How to clone or create a prefab out of a complex VisualElement

I have a complex visual element, which consists of multiple other visual elements, a scroll view and a few text labels. Here is the example:



Now I know I can save the styles of all of these elements into a stylesheet file (uss) and simply apply all the styles by calling:

Code (CSharp):

1. .styleSheets.Add(stats_object_uss);

The issue I am having now is I need to manually recreate all these elements and parent them, which feels like the wrong way to do it. For example, this is how I do it for simple visual elements:

Code (CSharp):

1. UnityEngine.UIElements.Button floorSelectBtn = new UnityEngine.UIElements.Button();
2. floorSelectBtn.AddToClassList("Floor_btn");
3. floorSelectBtn.styleSheets.Add(game_object_uss);
4. floorSelectBtn.text = (string)elem["floor"];
5. floorSelectBtn.clicked += delegate { ShowFloor((int)elem["floor"]); };

There must be a fast way to get the whole childelements of #Stats_object at once, for exampe by saving this as a prefab somehow or I could leave one dummy element and make clones.

Thanks in advance

 

Thanks for the reply, so basically the UXML is the prefab. As a rule of thumb one can say if I start to repeat myself and use copy the same Visual Element, I should create it as a seperate UXML.

I can also parent different UXML's? Because they also have their own panel settings with a sort order.

 

Thanks a lot for the clarification. I have now a much better understanding on how it is intended to use the UXML's.

True, I can simply use the same panel settings! Thanks again.

 

Hello again. Found some time to continue on my game again.

In theory I understand how it should work, but I am still stuck. After many different attempts I feel like I am close now, but I am stuck on an error, which does not really help me:

Code (CSharp):

1. ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
2. Parameter name: e

So to sum it up, here is my main UI. You see, there is a scrollview with "Stats_object". In future I want to put multiple Stats_objects there:



Now what I did is: I created a new UXML file, which shares the same panel settings as my main GUI and replicated this element there. I had to create a new empty object and add the UI Document. I also had to deactive the object, because its just a template/dummy:



Now in the last step I have created a SerializeField in my UI controller script and saved the reference there:

Code (CSharp):

1. [SerializeField] UIDocument statsObject

Now I was able to make Instances of this UI Document. But the code crashes with the error above. Am I even doing it correctly? I hope my example is understandable.

Here is the code:

Code (CSharp):

1. int inserts = 0;
2. while (inserts != 3) {
3.     UIDocument statsObjectNew = Instantiate(statsObject);
4.     statsObjectNew.enabled = true;
5.     VisualElement statsObjectC = statsObjectNew.rootVisualElement.Q<VisualElement>("StatsObject");
6.     //statsObjectC.styleSheets.Add(game_object_uss);
7.     UnityEngine.UIElements.Label statsObjectTitle = statsObjectC.Q<UnityEngine.UIElements.Label>("Stats_object_title");
8.     statsObjectTitle.text = "Floor: " + (string)elem["floor"];
9.     stats.Insert(0, statsObjectC);
10.     inserts += 1;
11.     Debug.Log("inserted");
12. }

EDIT:

Fixed it, I had to make a real prefab out of it. The error was caused by it beeing disabled. Now everything works. I leave the question as is for others or maybe there is better way to do it!

 

Thanks a lot!