HUD Safe Zones for Custom Windows & Overlays

When a custom window or IMGUI overlay is shown without closing the game's HUD, two HUD regions remain drawn on top of the 3D world and must not be overlapped:

1. Top strip — compass + DAY: N TIME: hh:mm temp°F line The compass sits at the very top, with the DAY/TIME/temperature line directly beneath it. The two together occupy roughly the first 110 screen pixels (≈55 scaled GUI units at 2× scale). Always visible outside of fullscreen menus.

2. Bottom strip — message line + toolbelt The yellow/green message text (e.g. "THE DUKE LEFT YOU A NOTE TO READ") and the 10-slot toolbelt sit together at the bottom center.

Do not draw over either strip unless your UI explicitly suppresses them (e.g. by opening through GUIWindowManager with an exclusive window group that hides the HUD, like the Map or Main Menu).

Rule

For IMGUI / OnGUI overlays and free-floating panels, clamp to the vertical range:

topSafe    ≈ 60 scaled GUI units   (below compass + DAY/TIME row)
bottomSafe ≈ 80 scaled GUI units   (above message line + toolbelt)

Reference implementation (see RetroZed/src/RomBrowserController.cs):

const float topSafe = 60f;
const float bottomSafe = 80f;
float safeH = Screen.height / scale - topSafe - bottomSafe;
float py = topSafe + Mathf.Max(0f, (safeH - panelH) * 0.5f);

This centers the panel inside the safe zone rather than naively centering to screen height.

Polling "is the compass / gameplay HUD visible right now"

For an overlay that should appear only during normal play (like the vanilla compass — hidden inside the map, crafting, backpack, trader, etc.), poll two things on LocalPlayerUI.GetUIForPrimaryPlayer().windowManager:

bool hudVisible = wm.IsHUDEnabled()            // HudEnabledStates.Enabled (not Partial/Full hide)
               && wm.IsWindowOpen("compass");   // the "compass" *window group* id

Why this is the right signal (verified by decompiling the 2026-07 build):

• The vanilla windowCompass lives in the compass window group (xui.xml), and every fullscreen menu group carries close_compass_on_open="true" — XUiWindowGroup.OnOpen calls windowManager.Close("compass"), so IsWindowOpen("compass") goes false exactly when a menu is up. The id passed is the group name "compass" (registered via windowManager.Add(this) in XUiWindowGroup.Init), not a window name.
• XUiC_CompassWindow.Update itself gates on !localPlayer.IsDead() && windowManager.IsHUDEnabled(); IsHUDEnabled() returns bHUDEnabled == HudEnabledStates.Enabled (enum: Enabled/PartialHide/FullHide), covering the player's HUD-hide toggle.

An IMGUI overlay (e.g. Uncover's minimap) can poll this from MonoBehaviour without registering any XUi window. A native XUi window gets the same behavior for free by being appended to the compass group and copying that IsVisible line into its controller Update.

When the rule does not apply

If your UI opens via the XUi window system with a group that sets HUDDisabled / replaces the HUD (e.g. the backpack, crafting, map, escape menu), the HUD strips are hidden while the window is open — screen-centering is fine there.

For IMGUI panels drawn via a MonoBehaviour.OnGUI (e.g. alignment tools, settings panels, overlays that co-exist with gameplay), the HUD strips stay drawn and the safe-zone rule applies.

Making the HUD dodge YOUR overlay instead

When a persistent overlay must live where HUD windows already sit (e.g. the Supra tachometer in the bottom-right), invert the rule: lift the HUD windows out of the way while the overlay shows. Recipe — generic XUi overlap-lift (xui.windows + xui.GetXUiWindowScreenBounds + xui.GetPixelRatioFactor, offset view.Position, restore on hide) plus the Uncover.MinimapSettings.ExternalBottomReservePx reserve handshake for IMGUI widgets — documented in AC D Tachometer Port (IMGUI gauge HUD). Key rule: one writer per window Position — coordinate via a published reserve, never two self-healing writers.