How to execute methods from the Godot inspector

Button at the inspector

A few days ago, I published an article explaining how to activate method execution from the inspector in Unity. We saw the possibility of using an attribute that generated an entry in an editor menu, and also how to create a custom editor so that the component inspector would show a button to activate the method.

Can the same be done in Godot? Well, until very recently, no. There wasn't an easy way to add a button to the inspector without developing a plugin and without the result being debatable. In terms of GUI customization, Godot still has a long way to go to be on par with Unity.

The [ExportToolButton] attribute 

However, Godot recently added a new attribute, @export_tool_button, and its equivalent in C# [ExportToolButton]. This attribute allows exporting a Callable field to the inspector and displaying it as a button. When the button is pressed, the method pointed to by the Callable is activated.

Let's look at an example in Godot C#. Suppose we have a ResetBoxManager method in our script:

The method we want to activate by pressing the button

What the method does doesn't matter. It's just an example. I show a screenshot of its content so you can see that the declaration and implementation of the method are nothing special. And now the button. To declare it, you just have to decorate a Callable field with an [ExportToolButton] tag.

Button declaration with [ExportToolButton]

Between the parentheses of the attribute, we will put the text we want the button to display. On the other hand, in the screenshot, you can see how to initialize the Callable. I called the field ResetButton (line 107) and initialized it with a new instance of Callable that points, by its parameters, to the ResetBoxManager method of that same class (hence the "this"), as can be seen in line 108.

With that, your inspector will show the button in the place that would have corresponded to the field, and when you press it, the linked method will be activated. You have a screenshot of how it looks in the image that opens this article.

Conclusion 

As you can see, the [ExportToolButton] attribute makes it really easy to add buttons to your inspectors. It combines the simplicity of the [ContextMenu] attribute we saw in Unity, with the visual appearance of its custom editors. With this, you can take a step forward in providing your inspectors with functionality that speeds up development and facilitates debugging your projects.