High-level play-mode data keeper (save changes made during play-mode)

[nick martel]

Odin Inspector is now at a state where it’s hard to imagine it getting better. Aside from a few things here and there, going forward I think most of the big features will be similar to the new project validator in 2.1, i.e. high-level tools built on top of Odin Inspector’s power.

As we all know, one of the most requested feature in Unity is to be able to save changes made during play-mode, since it is often easier and more convenient to tweak values at run-time, right as we’re playtesting. I thought Odin Inspector could be a GREAT candidate to implement this. Odin already has full control over the rendering of its inspectors, it would be easy (in terms of UI) to create a powerful system to save data during play-mode.

I don’t know if Sirenix has discussed this possibility, but I have not seen it on the roadmap so here are some initial ideas:

1. Odin could decorate fields that have been modified at playtime. Bold is already taken up by prefab modifications, so perhaps the modifications could be colored or something

2. Odin adds a context menu system to the inspector. A play-mode data keeper could make great use of this context-menu. Right clicking members in the inspector at run-time could offer these additional menu items:

   • Save changes: Allows immediate saving of the right-clicked member. Initially greyed out until it is modified.
   • Auto-save changes: All changes to the right-clicked member will be automatically saved.
   • Revert changes: Reset the changes made in play-mode back to the initial value when play-mode was entered.

3. A new window could keep track of all changes made at run-time so they can be saved or reverted from there. (similar to the new Odin Validator window, showing a hierarchical list of objects)c

[Bjarke Elias]

Nice and well thought out idea, maybe something like this could become part of a future add-on ;)

I like the idea, keep em coming!