UI on Android Game - What are my options? - android-canvas

Question

First of all let me give a bit of context to make the question more precise:
I am developing an Android game (using SurfaceView, Canvas, etc), and it is working perfectly for the gameplay part. I initially tried to use View-derived elements on top of it for menus and other UI elements, and rapidly realized by experimentation and looking at some questions here on Stackoverflow that this was a really bad idea, since they dont mix well (say a LinearLayout on top of a SurfaceView).
I see 3 possible paths:
A) Continue using View elements on top of SurfaceView (and deal with the problems with it, such as horrendous lag)
B) Draw UI elements manually on SurfaceView/Canvas. Something like: canvas.drawBitmap(menuBitmap, posX, posY, ...); and then handle the touches manually, and suffer with screen fragmentation
C) Use a library/framework designed specifically for this that handles all the drawing of UI, touch on buttons, drag to scroll, etc. Something like the View and its derived elements, but designed for games and apps that draw using SurfaceView.
Are there more options that Im not seeing? And "C" seems the best to me, but is there a library for that? Which one?
Edit: forgot to ask the most obvious question, also: How does other professional/commercial games deal with this?
Thanks

Answer 1

I really don't like these game engines (AndEngine, Corona, Unity3D, cocos2d, etc). I want to learn Android, which will be more useful for my professional life than engine X or Y.
All my games were created without game engines. I use option (A) for almost everything and I don't see any lag or sluggishness.
Examples:
The game screen for Minesweeper 3D is a set of layouts and views plus a SurfaceView to hold the OpenGL 3D field.
The game screen for Box Topple is also a set of layouts and views together with a custom view created to handle and display the box2d physics engine.
See my other games as well...

Answer 2

I had these same exact issues.
Then I found a free game engine called AndEngine.
This engine handles just about everything you need.
For example:
OpenGL wrapper classes for simple, efficient drawing
Sprite classes (animated or not)
Particle effects
Cameras to view different parts of the scene you draw on
Scrolling backgrounds
Online multiplayer and Box2D physics engine extensions
etc.
And for your case:
It has a HUD that you attach to a camera, which stays static as the camera moves.
You can then attach buttons (already built-in, with click events) to this.
Here is some example code to create a button:
moveRightButton = new ButtonSprite(10, 10, moveRightButtonTexture, getVertexBufferObjectManager()) {
#Override
public boolean onAreaTouched(TouchEvent event, float x, float y) {
if (event.isActionDown()) {
player.moveRight();
// Set to 'clicked' image
this.setCurrentTileIndex(1);
}
else if (event.isActionUp()) {
// Set to 'unclicked' image
this.setCurrentTileIndex(0);
}
return super.onAreaTouched(event, x, y);
};
};
You can find the engine and its extensions at https://github.com/nicolasgramlich?tab=repositories.
The main problem with the engine is that there is no documentation.
However, there is a forum dedicated to the engine at http://www.andengine.org/forums/.
Also, you can download AndEngine Examples (via the same repository I mentioned above), created by the developer to give examples of usages of various aspects of the engine.
It takes a bit to get used to, but it has been very rewarding.