Creating a new Editor Mode.md

2021-02-19_08:22:29

Creating a new Editor Mode

An Editor Mode replaces the regular user input tools (select, move, etc) with ones designed for a specific purpose. For example Landscape painting or foliage manipulation. An Editor Mode can also create additional Panels in the Editor window. New Editor Modes are created in C++. All code described and exemplified here should be but in an Editor Module.

A new Editor Mode is created by inheriting from the FEdMode class.

#include "EdMode.h"
class MYMODULE_API FMyEdMode : public FEdMode
{
}

Each Editor Mode has a unique identifier FName that we should specify.

class MYMODULE_API FMyEdMode : public FEdMode
{
public:
    static const FEditorModeID EM_MyEdModeId;
}

const FEditorModeID FMyEdMode::EM_MyEdModeId = TEXT("EM_MyEdMode");

FEdMode has a few virtual member functions that we can override.

class MYMODULE_API FMyEdMode : public FEdMode
{
public:
    bool UsesToolkits() const override;
    virtual void Enter() override;
    virtual void Exit() override;
}

An Editor Mode can optionally use a Toolkit. The Toolkit is what provides the Mode's GUI elements. Add return true to the UsesToolkits implementation to enable toolkits.

class MYMODULE_API FMyEdModeToolkit : public FModeToolkit
{
}

There is also FBaseToolkit as an even more low-level base class. FModeToolkit gives you an UI panel for selectable tools and a Details Panel for the selected tool.

[[2020-12-03_10:41:49]] Editor Mode
[[2021-02-19_08:26:26]] Editor module

How to Make Tools in UE4 @ lxjk.github.io