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Ever wish you could have a tool tip appear when hovering your mouse over a control in the inspector? Well look no further then Unity’s ToolTip attribute that you can apply to your MonoBehaviour’s fields!

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class ExampleClass : MonoBehaviour {
    [Tooltip("Health value between 0 and 100.")]
    public int health = 0;
}

Sometimes it is handy to keep a game object alive for as long as your game is running. In order to prevent your object from being destroyed when loading a new scene use GameObject.DontDestroyOnLoad and your game object will persist between scene changes.


If you need to retrieve the default Arial font via code at runtime you can do so using the Resources.GetBuiltInResource method.

var font = Resources.GetBuiltinResource(typeof(Font), "Arial.ttf") as Font;

If you need to stylize your gui you can use the GUISettings class to change, the cursor color, flash speed, the selection color for text fields, as well as double click behavior.

    public class GuiSettingsExample : MonoBehaviour
    {
        public Color cursorColor;     
        public float flashSpeed;      
        public bool doubleClickSelectWord;       
        public Color selectionColor;             
        public bool tripleCLickLine;             
        private string text = "test string";     
        private Vector2 scroll;                  
        public GUISkin skin;                     

        public void OnGUI()
        {
            GUI.skin = this.skin;
            var settings = GUI.skin.settings;
            settings.cursorColor = this.cursorColor;
            settings.cursorFlashSpeed = this.flashSpeed;
            settings.doubleClickSelectsWord = this.doubleClickSelectWord;
            settings.selectionColor = this.selectionColor;
            settings.tripleClickSelectsLine = this.tripleCLickLine;


            this.scroll = GUILayout.BeginScrollView(this.scroll, false, false, GUILayout.ExpandWidth(true), GUILayout.ExpandHeight(true));
            this.text = GUILayout.TextArea(this.text);
            GUILayout.EndScrollView();
        }
    }

Did you know that the GUI class has a matrix property that you can use to rotate and scale your gui elements.

The sample behavior that is provided below will scale and rotate a gui label in the center of the screen.

public class GuiMatrixDemo : MonoBehaviour
{
    private float rotation;

    /// <summary>
    /// OnGUI is called for rendering and handling GUI events.
    /// </summary>
    public void OnGUI()
    {
        var matrix = GUI.matrix;

        GUI.Label(new Rect(5, 5, 100, 20), "before matrix");

        this.rotation += 15f * Time.deltaTime;
        var scale = Mathf.Clamp((float)Math.Sin(Time.time) + 1 * 2, 1, 3);
        GUI.matrix = Matrix4x4.TRS(new Vector3(Screen.width / 2, Screen.height / 2, 0), Quaternion.Euler(0, 0, this.rotation), Vector3.one * scale);
        var size = GUI.skin.label.CalcSize(new GUIContent("test string"));
        var rect = new Rect((-size.x / 2f), (-size.y / 2f), size.x, size.y);
        GUI.Label(rect, "test string");
        GUI.matrix = matrix;
        GUI.Label(new Rect(5, 25, 100, 20), "after matrix");
    }
}

Ever wish you could draw properties for serializable classes and script variables using your own gui logic? Unity 4 introduces the PropertyDrawer base class to do just that!


Not a unity specific tip but still a handy unity helper for creating a unity project from file explorer. *Works only for windows platforms.* Download the CreateUnityProject.reg file below or open up Notepad and paste the snippet below then save the file with a *.reg file extension. Next navigate to the file and right click on it and select “Merge” from the popup menu. You should now be able to create a new unity project by right clicking on a empty folder in File Explorer and selecting “Create unity project”.

CreateUnityProject.reg (488.00 bytes)

CreateUnityProject64.reg (476.00 bytes)

For x86 unity use the snippet below

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create unity project]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create unity project\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Unity\\Editor\\unity.exe\" -createProject \"%1\""

For 64bit unity use the snippet below

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create unity project]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\Create unity project\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Unity\\Editor\\unity.exe\" -createProject \"%1\""

I came across this article while searching for a way of unit testing my unity GUI windows. A link to the article is available here 50 Tips for Working with Unity (Best Practices). It contains some very sound advice and is well worth the time to read through.


Seems like a no brainer but setting up a empty prefab with one or more lights in it can allow you to quickly light up your test scene quick and easy with predictable results. It also helps when you want to keep the same consistent lighting modal from scene to scene. Simply change the lighting in the prefab and hit apply to update all scenes that use it.


Ever wonder how some unity extensions show a notification overlay? Check out the EditorWindow.ShowNotification method. 


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Name of author Dean Lunz (aka Created by: X)
Computer programming nerd, and tech geek.
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