Add better tooling for building UIs and testing multiple resolutions

[Arnklit]

Describe the project you are working on

A 2D game in production.

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project

When designing the layout of the UI for different screen sizes you have to change the project setting and force the scene to reload by selecting another tab and returning.

Godot_v4.3-stable_win64_f9E9783xZe.mp4

Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation

You should have options in the view menu or a dedicated menu to change a "preview" resolution. This should not be saved to the project settings, as you don't want to be changing the resolution for the whole project every time you are building and testing the UI.

It should also have a bunch of typical device resolutions / ratios for you to cycle between and possible the option to save custom ones.

Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams

Something similar to Chrome's Device Toolbar in their devevloper tools would probably be ideal.

chrome_F11HZfMFlx.mp4

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?

This would be used often.

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?

There are addons that somewhat help with this issue. such as this one https://github.com/Danim3D/Godot-4-Plugin-Project-Resolution

But it doesn't resolve the issue of the UI not updating until you've refreshed the view by changing it and it also changes the project resolution when using it.

I also think this is functionality that should be built into the editor, Godot is used for a lot of different devices with different resolutions and orientations, being able to test that should be built in.

[sockeye-d]

If you make the root node of the scene a Control, you can change the size of it with its handles and see how your UI reacts

[Calinou]

With #7213, we can provide this functionality with relative ease when the project is running. godotengine/godot#99010 already has this feature in place for the aspect ratio at least (you can enforce the base aspect ratio for the embedded game window). It could be extended with custom aspect ratio and resolution selections.

Implementing this in the editor (when the project is not running) is a lot harder though, at least in 2D where controls' positions would be changed and end up being saved in the scene file.