For the people who want some UI stuff in XNA, here's a small sample that contains a Pie Menu Component, attached to a cursor. If you don't know what a pie menu is, read about it on wikipedia.

Now, about the sample.

My PieMenu supports deep menus, as seen in the sample. Currently it is just a quick version, made in two days. Because of this, the graphics are not spectacular, and some things may not be extremely flexible right now (the parameters passed to delegates).

But as it is, each menu entry has associated with it an image, a text description, and a delegate, for the action that should be performed. The PieMenu also supports submenus, as seen in this sample.

The cursor can operate in two modes: mouse-friendly and gamepad friendly. In the mouse friendly mode, the menu options are selected with the cursor, while in gamepad friendly mode, they are selected with the left thumbstick.

The current sample contains the following menus:

• Change Gamerpic: allows navigation through a series of submenus, to select a gamerpic that will be displayed in the window
• Change Background Color: randomly chooses a new background color
• Toggle Input Mode: toggles between the mouse and gamepad friendly input modes. Default is mouse, so if you don't have a gamepad, don't worry.
• Exit : exits the sample.

This is just as an example. The menu can be easily customized. Also, the Cursor.ShowPieMenu() function has an overload that allows you to specify the menu that will be shown. This allows for different menus, depending on the selected object (this is NOT illustrated in this sample)

Controls:

• Gamepad A or Mouse Click : open menu, or selected submenu
• Gamepad B, or Mouse Click when no submenu selected: return to upper menu / exit menu

You can find the sample here. You can use the code as you see fit, with one exception. If you're working on an entry for the Imagine Cup 2008 competition, and you plan to use it, please give me credit :)

Comments? Suggestions? (Besides "the graphics suck, make them better")

Ziggyware just announced the winners of the XNA Tutorial Contest, and the first place goes to....

ME! Hurraaaay! Party!!!!

I'm extremely happy about this, and I want to thank everyone who supported me, who voted for me, and who somehow contributed to this. Also, I want to congratulate all other contestants for their good tutorials!

Special thanks go to:

Michael Morton, for organizing the contest!

Lidia, for every little thing she does, and for her support, understanding, caring and love.

Nick Gravelyn, for helping Michael with putting my article online

All my voters :)

All of the XNA Community

The XNA Team

Thank you! I'll do my best to continue providing tutorials and help to the community.

Let's Kill Dave has posted the list of Gamefest presentations what will have slides and recordings available for them. Since most of the links were not posted right, Leaf made the needed corrections. You can now find all the links here.

The titles sound extremely interesting, and I can't wait to devour them.

I wish you all Happy Reading / Listening :)