Components.md

Components

Let's refresh - component in EC is just an addon for an entity. It runs its own Update/Draw methods and may not depend on the entity's logic whatsoever.

Creating a component is very easy:

using Monofoxe.Engine.EC;

public class CTest : Component // You can name your components either CYourName or YourNameComponent.
{
	// Your data goes here!
}

Just inherit Component class and you're done.

Components also have several fields:

• Owner - Reference to an entity which owns this component. There can be only one owner.
• Initialized - Tells if Create event has been called for this component.
• Enabled - If true, component will be processed by system's Update() and FixedUpdate() events.
• Visible - If true, component will be processed by system's Draw() event. NOTE: Visible is false by default. Set it to true in component's constructor or system's Create event if you want component to be drawn.

Like entities, components have events:

• Initialize() - Executes every time when component is added to the entity. If component is readded several times, the event will also execute several times.
• Update() - Executes every frame and is designed to hold game logic.
• FixedUpdate() - Executes at fixed intervals governed by GameMgr.FixedUpdateRate.
• Draw() - Executes every frame for each camera (so if you got several cameras, Draw will execute several times per frame) and is designed to hold drawing logic. IMPORTANT: Do not put any heavy logic into Draw. It may start skipping frames due to how Monogame works.
• Destroy() - Executes when the component is destroyed.

How do I add components to entities?

var entity = new Entity(Layer);
var testComponent = new CTest();
entity.AddComponent(testComponent);

You can add components in entity's constructor or create an entity template, which will be discussed later.

To access components from an entity, use this:

entity.GetComponent<CTest>();

You can also access other components from a component through Owner field.

component.Owner.GetComponent<CTest>();

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