editing Node's metadata from inside the Inspector

[SuperUserNameMan]

Operating system or device - Godot version:
2.0.3stable win64

Issue description (what happened, and what was expected):

It could be handy to be able to set the metadata of a node directly from the inspector without being forced to attach a custom script to it.

Steps to reproduce:

Link to minimal example project (optional but very welcome):

[bojidar-bg]

Strange... I'm absolutely sure there was another issue once about this, but I can't seem to find it...

Edit: Ah, there it is, though it is about a different problem: #2082

[kubecz3k]

closing as a duplicate of #2082

[SuperUserNameMan]

@kubecz3k :
not a duplicate. even if punto mentioned editing metadata from inside the inspector, #2082 is about attaching notes or comments to a node.

mine is about editing metadata from inside the inspector.

[kubecz3k]

@SuperUserNameMan oh ok, sorry about that!

[bojidar-bg]

@kubecz3k Oopsie, sorry for not fully explaining the case; I though saying that is is for another problem would suffice XD

[bojidar-bg]

On a side note, maybe this would look good inside the Node tab (plus a corresponding icon in the scene tree)?

[vnen]

Another scene tree icon? I already need to make the dock wider to see the node name in some cases...

[vnen]

This could be useful. I might tackle this but I haven't an idea for how the GUI should look like.

[bojidar-bg]

@vnen Here are a few GUI suggestions I could come up with.. (md-fu)

Property	Value
my_prop (editable name, somehow)	type dropdown
my_prop_value	...

Or (ArrayPropertyEdit-alike):

Property	Value
length	1
items
├ 1_name	"my_prop"
├ 1_type	type dropdown
└ 1	...

Or (custom tree of Control nodes):

Property	Value
my_prop (LineEdit)	Type: String (type dropdown) 2 (some type-specific editor, somehow)	Remove
	Add

[vnen]

@bojidar-bg thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll try to make it as a plugin first, like a new dock.

[bojidar-bg]

@vnen To be fair, you might be able to get the group dock with some black magic, then insert a new tab into it... 😉

[vnen]

I don't think the Node dock is the best place since Resources also have metadata.

[leoddd]

From what I can tell, Godot can now edit dictionaries from within the Inspector, meaning that you could probably just use that implementation (and its eventual upgrades) for the metadata editing, since metadata is essentially a dictionary?

As for where to put it, maybe just make it a property exposed to the Inspector for the Object class, since that is where metadata is handled (and both resources and Nodes obviously inherit this).

[bojidar-bg]

Yes, it just lacks an expose.

[aaronfranke]

This issue should probably be tracked via #18591

(Yes I know this issue is older, but the one I linked is more active and was opened by reduz)

[YeldhamDev]

As #22642 was reverted and is being tried again in #30765, reopening it.

[akien-mga]

See #32416 (comment) for further discussion on what changes might be relevant for metadata in 4.0.

[akien-mga]

Feature and improvement proposals for the Godot Engine are now being discussed and reviewed in a dedicated Godot Improvement Proposals (GIP) (godotengine/godot-proposals) issue tracker. The GIP tracker has a detailed issue template designed so that proposals include all the relevant information to start a productive discussion and help the community assess the validity of the proposal for the engine.

The main (godotengine/godot) tracker is now solely dedicated to bug reports and Pull Requests, enabling contributors to have a better focus on bug fixing work. Therefore, we are now closing all older feature proposals on the main issue tracker.

If you are interested in this feature proposal, please open a new proposal on the GIP tracker following the given issue template (after checking that it doesn't exist already). Be sure to reference this closed issue if it includes any relevant discussion (which you are also encouraged to summarize in the new proposal). Thanks in advance!

[Zireael07]

Plugin that solves this issue: https://github.com/ballerburg9005/godot-metadata-inspector

[akien-mga]

Object metadata is now exposed in the Inspector in Godot 4.0: #59452.