To finalize the button's appearance on screen, make the following adjustments:

1. Set BackgroundTransparency to a value of 1 to make the background transparent.

   

   

2. Rotate the button slightly by setting Rotation to -5.

   

   

Button Functionality

The final task is hooking up basic button functionality.

1. In the Explorer window, hover over the MapButton object and insert a LocalScript.

   

2. In the script, copy and paste in these new lines:

   local button = script.Parent
   
   local function onButtonActivated()
   	print("Button activated!")
   	-- Perform expected button action(s) here
   end
   
   button.Activated:Connect(onButtonActivated)

This simple button script works as follows:

• The first line sets a variable button which tells the script what specific object it's linked to. In this case it's linked to the ImageButton, the parent of the script.
• The onButtonActivated function handles the button's activation. Inside it, you should perform the intended action like opening the game's main menu.
• The final line connects the button to the onButtonActivated function with the Activated event. This will cause the function to run every time a player activates the button in game.

Troubleshooting

If the button doesn't work as expected, check the following:

• Make sure you used a client-side LocalScript, not a server-side Script.
• Ensure that the LocalScript is a direct child of the button object (not a child of the ScreenGui container).
• Confirm that your button's Image, HoverImage, and PressedImage properties are set to the appropriate image assets.