Create A UWidget At Runtime

UE4’s built-in blueprint function ‘CreateWidget’ only allows you to specify UUserWidgets, so to add something basic like a button, border or text at runtime, you have to create a custom UUserWidget to wrap it - very inefficient. Luckily, there’s a ConstructWidget() function in C++ that can easily be exposed to blueprints.

Make sure you’ve got a BP/C++ project, then create a blueprint function library C++ class.

Code

Add this to the .h file:

	/*
	Creates a base UWidget (text, border, image, etc) at runtime.
	*/
	UFUNCTION(BlueprintCallable, Category = "UMG")
	static UWidget* CreateUWidget(UUserWidget *InWidget, TSubclassOf<UWidget> WidgetToCreate);

And this to the .cpp:

UWidget * UWidgetFunctions::CreateUWidget(UUserWidget * InWidget, TSubclassOf<UWidget> WidgetToCreate)
{
	if ((!InWidget) || (!WidgetToCreate))
	{
		return nullptr;
	}

	UWidget *CreatedWidget = InWidget->WidgetTree->ConstructWidget<UWidget>(WidgetToCreate);
	return CreatedWidget;
}

It works the same as CreateWidget, in that you’ll need to add it to something after creation, in the same UUserWidget that it was created in (InWidget). So you’ll normally use it like this:

Videogames

See also

• Yak Shaving
• AngelScript Integration Tests
• GOAP and Utility AI in Grab n' Throw
• Devlog - Jazz Hands
• How to Rename a UE4 or UE5 C++ Class Used by Blueprints