LibGDX rectangles not calculating negative width and heght

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

So i’ve implemented a highlighting box into my game (if not sure what I mean go here :point: kind of like this except in 2d) and it works perfectly if my mouse moves in a totally positive manner (+x and +y) but when I try to move my mouse in any negative (-x or -y) it won’t move. here is my code :
note: this is the rectangle class from libGDX package

com.badlogic.gdx.math.Rectangle


public static Rectangle mbounds() {
		return new Rectangle(startX, startY, boxSizeX, boxSizeY);
	}

start x is where the mouse was clicked first and the boxSizes are the current mouse position minus the start position
so:


boxSizeX=currentX -startX;
boxSizeY = currentY-startY;

any help would be great
btw, if anyone knows how to draw a rectangle of this kind straight from the function, please tell me thanks again

[EDIT] New Information!!! It seems that the problem may lie in the .overlaps() function because when I set a shape renderer to draw it, it drew correctly. Which means it is probably a problem with collision.

I get collision by calling:


if(mbounds().overlaps(bounds()){
//do something
}
#2

Just take the 2 coordinates of the start-point and end-point of your area, and calculate the rectangle as such:


pMin.x = Math.min(p1.x, p2.x);
pMin.y = Math.min(p1.y, p2.y);
pMax.x = Math.max(p1.x, p2.x);
pMax.y = Math.max(p1.y, p2.y);

new Rectangle(pMin.x, pMin.y, pMax.x - pMin.x, pMax.y - pMin.y);