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Favorites

The Favorites List operates in conjunction with the Clipboard and the Pick tool.

New items are always added to the top of the Favorites list.

  • Use the “F” button to add the Clipboard Object.
    • This isn’t possible for TileFabs or clone-state TilePlus tiles.
  • CTRL-click when using the Pick tool: the picked tile or area is added to the top of the Favorites List.
    • You can also Pick an area with the Marquee Shortcut to create a multiple selection.
    • Prefabs can’t be picked from the scene.
    • Clone-state TilePlus tiles can’t be added to Favorites in this fashion unless part of a multiple selection.
  • Select one or more tile, Prefab, or Bundle assets in the Project folder, then:
    • Right-click and use the context menu item ‘Add To Painter Favorites.’
    • Use Assets/Add To Painter Favorites.
  • When inspecting a Bundle in Paint mode, click the eyedropper icon in the bottom section of the right column to create a Pick of all the tiles in the Bundle as a clipboard Object then click F to add it to Favorites. Prefabs in the Bundle are ignored.

You can use the Favorites List just like any other Tile Source. Tiles, Prefabs, Bundles, or Multiple-selection Picks are never modified: a copy of the selected Favorites item is placed in the Clipboard. This ensures that applied modifiers (See Custom Modifiers) never affect the selected Favorites item.

New items are always inserted at the beginning of the list. The Favorites List can be cleared with the Tools/TilePlus/Clear Painter Favorites.

When viewing Favorites, each entry displays a small ‘X’ that you can use to delete individual items. The maximum size of the list is limited to 32 items. It’s truncated when the limit is exceeded if one or more new items are added. The list is saved in the filesystem; at various times the list is pruned (see below).

Cloned tiles (e.g., TilePlus tiles) cannot be added to Favorites when picked from a scene as a single tile. However, multiple-selection scene Picks which contains clone-state TilePlus tiles can be added to Favorites and will have new GUIDs when painted on a Tilemap.

Prefabs as Favorites

You can add Project folder Prefabs to the Favorites List. Note that specific prefabs may do weird things or cause exceptions.

  • For example, you can add a Palette prefab to the Favorites List and paint it. Surprisingly, this works.
  • Adding a prefab with scripts which, when painted, execute out of context (e.g., have ExecuteAlways or ExecuteInEditMode attributes) may cause exceptions when painted.
  • A preview icon can’t be generated for certain circumstances. Unity’s GetAssetPreview functions are used, and the result depends on GetAssetPreview’s return value. In some cases, it will generate a solid one-color texture when it can’t create a preview.

Multiple Selections as Favorites

Favorites holds three types of items in two Lists:

  • Tiles, Prefabs, or Bundles
  • Multiple Selection picks

These two lists aren’t visible to you: they are needed because multiple selection picks are Scriptable Objects which can’t be easily serialized to the filesystem. Hence, internally the two types of Objects are handled differently.

Multiple Selection Picks are identified as such and highlighted with a yellow text color. The sprite shown on the item is the first non-null tile in the pick or a generated icon.

Multiple Selections include area picks from the scene (when you use the Marquee Shortcut) and area picks from the Palette display (Palette picks) seen when ‘Use Unity Palette’ is checked.

Multiple-Selection scene picks are placed in the Clipboard (unless you hold down CTRL when picking from a scene, which requires some dexterity); Use the “F” button to add the pick to Favorites. Adding a pick to Favorites generates the icon for the pick. Note that this can take several seconds, depending on how many tiles are in the pick, the size of the tile sprites, whether they’re in a texture atlas, and whether or not they are marked readable.

Palette picks are always put in the Clipboard. Again, use “F” to add the picks to Favorites.

When you have a combination of the two types of items, and you exit, and restart Unity the Multiple Selection items are always displayed at the top of the Favorites list.

Bundle Multiple Selection Picks

If a Multiple Selection Pick is in the clipboard, you can copy it into a Bundle by using the Tools/TilePlus/Bundle Clipboard menu command or click the B button. An Icon will be automatically generated and added to the Bundle.

Conversely, when inspecting a Bundle in Paint mode, the small eyedropper button near the bottom of the right column can be used to convert it into a Multiple-selection Pick. Note that Prefabs in the Bundle are ignored.

Favorites Pruning

Duplicate, null (deleted) Prefab assets, or null (deleted) tile assets, or null multiple-selection picks found in the Favorites List are ignored and are deleted from the list. For example, if you select a tile or Prefab from the Favorites List and CTRL-Click the Clipboard (the thumbnail icon at the top right of the Painter window) the item won’t be added to the Favorites List a second time.

Duplicates are more difficult to detect for Multiple Selection picks. To simplify and avoid lengthy operations, comparisons don’t include all the tiles within the Selection. However, if there are any null tiles within such a pick the entire pick is deleted. This can occur if you delete an asset (Prefab, tile, Bundle) that was referenced in the Favorites list.