Add Automatic Directional Navigation Graph Generation

[jbuehler23]

Objective

Resolves #21661

Adds automatic directional navigation graph generation based on UI node positions and sizes, eliminating the need for tedious manual graph construction in dynamic UIs.

Solution

Implements a spatial navigation algorithm that automatically computes the nearest neighbor in each compass direction for UI elements, while respecting any manually-defined edges.

Features

• Automatic edge generation: Finds the best neighbor in each of 8 compass directions based on distance, alignment, and overlap
• Manual override support: Manual edges always take precedence over auto-generated ones
• Configurable: AutoNavigationConfig resource allows tuning alignment requirements, distance limits, and preference weighting
• Opt-in: Entities must have AutoDirectionalNavigation component added to use, and therefore not a breaking change
• Generic: Core algorithm works with any Vec2 position/size data, not just bevy_ui

Implementation

New Components & Resources (bevy_input_focus/src/directional_navigation.rs):

• AutoDirectionalNavigation - Marker component to enable auto-navigation
• AutoNavigationConfig - Configuration resource with settings:
  • min_alignment_factor: Minimum perpendicular overlap (0.0-1.0) required for cardinal directions
  • max_search_distance: Optional distance limit for connections
  • prefer_aligned: Whether to strongly prefer well-aligned nodes

Core Algorithm:

pub fn auto_generate_navigation_edges(
    nav_map: &mut DirectionalNavigationMap,
    nodes: &[(Entity, Vec2, Vec2)],  // (entity, center_pos, size)
    config: &AutoNavigationConfig,
)

For each node and each direction:

1. Filter candidates that are actually in that direction (cone-based check)
2. Calculate overlap factor for cardinal directions (horizontal overlap for N/S, vertical for E/W)
3. Score candidates based on:
   • Distance (closer is better)
   • Alignment with direction vector (more aligned is better)
   • Overlap factor (must meet minimum threshold)
4. Select the best-scoring candidate as the neighbor

Scoring Formula:

score = distance + alignment_penalty
where alignment_penalty = (1.0 - alignment) * distance * 2.0

This makes misaligned nodes significantly less attractive while still considering distance.

Usage

Before (manual):

// Must manually specify all connections
for row in 0..N_ROWS {
    let entities_in_row: Vec<Entity> = (0..N_COLS)
        .map(|col| button_entities.get(&(row, col)).unwrap())
        .copied()
        .collect();
    directional_nav_map.add_looping_edges(&entities_in_row, CompassOctant::East);
}

// Repeat for columns...
for col in 0..N_COLS {
    let entities_in_column: Vec<Entity> = (0..N_ROWS)
        .map(|row| button_entities.get(&(row, col)).unwrap())
        .copied()
        .collect();
    directional_nav_map.add_edges(&entities_in_column, CompassOctant::South);
}

After:

// Just add the `AutoDirectionalNavigation` component!
commands.spawn((
    Button,
    Node { /* ... */ },
    AutoDirectionalNavigation::default(),
    // ... other components
));

Testing

• Added new example: auto_directional_navigation
• Ran existing directional_navigation

Showcase

New Example: auto_directional_navigation

Demonstrates automatic navigation with irregularly-positioned buttons. Unlike a regular grid, these buttons are scattered, but auto-navigation figures out the correct connections - also shows currently focused button, and the last "input" pressed to show the logical flow of navigating:

cargo run --example auto_directional_navigation

Recording.2025-11-05.214742.mp4

Key differences from manual directional_navigation example:

• No manual add_edges() or add_looping_edges() calls
• Buttons positioned irregularly (not in a perfect grid)
• Works with absolute positioning and dynamic layouts

Migration Guide

No breaking changes - this is a purely additive feature.

To adopt automatic navigation:

1. Add AutoDirectionalNavigation component to focusable entities
2. Optionally configure AutoNavigationConfig resource

[jbuehler23]

opening this up for review, now that CI has passed! @alice-i-cecile @viridia @fallible-algebra

[viridia]

Overall I think this is great.

I'm a little bit concerned about the overlap restriction. Imagine a UI in which you have a constellation of stars (like the magic sklill trees in skyrim) where the individual nodes of the tree are very small and the space between them large. In such a case, nodes will hardly ever overlap along an axis, but you'd still want to navigate between nodes where the line connecting the two nodes was at an angle close to the nav direction.

[jbuehler23]

Overall I think this is great.

I'm a little bit concerned about the overlap restriction. Imagine a UI in which you have a constellation of stars (like the magic sklill trees in skyrim) where the individual nodes of the tree are very small and the space between them large. In such a case, nodes will hardly ever overlap along an axis, but you'd still want to navigate between nodes where the line connecting the two nodes was at an angle close to the nav direction.

This is a great point! However, I think the default configuration would actually handle this scenario:

• The min_alignment_factor defaults to 0.0, which means any overlap is acceptable - even a single pixel. So even with small nodes spaced far apart, as long as there's any perpendicular overlap at all, the connection will be considered.

That said, I agree the overlap restriction could be problematic for extremely sparse layouts where nodes might not overlap at all on the perpendicular axis, but there are some mitigating factors in the design currently:

1. Diagonal directions ignore overlap entirely - they always return 1.0 for overlap factor (line 450). So sparse UIs can still navigate via NE/SE/SW/NW even if cardinal directions fail.
2. The alignment penalty in scoring naturally prefers well-aligned nodes - even among candidates that meet the overlap threshold, the scoring function (lines 495-509) uses dot product alignment to prefer nodes that are more directly in the requested direction.

What we could do for now is improve documentation around this and clarify why/when overlap matters and suggest possible workarounds for this with extremely sparse UIs?

[IQuick143]

How is the graph connectivity with this algorithm?
It's rather suboptimal to have the graph be disconnected, imo worse than oddly skewed and somewhat unintuitive connections.

Maybe there could be some pattern where we run the solver recursively with increasingly more lenient parameters until the graph is sufficiently dense? (This could be up to the user, but we should have a clean demonstration on how to do it.)

PS: I would suggest looking at how Shift+Arrow navigation works in a browser as prior art.

[PPakalns]

What is the behavior when entities with AutoDirectionalNavigation are located at the same position, but in different UI layers.

For example, separate UI entity trees that have different root GlobalZIndex, but they are top on each other. You can imagine two floating windows on top of each other, or dropdown on top of UI.

Does this algorithm handle each UI layer separately? Is it possible to configure it to recognize such layers (TabGroup, TabIndex ? ).

[jbuehler23]

Currently, the algorithm is z-index agnostic - it treats all entities with AutoDirectionalNavigation as a flat set based purely on XY position. So overlapping windows/layers would incorrectly connect to each other.

For proper layer handling, you'd need to:

1. Query entities per-layer manually and call auto_generate_navigation_edges() separately for each layer, OR
2. Use manual edges to explicitly define cross-layer navigation when desired

To avoid making this PR too large, I would add automatic layer support as a future enhancement. You could:

• Filter by TabGroup component, as suggested!
• Add layer_id field to AutoDirectionalNavigation
• Use parent entity hierarchy to detect separate UI trees

Would like to know if you think it's necessary for this PR to address this, or is a follow-up PR better?

[PPakalns]

I think it can be done in future PR when bevy_ui with multiple layers is used more widely.

Good to hear that currently there is workaround where auto_generate_navigation_edges can be called manually.

[jbuehler23]

Yes, you can manually run that function if necessary - I've created #21679 so we don't lose track of this @PPakalns!

[jbuehler23]

Thanks for the comments @IQuick143 and @PPakalns I'll try and address these tomorrow - it's late here for me now 😀

[jbuehler23]

How is the graph connectivity with this algorithm? It's rather suboptimal to have the graph be disconnected, imo worse than oddly skewed and somewhat unintuitive connections.

Maybe there could be some pattern where we run the solver recursively with increasingly more lenient parameters until the graph is sufficiently dense? (This could be up to the user, but we should have a clean demonstration on how to do it.)

PS: I would suggest looking at how Shift+Arrow navigation works in a browser as prior art.

With default config, the graph should be weakly connected in most layouts, but it's not guaranteed due to the directional cone filter + overlap requirements.

I do like your progressive relaxation idea, however. We could add a helper function:

pub fn ensure_connectivity(
    nav_map: &mut DirectionalNavigationMap,
    nodes: &[(Entity, Vec2, Vec2)],
) {
    // Try default config, then relax if disconnected
}

Or perhaps better, is to just add a config parameter for the user to define:

pub struct AutoNavigationConfig {
    // ... existing fields ...

    /// If true, ensures all nodes are reachable by relaxing constraints
    /// for nodes that would otherwise be isolated
    pub ensure_connectivity: bool,
}

Then we can demonstrate this usage in the auto_directional_navigation example.

I think either of these options give the user control of how to manage the connectivity issue you've described, but remains simple enough so as to not pollute with too many options. What do you think of this?

Re: browser shift+arrow - based on my research it appears to use projection-based selection to guarantee connectivity. It might be best to add this as an alternative mode in the future, and support other algorithms? Something like:

pub enum NavigationAlgorithm {
      OverlapBased,  // Current design
      ProjectionBased, // Like browser Shift+Arrow?
}

[github-actions]

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[jbuehler23]

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Please review the instructions for writing release notes, then expand or revise the content in the release notes directory to showcase your changes.

added release notes @alice-i-cecile :)

[ickshonpe]

Looking at the example, if you press down to navigate from button 3 to button 5 and then press up, you don't return to button 3 but instead go to button 2. Ideally there should be a history so that navigation can backtrack following the user's route.

[ickshonpe]

Looking at the example, if you press down to navigate from button 3 to button 5 and then press up, you don't return to button 3 but instead go to button 2. Ideally there should be a history so that navigation can backtrack following the user's route.

Oh I see, button 2 can only have one edge for the upwards direction in the navigation map, so it's not that easy.

[viridia]

Looking at the example, if you press down to navigate from button 3 to button 5 and then press up, you don't return to button 3 but instead go to button 2. Ideally there should be a history so that navigation can backtrack following the user's route.

This lack of reversibility is not actually that uncommon in games. I see this in Witcher 3 inventory screen for example. It's a bit annoying, but also kind of expected.

[ickshonpe]

The actual overlap calculations are 1-dimensional and the same on both axes? I think it would better if they were extracted to another function, that is called for each case.

[ickshonpe]

For diagonals we could project onto the diagonal axis and the compare the overlap, or is that not necessary?

[jbuehler23]

Good question! I went with a simpler approach (no overlap check for diagonals) because:

1. Diagonal navigation is less common in UI (especially so on controllers, I think - happy to be corrected on this though)
2. The distance and directional checks still filter candidates appropriately
3. Keeps the code simpler, for initial PR

If we find real-world cases where diagonal navigation feels wrong, we could add diagonal projection as an enhancement later. Can this go in a follow-up PR?

[ickshonpe]

It's less common, but there are lots of games that have radial navigation, particularly for things like big skill trees that expand outwards in all directions.

But I'm fine to keep things simple for now as long. As it's behaving predictably, that's the main thing.

[ickshonpe]

Looking at the example, if you press down to navigate from button 3 to button 5 and then press up, you don't return to button 3 but instead go to button 2. Ideally there should be a history so that navigation can backtrack following the user's route.

This lack of reversibility is not actually that uncommon in games. I see this in Witcher 3 inventory screen for example. It's a bit annoying, but also kind of expected.

Yep wouldn't block on this for an intial PR. It's fine to go with a simpler model for now.

[jbuehler23]

Thanks for the review @ickshonpe! I'll come back to this tonight once the kids are asleep, been a hectic day at work.

[jbuehler23]

@ickshonpe I think I've addressed all of your review comments now, would appreciate another quick check whenever you can please! Thanks again for going through it!

[ickshonpe]

@ickshonpe I think I've addressed all of your review comments now, would appreciate another quick check whenever you can please! Thanks again for going through it!

Sorry for the delay, I'll try and find time to a have a look later today.

[ickshonpe]

Happy with this now, looks good.