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Simple Blackboard

Simple Blackboard for Unity is a flexible runtime data container that can contain any count of properties of any type. The properties can be accessed with property names.

The main advantage of Simple Blackboard is that it allocates as little as possible. Also, it has good enough performance and supports derivation.

Installation

This repo is a regular Unity package. You can install it as your project dependency. More here: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/upm-dependencies.html.

Usage

Setup

As a Unity component

Add a SimpleBlackboardContainer to a GameObject in your scene. You can find it in Add Component/Simple Blackboard/Simple Blackboard Container. That component automatically creates a Blackboard inside on Awake(). You can access it via SimpleBlackboardContainer.blackboard property.

As a regular c# class

Simply create a Blackboard with its default constructor: new Blackboard(). You may get all the features of the Simple Blackboard this way too.

Blackboard API

TryGetStructValue() tries to get and return a value of a specified struct type and a property name.
TryGetClassValue() tries to get and return a value of a specified class type and a property name.
TryGetObjectValue() tries to get and return a value of any type and a property name.
SetStructValue() sets a value of a specified struct type and a property name.
SetClassValue() sets a value of a specified class type and a property name.
SetObjectValue() sets a value of any type and a property name.
ContainsStructValue() checks if a value of a struct type and a property name is contained.
ContainsObjectValue() checks if a value of any type and a property name is contained.
ContainsType() checks if a table of a type is contained.
GetCount() returns how many values of a type are contained.
RemoveStruct() removes a value of a struct type and a property name.
RemoveObject() removes a value of any type and a property name.
Clear() removes all values.

Those are main methods of Blackboard, you can find more in its source code.

All the methods of Blackboard use BlackboardPropertyName as a property name, not string. You can create that struct with one of its constructors. It transforms strings into unique integer ids. That makes work of Blackboard faster. But it's not recommended to create a new BlackboardPropertyName via string every time, cache it.

!Attention!

BlackboardPropertyName fully supports only ascii symbols. It may work incorrectly with other symbols.

Serialization

If you use a Blackboard as a regular c# class, you have to support serialization yourself.

If you use a SimpleBlackboardContainer, you can create a SimpleSerializedTablesContainer in Assets/Create/Simple Blackboard/Simple Serialized Tables Container and link it in your SimpleBlackboardContainer. SimpleBlackboardContainer also supports serialization of local components. It will automatically apply all properties of SimpleSerializedTablesContainers and references to local components on Awake().

How to customize serialization

Although there are many types supported by Simple Blackboard out of the box, you may need to serialize more types or your own types. In that case, you need to inherit ClassGeneratedValueSerializedTable, ClassSerializedValueSerializedTable, StructGeneratedValueSerializedTable, or StructSerializedValueSerializedTable.

If you need a full customizable serialized table, you can derive SerializedTable_Base.

If you need a full customizable serialized container, you can derive SimpleSerializedContainer.

Blackboard editor support

Because Unity draws only serialized by itself properties, properties of a Blackboard aren't drawn by Unity. But SimpleBlackboardContainer has a custom editor to show and make editable all of its Blackboard properties. Although there are many types that are drawn out of the box, you may need to draw more types in Unity editor. You can achieve it by deriving BlackboardValueView or UnityObjectBlackboardValueView.

If you have your own component and want to draw a blackboard in its inspector, use BlackboardEditor. It has a method DrawBlackboard() to draw a blackboard with IMGUI and methods CreateBlackboardVisualElement() and UpdateBlackboardVisualElement() to draw with UI Elements.

Logs

There is a special class for logging the whole Blackboard system: BlackboardDebug. It contains conditional methods for logging. You can control a compilation of those methods with define symbols:

SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_LOG_DETAILS - log every change of the Blackboard system.
SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_LOG
SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_LOG_WARNING
SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_LOG_ERROR

BlackboardDebug has all of them as public const strings.

Blackboard may allocate in its methods new strings if you have any of those defines turned on.

Save names feature

BlackboardPropertyName can save string names so that you always can get an original string it was created with. This feature is optional. To turn it on, add SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_SAVE_NAMES define.

When this feature is enabled, property name of BlackboardPropertyName returns original name; otherwise it returns empty string. Also, with this feature enabled, method ToString of BlackboardPropertyName adds name to the result. And it affects logs so that you can see original names of properties.

GlobalDefines has SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_SAVE_NAMES define as a public const string.

It's recommended not to use this define if you don't need it because the code works faster without it.

Multithreading

The package has an optional multithreading support. You can activate it with the define SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_MULTITHREADING. With that define, different locks are compiled. Those locks exist for internal usage only: access to Blackboard in different classes of this package and internal work of BlackboardPropertyName. Blackboard doesn't have internal locks. So, you have to save your code from issues yourself.

Also, you can use the package in a multithreading code without the define SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_MULTITHREADING. In that case, you have to guarantee that you don't access the same Blackboard from different threads and that you access the constructor with string and the name property of BlackboardPropertyName only from one thread. The latter is not required if you don't use SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_SAVE_NAMES define.

GlobalDefines has the define SIMPLE_BLACKBOARD_MULTITHREADING as a public const string.

Little features

BlackboardPropertyReference

It's a simple serializable struct with two fields: a reference to SimpleBlackboardContainer and a property name of string type. It has a custom editor that makes a selector for the property name field. The selector is filled with property names of all serialized properties of the referenced SimpleBlackboardContainer. It's recommended to use it for custom components where you need to reference a specific property in a Blackboard of a SimpleBlackboardContainer.

Accessors

These are special components that allow to easily get or set a value in a Blackboard in Unity component system. You can find them in Add Component/Simple Blackboard/Accessors/ or in the AccessorsFolder. You can get/set a blackboard property via the property Accessor<T, TEvent>.value.

Accessors also have Unity Event that is invoked with a current value in a blackboard. To flush such an event, you need to call the method Accessor_Base.Flush() or just use one of Accessor flushers that do that automatically. You can find them in Add Component/Simple Blackboard/Accessor Flushers/ or in the AccessorFlushersFolder.