Loading nine-patch image as a Libgdx Scene2d Button background looks awful

Question

I\'m trying to use a Nine Patch as a background for a Libgdx Scene2d UI button. It is loading, buts it is really ugly. I can see the \"meta-data\" pixels, and its being str

Answer 1

Thanks to some pointers from @RodHyde, it looks like the libgdx NinePatch class is designed to accept a "post-processed" nine patch texture (i.e., with separate integer values that describe how to cut the single texture into patches). This "processing" usually happens as a side-effect of packing a ".9.png" file into a TextureAtlas (see https://github.com/libgdx/libgdx/wiki/Texture-packer#ninePatches). A texture atlas is a really good idea (especially when your UI includes a bunch of different texture elements), so this makes sense, but is a bit surprising when developing and trying to get something running.

To work-around this so I can directly include ".9.png" files I wrote this:

private static NinePatch processNinePatchFile(String fname) {
    final Texture t = new Texture(Gdx.files.internal(fname));
    final int width = t.getWidth() - 2;
    final int height = t.getHeight() - 2;
    return new NinePatch(new TextureRegion(t, 1, 1, width, height), 3, 3, 3, 3);
}

This loads the texture, creates a sub-region that trims off the 1-pixel meta-data border, and then just guesses that the nine-patch border elements are 3 pixels wide/tall. (Computing that correctly by mucking about in the texture data seems possible, but not worth the effort -- just put the texture in an atlas in that case.)