I am trying to create a simple GUI system, with buttons and text for now, but this little problem has me absolutely stumped. Basically, I'm creating a new instance of the class GUI and giving it a reference of the newly created window (wnd) which then stores it in the variable "w". With that, I loop through all the current buttons and draw it using the window's draw function (w.Draw()) but the variable "w" always ends up being null and giving me that error. Here's part of my code:

// Program.cs
static void Main(string[] args)
	{
		RenderWindow wnd = new RenderWindow(new VideoMode(800, 600), "Test");
		Font font = new Font("ITCBLKAD.TTF");
 		GUI gui = new GUI(ref wnd);
            
		wnd.Closed += new EventHandler(CloseEvn);

		while (wnd.IsOpen)
		{
			wnd.DispatchEvents();
 			wnd.Clear();
			gui.RenderAll();
			wnd.Display();
		}
  	// ...
// GUIHandler.cs
class GUI
{
	protected RenderWindow w;
	static protected List<Button> buttonContainer = new List<Button>();

	public GUI() { }

	public GUI(ref RenderWindow window)
	{
		w = window;
	}

	public void RenderAll()
	{
		foreach (Button obj in buttonContainer)
		{
			obj.Draw();
		}
   	}
}
  
class Button : GUI
{
	Text textObj;
  	FloatRect rect;
 	RectangleShape shape;
        
   	Vector2f vec;
   	State state;
	readonly string type = "button";

	private Button(string text, Font _font, float xpos, float ypos, State _state)
	{
		vec.X = xpos;
		vec.Y = ypos;
		textObj = new Text(text, _font);
		textObj.Position = vec;
		state = _state;
		rect.Left = xpos;
		rect.Top = ypos;
		rect.Width = 10;
		rect.Height = 10;
	}

	public static Button NewText(string text, Font _font, float xpos, float ypos, State _state)
	{
		Button temp = new Button(text, _font, xpos, ypos, _state);
      
		buttonContainer.Add(temp);

		return temp;
	}
  
	public void Draw()
	{
		w.Draw(textObj);
	}
}

Is there anything I'm missing? I'll post the whole code if needed.

This has nothing to do with the problem your having, I think Endurion is right about it, but I noticed this code:

4 hours ago, louie999 said:

public static Button NewText(string text, Font _font, float xpos, float ypos, State _state) { Button temp = new Button(text, _font, xpos, ypos, _state); buttonContainer.Add(temp); return temp; }

Wouldn't it be easier to just set textObj to use the data from the parameters of this function? Also, I don't see the point of adding a temporary Button to buttonContainer and returning the temporary Button, especially not to just set new text.

Thanks for the response, guys.  I've re-written the code for that so it should hopefully be better now.

@Endurion You're right, that was the problem. I believe I've managed to fix it now when I re-written it.

@Yxjmir Well, the reason I'm returning the newly created button is that I do have some other functions that set other things (Like color, and perhaps textures in the future).

@ericrrichards22 Yeah, sub-classing it to GUI was quite useless, I've changed that now though . The reason I made buttonContainer static is because it's where all the buttons would be stored. It's also being used in a foreach loop to update/draw the buttons.

Here's the updated code. Though it is still quite unfinished, it did manage to do some basic stuff like respond to button clicks through the event handler. But is there any thing else that needs to be improved? Or perhaps changed?

namespace TestApp
{
    namespace GUI
    {
        public delegate void MouseOverObjectEventHandler(object sender, OnMouseOverObjectEventArgs e);

        #region Event Args

        public class OnMouseOverObjectEventArgs : EventArgs
        {
            public float mx, my;
            public Mouse.Button ButtonPressed;
            public object Source;

            public OnMouseOverObjectEventArgs(float x, float y, Mouse.Button buttonPressed, object source)
            {
                mx = x;
                my = y;
                ButtonPressed = buttonPressed;
                Source = source;
            }
        }

        #endregion

        static class Renderer
        {
            public static RenderWindow Window;
            public static List<Button> ButtonContainer = new List<Button>();

            static public event MouseOverObjectEventHandler OnMouseOver;

            public static void Init(ref RenderWindow window)
            {
                Window = window;
            }

            public static void DrawGUI()
            {
                foreach (Button obj in ButtonContainer)
                {
                    obj.Draw();
                }
            }

            public static void Update(float mx, float my, Mouse.Button buttonPressed)
            {
                foreach (Button obj in ButtonContainer)
                {
                    if (obj.Area.Contains(mx, my))
                    {
                        OnMouseOver?.Invoke(obj, new OnMouseOverObjectEventArgs(mx, my, buttonPressed, obj));
                    }
                }
            }
        }

        public class State
        {
            int id;
            static public State currentState;

            public State(int n)
            {
                id = n;
            }

            public static void SetState(State state)
            {
                currentState = state;
            }

            public override bool Equals(object obj)
            {
                State other = (State)obj;
                return this.id == other.id;
            }
        }

        class Button
        {
            Text DisplayText = new Text();
            Font font;
            RectangleShape Rect = new RectangleShape();
            public FloatRect Area = new FloatRect();
            float Xpos, Ypos, Width, Height;
            State state;
            bool IsHidden = false;

            #region Constructor & Adder

            private Button(string text, Font font, Vector2f position, Vector2f size, State _state)
            {
                DisplayText.DisplayedString = text;
                DisplayText.Font = font;
                DisplayText.Position = position;

                Rect.Position = position;
                Rect.Size = size;

                Area.Left = position.X;
                Area.Top = position.Y;
                Area.Width = size.X;
                Area.Height = size.Y;

                state = _state;
            }

            static public Button New(string text, Font font, Vector2f position, Vector2f size, State _state)
            {
                var newButton = new Button(text, font, position, size, _state);
                Renderer.ButtonContainer.Add(newButton);

                return newButton;
            }

            #endregion

            #region Set Methods

            public Button SetText(string text)
            {
                DisplayText.DisplayedString = text;

                return this;
            }

            public Button SetTextColor(Color color)
            {
                DisplayText.Color = color;

                return this;
            }

            public Button SetBackgroundColor(Color color)
            {
                Rect.FillColor = color;

                return this;
            }

            public Button SetPosition(Vector2f pos)
            {
                DisplayText.Position = pos;

                return this;
            }

            public Button SetFont(ref Font font)
            {
                DisplayText.Font = font;

                return this;
            }

            public Button SetVisibility(bool visibility)
            {
                IsHidden = visibility;

                return this;
            }

            #endregion

            #region Get Methods

            public string GetText()
            {
                return DisplayText.DisplayedString;
            }

            public bool GetVisibility()
            {
                return IsHidden;
            }

            #endregion

            public void Draw()
            {
                if (!IsHidden && state == State.currentState)
                {
                    Renderer.Window.Draw(Rect);
                    Renderer.Window.Draw(DisplayText);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

You don't need to pass parameters with 'ref' if (you don't need to reassign that variable at the call site) && (are not doing it to match a virtual function signature) && (the type is not a large value type that you're trying to prevent pass-by-value from copying the whole thing).

@Nypyren Thanks!  I'll keep that in mind.