Improving Unity Code Ergonomics

Improving Unity Ergonomics

GameObjects

gameObject.SetActive(false) is a line of code you’ve probably read before. As an exercise: Open the largest Unity codebase you have access to and search for .SetActive( you will probably find hundreds or thousands of results depending on the size of the project, so, where’s the problem?

It was not immediately obvious to me at first but .SetActive(true) and SetActive(false) have parameters which means that these parameters can be incorrect. Think about whether you have seen code which deactivated a GameObject but activated it instead. I have.

Suggested Solution: gameObject.Activate() instead of gameObject.SetActive(true) and gameObject.Deactivate() instead of gameObject.SetActive(false).

Advantages of suggested Solution:

• shorter
• no parameter (replaced with a clear method name)

MonoBehaviours

Just like GameObjects, MonoBehaviours benefit from shorter and more definite code, I generally also add a monoBehaviour.Activate() extension which

UI Button Example

Buttons commonly need click behavior. This is offered with a Bind() extension which removes all other listeners. This leads to a clearer usage:

Before:

public class ErrorView : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private TextMeshProUGUI bodyText;
    [SerializeField] private Button closeButton;

    private void Start()
    {
        closeButton.onClick.RemoveAllListeners();
        closeButton.onClick.AddListener(() =>
        {
            gameObject.SetActive(false);
        });
    }
}

becomes

After:

public class ErrorView : MonoBehaviour
{
    [SerializeField] private TextMeshProUGUI bodyText;
    [SerializeField] private Button closeButton;

    private void Start()
    {
        closeButton.Bind(this.Deactivate);
    }
}

Try out my extension package

Add "com.larndt.ergonomic-extensions": "https://github.com/leon-arndt/UnityExtensions.git" to Packages/manifest.json

That’s it.