Roblox studio uigridlayout settings are basically the secret sauce for making your UI look professional without losing your mind manually positioning every single frame. If you've ever tried to build an inventory system or a shop menu by hand-placing buttons, you know exactly how much of a nightmare it is to keep everything aligned. One tiny nudge and the whole row looks crooked. That's where the UIGridLayout object comes in to save the day, handling all the math for you so you can focus on making your game actually fun to play.
When you first drop a UIGridLayout into a Frame, things might look a bit weird. Maybe your buttons suddenly shrink to tiny squares in the top corner, or they vanish entirely. Don't panic. It's just the default settings doing their thing. Once you understand how to tweak these properties, you'll be able to create responsive menus that look just as good on a massive 4K monitor as they do on a cracked smartphone screen.
Getting Started with the Basics
Before we dive into the heavy lifting, it's important to remember that UIGridLayout is a "container" logic. You don't put the settings on the buttons themselves; you put the UIGridLayout inside a parent Frame, and it automatically takes control of every "child" object inside that Frame.
The most important thing to wrap your head around is the difference between Scale and Offset. You'll see these two values everywhere in the properties window. Scale is a percentage of the parent container (0 to 1), while Offset is a fixed pixel count. If you want your grid to stay the same size regardless of the screen, use Offset. If you want it to grow and shrink relative to the window, Scale is your best friend.
The Core Settings: CellSize and CellPadding
The CellSize property is probably the one you'll be clicking on the most. It determines exactly how big each "box" in your grid is going to be.
If you set the CellSize to {0, 100}, {0, 100}, every single item in that grid will be exactly 100x100 pixels. This is great for fixed-size icons, but it can get messy on different devices. On the flip side, if you use Scale—something like {0.2, 0}, {0.2, 0}—each item will take up exactly 20% of the parent frame's width and height. This is much better for mobile responsiveness, though it can lead to some "stretching" if the parent frame isn't a perfect square.
Then we have CellPadding. This is the "breathing room" between your items. Without padding, your buttons will be slammed right up against each other, which usually looks pretty cluttered. Just like CellSize, you can use Scale or Offset here. A little bit of padding goes a long way in making a UI feel polished and modern.
Controlling the Flow: FillDirection and StartCorner
Ever noticed how some inventories fill up from left to right, while others seem to stack vertically? That's all handled by the FillDirection and StartCorner settings.
FillDirection lets you choose between Horizontal and Vertical. If you set it to Horizontal, the grid will try to fill a whole row before moving down to the next one. If you set it to Vertical, it'll fill a column before moving to the right.
StartCorner is exactly what it sounds like. Do you want your items to start appearing from the TopLeft, TopRight, BottomLeft, or BottomRight? Most Western games stick to TopLeft because that's how we read, but if you're making a specific type of hotbar or a unique HUD, BottomLeft can be a really useful starting point.
Sorting Your Items Like a Pro
One of the most frustrating things about Roblox UI is when your buttons jump around in a random order. You can fix this using the SortOrder property.
By default, it's often set to Name, which means your buttons will be alphabetized. That's fine if you're naming them "A_Button," "B_Button," etc., but it's a pain for dynamic inventories. I almost always switch this to LayoutOrder.
Once you set SortOrder to LayoutOrder, you can go into each individual button or frame inside the grid and give it a number. A button with a LayoutOrder of 1 will always come before a button with a LayoutOrder of 2. It gives you total manual control over the sequence without having to rename every object in your Explorer window.
Keeping Things Square with UIAspectRatioConstraint
Here is a pro tip that a lot of people miss: UIGridLayout is notorious for "squashing" your icons when the screen size changes, especially if you're using Scale. To fix this, you should almost always use a UIAspectRatioConstraint alongside your grid.
If you put a UIAspectRatioConstraint inside the items being tiled (like a template button), it forces that item to stay a specific shape—usually a square (1:1 ratio). This way, even if the UIGridLayout tries to stretch the cell to fit the screen, the content inside stays perfectly proportioned. It's the difference between a shop menu that looks professional and one that looks like it was stretched in a funhouse mirror.
Dealing with Alignment
Sometimes you don't have enough items to fill a whole row, and you're left with a weird gap on the right side. This is where HorizontalAlignment and VerticalAlignment come in.
You can set these to Left, Center, or Right (for horizontal) and Top, Center, or Bottom (for vertical). If you want your inventory icons to sit perfectly in the middle of the screen even when there are only two items, just set both alignments to Center. It makes the UI feel much more balanced and intentional.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
There are a few things that catch everyone off guard when working with roblox studio uigridlayout settings. First, remember that UIGridLayout overrides the Position and Size properties of the child objects. If you try to manually resize a button that's inside a grid, it'll just snap back to the CellSize you defined in the layout settings. It can be annoying if you're not expecting it, but it's actually there to keep things consistent.
Another big one is the FillDirectionMaxCells property. If you leave this at 0, the grid will just keep adding cells until it runs out of space in the parent frame. But if you set it to, say, 5, the grid will force a new row after every 5 items, even if there's still room on the right. This is super helpful for creating specific layouts like a 3x3 character grid or a 5-slot hotbar.
Making it Mobile Friendly
I can't stress this enough: test your UI on different resolutions! Use the "Device Emulator" in Roblox Studio to see how your grid looks on an iPhone vs. a tablet.
If your grid looks great on your monitor but the buttons are too small to touch on a phone, you might need to lean more heavily into Scale rather than Offset. Or, you can use a bit of scripting to change the CellSize property depending on the user's screen size. It takes a little extra work, but your players will definitely thank you for not making them squint at tiny buttons.
Wrapping Up
Using roblox studio uigridlayout settings effectively is one of those skills that separates beginner builders from experienced developers. It's all about finding that sweet spot between Scale and Offset, and making sure your SortOrder is actually helping you instead of fighting you.
Next time you're building a menu, don't just throw things in and hope for the best. Take five minutes to set up your UIGridLayout properly, add a UIAspectRatioConstraint to keep things from squishing, and use LayoutOrder to keep your items organized. Once you get the hang of it, you'll realize it's actually much faster than doing it the old-fashioned way. Plus, it just looks way cleaner. Happy developing!