MonoGame UI Focus — Keyboard & Gamepad Navigation

This skill covers how keyboard and gamepad input reaches the correct UI element. For mouse/pointer handling, see monogame-ui-interaction. For input polling fundamentals, see monogame-input. For complete code templates, read references/ui-focus.md.

Assumed Contract

UIElement.Bounds must be resolved (via monogame-ui-layout Arrange pass) before gamepad navigation warps the visual cursor to the focused element's center. If Bounds is empty, navigation still works logically — only the visual cursor position will be wrong.

This skill uses the prev/curr GamePadState pattern from monogame-input. Do not call GamePad.GetState() inside individual element code.

UIElement.Focus.cs is the third partial file of UIElement, adding the neighbor-ID fields alongside the structural fields (Core) and layout fields (Layout).

The Focus Problem

Mouse input is positional — hit testing resolves the target automatically. Keyboard and gamepad input is not positional: you need a global reference that says "this element currently receives key presses."

Without a focus system, every element would poll every key every frame, and Tab navigation would be impossible.

UIFocusManager