Need help moving an object with mouse clicks (not drag and drop)

thierry_le_saumon

Hi everyone. I'd like to apologize in advance for the poor wording of the title since I really have no clues how to put this properly with as few words as a title requires.

I am working on a 2D project, and I would like some help on making a system that allows me to move items/objects by first clicking on them, then clicking somewhere else, and have the item be moved to that somewhere else place. A bit like on lichess, for instance, where if you click on a piece once and immediately release the mouse button, you then get to click again on the square where you want to move the piece. There are plenty of tutorials on the internet about making drag and drop systems, but I haven't found any that helps with what I'm trying to do so far.

I have messed around a little trying to accomplish this idea and the closest I've come to actually having it working properly is this:

extends Node2D

var clicked = false

func _process(delta: float) -> void: if clicked == true: yield(get_tree().create_timer(0.1), "timeout") if Input.is_action_just_released("left_click"): global_position = get_viewport().get_mouse_position() clicked = false

func _on_Area2D_input_event(viewport: Node, event: InputEvent, shape_idx: int) -> void: if event is InputEventMouseButton: if event.button_index == BUTTON_LEFT and event.pressed: clicked = true

This sort of works, but since it uses a timer that has to be calibrated with the right value, I sense it's probably breakable. I would like to know if anyone here would proceed differently, and if there's a better way than mine to implement this idea.

Thanks a lot in advance!

TwistedTwigleg

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fire7side

Have you tried Input.is_action_just_pressed on the left button, then check in function if the area was pressed. If it was then select it, if it wasn't then move it. That would be assuming there was no delay in the area receiving the signal. Maybe that's why you are not doing it that way. If it didn't show up you could yield one frame and then check it.

thierry_le_saumon

@fire7side said: then check in function if the area was pressed.

I'm struggling to understand that part. I'm assuming that by "function" you mean "_on_Area2D_input_event". Since this is a signal that is emitted automatically by the node Area2D, how can I manually check it in my process function?

fire7side

Actually, I was thinking of throwing the boolean like you did. The problem with your code now is that, even with .1 second delay, that boolean will be checked 6 frames and the timer started 6 times. So you have 6 timers running. I guess what you could do there is call a function with a loop yield that would wait for the left release maybe checking every frame if it's not a signal that it can wait for, then wait for the next click and move the object, and you would not check anything in the process until the function cancelled the boolean again. You have to be careful about using a yield in the process function. Maybe I'm wrong about it being called multiple times, I think you did cancel it, but still, I would create a function that did the waiting, moved the object, and then canceled the boolean so it could check again. At least the code would be kind of separated.

thierry_le_saumon

Thanks. I will try this out.

DaveTheCoder

You probably also want some visible indication that the item-to-be-moved has been clicked on but the destination has not yet been clicked on, i.e. a move is in progress.