Every now and then, I’d like to share some of my small utility classes that I’ve made a long time ago but are still being used until now. The following are what I call some of my mini utilities. They can be used in your own Unity projects.

(Note that I’ve removed method description comments so that the code part looks more compact.)

Comment Component

A lot of times have come up where I have an object or prefab that contains a lot of components. Sometimes, I want to be able to note about the values I’ve entered for some component or state why the component is there. Sadly, Unity doesn’t have a feature where you can comment on components (let me know if you know one). However, it’s quite easy enough to roll your own “comment” component.

public class Comment : MonoBehaviour { [SerializeField] private string text; void Awake() { DestroyImmediate(this); // auto destroy to save memory } public string Text { get { return text; } set { this.text = value; } } } // This is the editor script. Place it under an Editor folder. [CustomEditor(typeof(Comment))] public class CommentEditor : Editor { private Comment targetComponent; void OnEnable() { this.targetComponent = (Comment)this.target; } public override void OnInspectorGUI() { if(targetComponent.Text == null) { // use an empty string so that it won't throw null pointer exception targetComponent.Text = ""; } targetComponent.Text = GUILayout.TextArea(targetComponent.Text, GUILayout.Height(100), GUILayout.MinWidth(200)); } }

To use, just add the Comment component and type your comment text in the textbox.

UI Image Sprite Animation

I tried to use the animation timeline for animating sprites in a UI Image. But it didn’t work or maybe I was using it wrong. I got impatient, so I turned to code.

public class ImageAnimation : MonoBehaviour { [SerializeField] private Image image; [SerializeField] private float framesPerSecond = 15; [SerializeField] private Sprite[] sprites; // The sequence of sprites comprising the animation private float polledTime; private int currentFrameIndex; private void Awake() { Assertion.AssertNotNull(this.image); Assertion.Assert(this.framesPerSecond > 0); this.polledTime = 0; // Reset this.currentFrameIndex = 0; SetSprite(this.currentFrameIndex); } private void Update() { this.polledTime += UnityEngine.Time.deltaTime; // We didn't cache this so we can see the effect of framesPerSecond on the fly like tweaking it in editor float timePerFrame = 1.0f / this.framesPerSecond; while(this.polledTime > timePerFrame) { this.polledTime -= timePerFrame; // Show next frame this.currentFrameIndex = (this.currentFrameIndex + 1) % this.sprites.Length; SetSprite(this.currentFrameIndex); } } private void SetSprite(int index) { this.image.sprite = this.sprites[index]; } }

This is very straightforward to use. Just specify an Image target, a frame rate, and the sequence of sprites to show. That’s it. It will play on loop. Nothing fancy. I’ve use this on the game over screen of Academia.

SelectionSequence

Political Animals had a common UI where you select an item from a finite set of items using next and previous buttons. I’ve noticed that I’m repeating the same code spread across different UI screens. So I made a generic class for this.

public class SelectionSequence<T> { private readonly List<T> items = new List<T>(); private int currentIndex = 0; public SelectionSequence(T[] array) { this.items.AddRange(array); Reset(); } public void Reset() { this.currentIndex = 0; } public void MoveToNext() { this.currentIndex = (currentIndex + 1) % this.items.Count; } public void MoveToPrevious() { int decremented = this.currentIndex - 1; this.currentIndex = decremented < 0 ? this.items.Count - 1 : decremented; } public T Current { get { return this.items[this.currentIndex]; } } public void Select(int index) { this.currentIndex = index; } public void Select(T item) { for(int i = 0; i < this.items.Count; ++i) { if(this.items[i].Equals(item)) { Select(i); return; } } throw new Exception("Can't find the item to select: " + item.ToString()); } public int Count { get { return this.items.Count; } } public T GetAt(int index) { return this.items[index]; } } // Usage // Say you have an array of LanguageOption LanguageOption[] languages = ...; SelectionSequence<LanguageOption> langSequence = new SelectionSequence<LanguageOption>(languages); // When next button is clicked langSequence.MoveToNext(); // When previous button is clicked langSequence.MoveToPrevious(); // Do something with current selection ChangeLanguage(langSequence.Current);

This kind of selection have come up in Academia, too.

These are just some of my cute little classes. They’re small but they have been very useful. Here’s some programming tip, think of making classes like making a new invention or a device. That way, you will think in terms of narrowing functionality as much as possible and expose only appropriate public methods. This will also make your classes more modular. Over time, you will develop a library of robust and reusable code.