Unity Editor Tooling

Unity Editor Tooling

Editor scripting APIs and Undo/serialization semantics shift between Unity versions. Prefer retrieval over pre-training for exact method signatures and attribute usage. All paths below are relative to /media/artiq/FRESH_DRIVE/Books/Unity6/Documentation/en/ and were verified to exist on disk.

Retrieval Sources

Key Guidelines

Custom Inspectors

Attach a custom Inspector with [CustomEditor(typeof(MyComponent))] on a class deriving from Editor (ScriptReference/CustomEditor.html, Editor.html). Override OnInspectorGUI to draw fields; call DrawDefaultInspector() if you only want to prepend/append UI to the stock layout (Editor.DrawDefaultInspector.html). Always route field reads/writes through serializedObject/SerializedProperty, never by casting target to your component type and setting fields directly — direct field mutation on target bypasses Undo registration, prefab-override tracking, and multi-object edit, and won't mark the scene dirty. Wrap the whole method body with serializedObject.Update() at the top and serializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties() at the bottom; ApplyModifiedProperties is what registers the Undo step and calls SetDirty internally.

using UnityEditor;
using UnityEngine;

[CustomEditor(typeof(WeaponConfig))]
[CanEditMultipleObjects]
public class WeaponConfigEditor : Editor
{
    SerializedProperty damageProp;
    SerializedProperty cooldownProp;

    void OnEnable()
    {
        damageProp = serializedObject.FindProperty("damage");
        cooldownProp = serializedObject.FindProperty("cooldown");
    }

    public override void OnInspectorGUI()
    {
        serializedObject.Update();

        EditorGUILayout.PropertyField(damageProp);
        EditorGUILayout.PropertyField(cooldownProp);

        if (damageProp.floatValue < 0f)
            EditorGUILayout.HelpBox("Damage cannot be negative.", MessageType.Warning);

        serializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties();
    }
}

CanEditMultipleObjects and multi-object edit

Add [CanEditMultipleObjects] (ScriptReference/CanEditMultipleObjects.html) only once the drawer correctly handles mixed values — check SerializedProperty.hasMultipleDifferentValues before rendering a field as if all selected objects agreed, and never read target when multiple objects are selected; use targets (Editor-targets.html) instead. SerializedObject/SerializedProperty already average/blank mixed values for you when you go through EditorGUILayout.PropertyField, so prefer that over manually branching on hasMultipleDifferentValues unless you're building custom (non-PropertyField) UI.

public override void OnInspectorGUI()
{
    serializedObject.Update();
    EditorGUI.showMixedValue = damageProp.hasMultipleDifferentValues;
    EditorGUI.BeginChangeCheck();
    float newDamage = EditorGUILayout.FloatField("Damage", damageProp.floatValue);
    if (EditorGUI.EndChangeCheck())
        damageProp.floatValue = newDamage;
    EditorGUI.showMixedValue = false;
    serializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties();
}

PropertyDrawers

A PropertyDrawer targets either a [Serializable] type via [CustomPropertyDrawer(typeof(MyType))], or a PropertyAttribute subclass (ScriptReference/PropertyDrawer.html, CustomPropertyDrawer.html, Manual/editor-PropertyDrawers.html). Prefer the attribute form ([CustomPropertyDrawer(typeof(MyAttribute))] bound to a PropertyAttribute) for reusable decorations applied to built-in types like int/string, since you can't add a CustomPropertyDrawer directly to types you don't own. IMGUI drawers override OnGUI(Rect, SerializedProperty, GUIContent) and must also override GetPropertyHeight whenever the drawer isn't exactly one standard line tall — Unity uses the returned height to lay out the Rect it passes to OnGUI, and a drawer that draws multiple controls without adjusting height will get clipped or overlapped. The newer UI Toolkit path overrides CreatePropertyGUI(SerializedProperty) and returns a VisualElement tree instead; prefer this for new drawers and don't mix OnGUI and CreatePropertyGUI in the same class — Unity picks one code path per drawer instance and mixing them is unsupported.

// Attribute-based drawer for a range-limited int on any target type.
public class MinMaxIntAttribute : PropertyAttribute
{
    public readonly int min, max;
    public MinMaxIntAttribute(int min, int max) { this.min = min; this.max = max; }
}

[CustomPropertyDrawer(typeof(MinMaxIntAttribute))]
public class MinMaxIntDrawer : PropertyDrawer
{
    public override void OnGUI(Rect position, SerializedProperty property, GUIContent label)
    {
        var attr = (MinMaxIntAttribute)attribute;
        if (property.propertyType != SerializedPropertyType.Integer)
        {
            EditorGUI.LabelField(position, label.text, "Use MinMaxInt with int.");
            return;
        }
        EditorGUI.BeginProperty(position, label, property);
        int value = EditorGUI.IntSlider(position, label, property.intValue, attr.min, attr.max);
        property.intValue = value;
        EditorGUI.EndProperty();
    }
}

// UI Toolkit equivalent entry point (same attribute reused).
[CustomPropertyDrawer(typeof(MinMaxIntAttribute))]
public class MinMaxIntDrawerUITK : PropertyDrawer
{
    public override VisualElement CreatePropertyGUI(SerializedProperty property)
    {
        var attr = (MinMaxIntAttribute)attribute;
        var slider = new SliderInt(property.displayName, attr.min, attr.max);
        slider.BindProperty(property);
        return slider;
    }
}

EditorWindows

Choose an EditorWindow (ScriptReference/EditorWindow.html) for tools that operate across the project or scene independent of a single selected object; choose a CustomEditor when the UI is specific to one component's serialized data. Open/focus a window with EditorWindow.GetWindow<T>(). For IMGUI windows, implement OnGUI(); for UI Toolkit windows, implement CreateGUI() (EditorWindow.CreateGUI.html) and build a VisualElement tree onto rootVisualElement instead — Unity calls CreateGUI once when the window is enabled/shown and does not call OnGUI afterward if CreateGUI is implemented, so pick one style per window, matching the same IMGUI-vs-UI-Toolkit split as PropertyDrawers.

public class WeaponBalancerWindow : EditorWindow
{
    [MenuItem("Tools/Weapon Balancer")]
    public static void Open() => GetWindow<WeaponBalancerWindow>("Weapon Balancer");

    void CreateGUI()
    {
        var refreshButton = new Button(RefreshList) { text = "Refresh" };
        rootVisualElement.Add(refreshButton);
        rootVisualElement.Add(new ListView());
    }

    void RefreshList() { /* rebuild the list contents */ }
}

Gizmos, Handles, and SceneView hooks

Gizmos (ScriptReference/Gizmos.html) draws non-interactive shapes in the Scene view via MonoBehaviour.OnDrawGizmos/OnDrawGizmosSelected — these are ordinary runtime-class callbacks Unity invokes only in the editor, so no Editor/CustomEditor class is required. OnDrawGizmos runs every repaint for every object in the scene, selected or not, so keep it cheap; move expensive or selection-only drawing into OnDrawGizmosSelected. Handles (ScriptReference/Handles.html) draws interactive, draggable scene-view controls (position/rotation handles, buttons, sliders) and is normally called from inside a CustomEditor's OnSceneGUI() override, or from a static handler on SceneView.duringSceneGui (ScriptReference/SceneView-duringSceneGui.html) for tooling that isn't tied to a component selection at all — e.g. a global scene-view overlay. SceneView.duringSceneGui replaced the older SceneView.onSceneGUIDelegate and fires once per Scene view per repaint; subscribe in OnEnable/static constructor and unsubscribe in OnDisable to avoid duplicate handler stacking across domain reloads.

[CustomEditor(typeof(PatrolPath))]
public class PatrolPathEditor : Editor
{
    void OnSceneGUI()
    {
        var path = (PatrolPath)target;
        for (int i = 0; i < path.points.Length; i++)
        {
            EditorGUI.BeginChangeCheck();
            Vector3 newPos = Handles.PositionHandle(path.points[i], Quaternion.identity);
            if (EditorGUI.EndChangeCheck())
            {
                Undo.RecordObject(path, "Move Patrol Point");
                path.points[i] = newPos;
            }
        }
    }
}

// Component-level gizmo, no Editor class needed:
public class PatrolPath : MonoBehaviour
{
    public Vector3[] points;
    void OnDrawGizmosSelected()
    {
        Gizmos.color = Color.yellow;
        for (int i = 0; i < points.Length - 1; i++)
            Gizmos.DrawLine(points[i], points[i + 1]);
    }
}

MenuItems

Register menu commands with [MenuItem("Tools/My Tool")] on a static method (ScriptReference/MenuItem.html); non-static methods and methods on classes with compile errors silently fail to register, which is the most common cause of a missing menu entry. Add a keyboard shortcut with a trailing %/#/&/_ modifier syntax in the path string (e.g. "Tools/My Tool %g" for Ctrl/Cmd+G). Add a validate function via a second [MenuItem(path, true)] overload with matching path and identical method signature returning bool — Unity polls the validate function to enable/disable/gray out the menu entry (MenuItem-validate.html, MenuItem-priority.html controls ordering/separators).

public static class SelectionTools
{
    [MenuItem("Tools/Align Selected To Grid")]
    static void AlignToGrid()
    {
        foreach (var t in Selection.transforms)
        {
            Undo.RecordObject(t, "Align To Grid");
            t.position = new Vector3(Mathf.Round(t.position.x), Mathf.Round(t.position.y), Mathf.Round(t.position.z));
        }
    }

    [MenuItem("Tools/Align Selected To Grid", true)]
    static bool ValidateAlignToGrid() => Selection.transforms.Length > 0;
}

AssetPostprocessors

An AssetPostprocessor subclass (ScriptReference/AssetPostprocessor.html) does not need to be attached to anything — Unity discovers and instantiates it automatically for every asset import as long as it lives in an editor-only context. Override static-like instance callbacks such as OnPreprocessTexture/OnPostprocessTexture, or the batched OnPostprocessAllAssets(string[] importedAssets, string[] deletedAssets, string[] movedAssets, string[] movedFromAssetPaths) for project-wide hooks that don't need per-importer settings access. Inside per-asset preprocess callbacks, mutate the importer exposed via assetImporter (cast to the specific importer type, e.g. TextureImporter) — this is the supported way to force import settings, and changes here happen before the asset is written to the library, unlike a postprocess-time AssetDatabase.ImportAsset call which triggers a second, more expensive reimport. Use GetPostprocessOrder() to control ordering when multiple postprocessors touch the same asset.

public class TextureImportSettings : AssetPostprocessor
{
    void OnPreprocessTexture()
    {
        if (!assetPath.Contains("/UI/")) return;
        var importer = (TextureImporter)assetImporter;
        importer.textureType = TextureImporterType.Sprite;
        importer.mipmapEnabled = false;
    }

    static void OnPostprocessAllAssets(
        string[] importedAssets, string[] deletedAssets,
        string[] movedAssets, string[] movedFromAssetPaths)
    {
        foreach (var path in importedAssets)
            if (path.EndsWith(".weaponconfig.json"))
                Debug.Log($"Weapon config changed: {path}");
    }
}

SerializedObject/SerializedProperty and Undo

SerializedObject/SerializedProperty (ScriptReference/SerializedObject.html, SerializedProperty.html) is Unity's reflection-safe, prefab-override-aware, multi-object-aware layer over a target's serialized fields — it is what makes Undo, prefab overrides, and multi-select editing work correctly for free. Any editor code that mutates fields outside this system — e.g. calling gameObject.AddComponent<T>() from a menu command, or setting a public field directly on a ScriptableObject you loaded via AssetDatabase — must manually call Undo.RecordObject(obj, "description") before the mutation (or Undo.RegisterCreatedObjectUndo for new objects, ScriptReference/Undo.html) and, if the object isn't a SerializedObject-driven component being saved through ApplyModifiedProperties, call EditorUtility.SetDirty(obj) (EditorUtility.SetDirty.html) afterward so the editor knows to persist the change. SerializedObject.ApplyModifiedProperties() performs both of these steps internally, which is why it's the preferred path whenever the data model allows it.

[MenuItem("Tools/Create Config Asset")]
static void CreateConfigAsset()
{
    var config = ScriptableObject.CreateInstance<WeaponConfig>();
    AssetDatabase.CreateAsset(config, "Assets/NewWeaponConfig.asset");
    Undo.RegisterCreatedObjectUndo(config, "Create Weapon Config");
    EditorUtility.SetDirty(config);
    AssetDatabase.SaveAssets();
}

Editor-only code separation

Keep editor-only code out of player builds: wrap it in #if UNITY_EDITOR / #endif, or put the script under a folder literally named Editor/ anywhere in Assets/ (Unity excludes all Editor/ folder contents from player builds automatically), or, in an assembly-definition-based project, mark the .asmdef as an Editor-only assembly (Manual/ExtendingTheEditor.html). Referencing UnityEditor types from a script that ships in the player causes build failures, since UnityEditor.dll isn't included in player builds.

Common Mistakes

Quick Reference

Advanced Notes

UI Toolkit as the modern alternative to IMGUI. Unity's newer editor UI stack (Manual/UIE-editor-binding.html, Manual/UIE-support-for-editor-ui.html) builds Inspectors, EditorWindows, and PropertyDrawers out of VisualElement trees instead of immediate-mode OnGUI calls. Key differences that affect design decisions:

• Retained mode vs immediate mode. IMGUI rebuilds and re-lays-out the entire UI every repaint; UI Toolkit builds the tree once (in CreateGUI/CreatePropertyGUI) and only updates what changes, which is both faster for complex tool UIs and enables USS (Unity Style Sheets, CSS-like) styling that IMGUI has no equivalent for.
• Data binding. UIElements.PropertyField (ScriptReference/UIElements.PropertyField.html) can bind directly to a SerializedProperty via BindProperty, handling Undo/dirty/multi-object-edit semantics automatically without manual Update()/ApplyModifiedProperties() calls each frame — see Manual/UIE-Binding.html for the full binding model (not itself listed in Retrieval Sources above since it's several pages deep; start from Manual/UIE-editor-binding.html).
• Interop. UIElements.IMGUIContainer lets you embed a block of legacy OnGUI-style code inside an otherwise UI-Toolkit-built window or Inspector — useful for migrating incrementally, or for wrapping third-party IMGUI drawers you can't rewrite. The reverse (embedding a VisualElement inside pure IMGUI) is not supported.
• When to still use IMGUI. Handles/Gizmos Scene view drawing has no UI Toolkit equivalent — OnSceneGUI and SceneView.duringSceneGui remain IMGUI-based regardless of whether the owning Inspector/window uses UI Toolkit. Small, one-off editor scripts (a single debug button) are often still faster to write in IMGUI than to set up a VisualElement tree for.
• Migration granularity. The IMGUI/UI-Toolkit choice is made per drawer/window class, not per project — a project can mix OnInspectorGUI-based Editors for simple components with CreateGUI-based Editors for complex ones without conflict, as long as no single class mixes both entry points (see Common Mistakes).

EditorTool and Overlays for Scene view tooling. For tools that need a dedicated Scene view toolbar button and their own manipulation mode (like the built-in Move/Rotate/Scale tools), prefer EditorTools.EditorTool (ScriptReference/EditorTools.EditorTool.html) over ad hoc SceneView.duringSceneGui handlers — it integrates with Unity's tool-context system so your tool activates/deactivates cleanly alongside the built-in ones. For persistent on-screen panels in the Scene or other views, Overlays.Overlay (ScriptReference/Overlays.Overlay.html) is the modern, dockable/floating replacement for hand-rolled Handles.BeginGUI/EndGUI overlay blocks, and exposes a rootVisualElement so overlay content is built with UI Toolkit.