Assigning Text to a prefab?

Unity Engine
1

I have my tank prefab, and now I would like to assign the Text that I have in my canvas to that tank so that when the tank gets a powerup it tells the player.
I tried using

 MessageText = GameObject.Find ("PowerUpMessageCanvas").text;

but that didn’t seem to work. How should I go about this? And I understand you can’t just drag and drop the Text onto the prefab, because it won’t save when you click Apply.

2

First, the reason that isn’t working is because there’s no property of a GameObject called “.text”. You can use .GetComponent();

But wait, don’t leave yet! GameObject.Find is a crutch that you should avoid - there is never a situation where it’s the best solution. In cases like this - you have a prefab that needs to access a singular, ‘global’ type object, in this case your UI - a singleton is the best bet.

If you don’t have a centralized UI “master” script, make a new script, and add this:

public class SomeScriptName : MonoBehaviour {
public static SomeScriptName instance;
void Awake() {
instance = this;
}
public Text powerUpMessageCanvas;
}

Attach this script to the root of your UI, and link up the text in the inspector.

No more need for GameObject.Find - for that matter, no need to store the reference to the text object in your in-game object, either:

 //from anywhere else
SomeScriptName.instance.powerUpMessageCanvas.text = "foo";
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