How to make button and slider color values reference a variable?

Unity Engine
1

Hi,

I have several buttons and sliders. I want to change their colors based on the value of a global variable. Instead of looping through every single one and changing the color values each time, I am wondering if it is possible to make the color value a reference to a global value. That way I could just change the one global variable and all the sliders/buttons etc that reference that color variable would be updated.

Please let me know. Thanks

2

No, it is not since color is value type and buttons and sliders requres its own instances of colors. But you can create a script, reference a scriptable object containing color, and apply that color to your graphic objects at start and whenever it changes.

3

@palex-nx so I would have to create a list of the objects I want to change to that color, and loop through them everytime the color changes?

4

Nope. Colors are structs, so they’re copied by value, meaning that you can’t have a reference to the color. Whenever you say button.color = someColor;, the button gets a copy of the color.

The best way to do this is event-based. Whenever you set the color variable, raise an event to make all the button’s colors change.

public static class GlobalColorContainer {
    public static Color _globalColor;
    public static Color GlobalColor {
        get =>_globalColor;
        set {
            _globalColor = value;
            GlobalColorChanged(value);
        }
    }

    public static event Action<Color> GlobalColorChanged = delegate {}
}

// usage:

public class SetColorToGlobalColor : MonoBehaviour {
    [SerializeField] private Graphic target;

    private void Awake() {
        GlobalColorContainer.GlobalColorChanged += color => target.color = color;
    }
}
5

Absolutely correct.