Unity Dynamic UI number selection with plus and minus buttons - unity3d

Question

while programming a game in Unity, I had troubles with incrementing this new feature: a dynamic UI number selection with plus and minus buttons.
What I want precisely:
1. three buttons, one blank in the middle displays the number, two with plus and minus signs which, when clicked, increment or decrement number by 1. WORKS OK!
image of what I did
2. (this is where it gets tricky) When user presses for more than, say, .2s, then it increments the value of the central button pretty fast as long as the user is still pressing on the button. Would avoid player from pressing hundred times the button because it increments only by 1.
3. Eventually add an acceleration phase of the increase (at the start increases by 3/s for example and at the max by 20/s or something like that)
Some help on this would be really great, thanks for those who will take time answering :)
edit: found somebody who asked same question on another post -->https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22816917/faster-increments-with-longer-uibutton-hold-duration?rq=1 but I don't understand a single inch of code...(doesn't look like c#) ;( help!

Answer 1

Are you using the button's OnClick() Event? It only calls the function once even if the user is holding down the key.
If you are not sure how to configure it. Here is a tutorial, you can use.
https://vionixstudio.com/2022/05/21/making-a-simple-button-in-unity/
Also the middle button can be a text field.

Answer 2

edit: found the solution myself. The principal issue I encountered when trying to make the button was a way to know if the button was being pressed (a bool variable). I already knew when it was clicked and when it was released with the OnPointerUp and OnPointerDown methods in the event trigger component. I then found the Input.GetButton() funct, which returns true if the button passed in parameter (here the mouse's left click) is pressed.
Here's the code (I didn't make an acceleration phase 'cause I was bored but it can be done pretty easily once you've got the Input.GetButton statement):
public class PlusAndMinus : MonoBehaviour
{
[SerializeField] private GameManager gameManagerScript;
[SerializeField] private int amount;
private bool isPressedForLong=false;
[SerializeField] private float IncreasePerSecWhenPressingLonger;
public void PointerDown()
{
if (!gameManagerScript.isGameActive)
{
StartCoroutine(PointerDownCoroutine());
}
}
private IEnumerator PointerDownCoroutine()
{
yield return new WaitForSeconds(.1f);#.2f might work better
if (Input.GetMouseButton(0))
{
isPressedForLong = true;
}
}
public void PointerUp()
{
if (!gameManagerScript.isGameActive)
{
isPressedForLong = false;
gameManagerScript.UpdateNumberOfBalls("Expected", amount);
}
}
private void Update()
{
if (isPressedForLong)
{
gameManagerScript.UpdateNumberOfBalls("Expected", amount * IncreasePerSecWhenPressingLonger * Time.deltaTime);
}
}
}
The PointerDown event in the event trigger component calls the PointerDown function in the script (same for PointerUp).
The value of "amount" var is set to 1 for the plus button and -1 for the minus button.
The two if statements checking if game is not active are for my game's use but aren't necessary.
Finally, the gameManagerScript.UpdateNumberOfBalls("expected",amount); statements call a function that updates the text in the middle by the amount specified. Here's my code ("expected" argument is for my game's use):
#inside the function
else if (startOrEndOrExpected == "Expected")
{
if (!((numberOfBallsExpected +amount) < 0) & !((numberOfBallsExpected +amount) > numberOfBallsThisLevel))
{
if (Math.Round(numberOfBallsExpected + amount) != Math.Round(numberOfBallsExpected))
{
AudioManager.Play("PlusAndMinus");
}
numberOfBallsExpected += amount;
numberOfBallsExpectedText.text = Math.Round(numberOfBallsExpected).ToString();
}
}
0 and numberOfBallsThisLevel are the boundaries of the number displayed.
Second if statement avoids the button click sound to be played every frame when the user presses for long on the button (only plays when number increments or decrements by 1 or more).
Hope this helps!