RuntimeScriptField_Unity

A utility for Unity allowing you to assign scripts in the editor, and add them to game objects at runtime.

Installation

The package branch is setup to be used as UPM package, simply add the following line as a dependency in your project manifest.

"com.baste.runtimescripfield": "https://github.com/Baste-RainGames/RuntimeScriptField_Unity.git"

If you're using an older version of Unity than 2018.4, you can copy the Runtime and Editor folders to your Unity project.

Use

To use the project, declare a field of the type ComponentReference, and use it at runtime:

using RuntimeScriptField;

public class Example : MonoBehaviour
{
    public ComponentReference componentRef;

    void Start() {
        Component c = componentRef.AddTo(gameObject);
    }
}

You can drag-and-drop any script into the componentRef field in the inspector, as long as the script contains a Component. The AddTo method returns the added object, just like the built-in AddComponent

If you want more or less control over what's assignable to the script, you can inherit from ScriptReference:

using RuntimeScriptField;

[System.Serializable]
public class FooReference : ScriptReference<Foo> { }

public class Example2 : MonoBehaviour
{
    public FooReference fooRef;

    void Start() {
        // the .script property returns the System.Type of the script
        Debug.Log("The script you assigned to fooRef is: " + fooRef.script);
        //Add it with AddTo, which is typed!
        Foo f = fooRef.AddTo(gameObject);
    }
}

In this case, only scripts containing something that inherits from Foo can be assigned to the field. Note that AddTo is generic, so you always get a Foo back from FooReference.AddTo. ComponentReference is simply a ScriptReference, provided for convenience.

Why

There has been a lot of forum threads throughout the years where people ask for exactly something like this. I figured I might as well share a solution.

Contributions

Please! This is a very simple project, but if you feel something's missing, please send a pull request!

Bugs

Please report any bug you find!

Thanks to

Nicola Baribeau for doing the initial work to convert this to a UPM package. Bryan Keiren for Serializable System Type: http://bryankeiren.com/files_public/UnityScripts/SerializableSystemType.cs Dylan Engelman (lordofduct) for SerializedProperty tools: https://github.com/lordofduct/spacepuppy-unity-framework/blob/master/SpacepuppyBaseEditor/EditorHelper.cs