Replicate "Apply" and "Revert" button functionality in ScriptableObject Editor Inspector

Questions & Answers
1

I have ScriptableObject subclass assets that I want to edit in the inspector as usual, but I don’t want my changes to the properties to be applied to the asset until I click an “Apply” button, much like how texture import settings are changed. I want this mainly because when the asset changes there’s some processes that need to happen afterwards that can take a second or two, I don’t want to call this process everytime a property is changed.

I thought that if I was to declare the serialsed properties outside the OnInspectorGUI scope that their values would stay persistent between frames, and I could then call serialsedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties after clicking the “Apply” button. Unfortunetly that hasn’t been working as the properties need to be applied the same frame I think, or their values are reverted back.

[CustomEditor(typeof(NounDefinition))]
public class NounDefinitionInspector : Editor
{                
         private static SerializedProperty m_NounDataProperty;
         private static SerializedProperty m_NameProperty;

         public override void OnInspectorGUI()
         {
                EditorGUILayout.PropertyField(m_NameProperty);
                    
                if (GUILayout.Button("Apply"))
                       ApplyChanges();
         }

         private void ApplyChanges()
         {
                if (serializedObject.hasModifiedProperties)
                       serializedObject.ApplyModifiedPropertiesWithoutUndo();
         }

         private void OnEnable()
         {
                m_NounDataProperty = serializedObject.FindProperty("m_NounData");
                m_NameProperty = m_NounDataProperty.FindPropertyRelative("m_Name");
         }
}

Would anyone have any idea of how to achieve the result I’m looking for?

I’ve looked in TextureInspector.cs source code in the UnityCsReference but I can’t find anything to do with applying the properties afterwards.

Thank you for any help!

2

@BenGuiden Check out the docs for Scripted Importers (with examples). Technically it’s “experimental” API, but it’s been around awhile and I’ve had good experiences with it. By subclassing ScriptedImporterEditor, you’ll have Apply/Revert functionality and buttons, and they worked out of the box just as I’d expected. If you want, you can even override the protected Apply() and ResetValues() methods to customize the behavior.

As far as I know, though, ScriptedImporter works based on your file extension. I have a GitHub gist available with a simple example of how to create ScriptableObject subclasses with custom extensions straight from the Create menu.

3

That’s fantastic @Bunderant thanks a million!