SearchByNode 🔍

This Godot tool provides a simple and efficient way to search and retrieve nodes within your scene tree (including within sub-viewports or specific parent nodes) based on their type and visibility. It's particularly useful for finding specific nodes without manually traversing the hierarchy.

Features

• Find a single node by type (e.g., Control, Node2D, custom class).
• Find all nodes of a specific type.
• Option to search for active (visible) nodes only.
• Ability to limit the search to a specific sub-viewport.
• Find nodes within a specific parent node.

Installation

1. Download/Clone the GitHub repo: Get the SearchByNode.gd script from the repository.
2. Enable Autoload:
   • In your Godot project, go to Project -> Project Settings -> AutoLoad.
   • Click "Add" and select the SearchByNode.gd script.
   • Give it a name (e.g., "SearchByNode") in the AutoLoad settings.
3. Use SearchByNode in your scripts: Now you can access the SearchByNode functions directly in any of your project's scripts.

Usage

Finding Nodes

# Find the first active node of type ClassB
var objB_one : ClassB = SearchByNode.findNodeByType(ClassB)
if objB_one:
	print(objB_one.nameObj)

# Find all active nodes of type ClassA
var classA_array : Array[ClassA]
classA_array.assign(SearchByNode.findNodesByType(ClassA))
for objA_all : ClassA in classA_array:
	print(objA_all.nameObj)

# Find the first active ClassA node within 'self' node
var objA_innerOne : ClassA = SearchByNode.findInnerNodeInNode(ClassA,self)
if objA_innerOne:
	print(objA_innerOne.nameObj)

# Find all active ClassA nodes within 'self' node
var innerClassA_array : Array[ClassA]
innerClassA_array.assign(SearchByNode.findInnerNodesInNode(ClassA,self))
for objA_inner_all : ClassA in innerClassA_array:
	print(objA_inner_all.nameObj)

Finding the Main Scene of a Viewport

# Get the main scene of the viewport that 'self' belongs to
var main_scene = SearchByNode.get_main_scene_of_viewport(self) 
print(main_scene.name)

Parameters

• _type: The type of node to search for (e.g., ClassB, Control, Node).
• _active_only: (Optional) If true, only visible nodes will be returned. Defaults to true.
• mainSubViewPort: (Optional) The SubViewport to limit the search within. Defaults to null (searches the entire scene).
• parentObject: The parent node to search within.

Examples

1. Finding a specific UI element:

# Find the "StartButton" button
var start_button : Button = SearchByNode.findNodeByType(Button, true, null)

2. Finding all enemies in a level:

# Find all active "Enemy" nodes within the "Level" sub-viewport
for enemy : Enemy in SearchByNode.findNodesByType(Enemy,true,level):
	print(enemy.name)

Additional Examples

For more detailed examples and practical use cases, check out the example scenes included in this repository. You can load and run these scenes in Godot to see SearchByNode in action. Feel free to experiment and adapt the examples to fit your specific needs.

Notes

• The script assumes you are passing valid types and nodes as arguments.
• The _active_only parameter relies on the is_visible_in_tree() method, which might not be suitable for all scenarios (for example when looking for inactive objects also).
• The get_main_scene_of_viewport() function is useful when working with nested viewports.

License

This asset is provided under the MIT License.