Unity 4.5 New Hierarchy Window sorting

With the release of Unity 4.5 it has a new Hierarchy Window sorting which seems to sort "based on transform order instead of name".

I was wondering if someone might be able to clarify what transform order sorting means exactly as that description seems a bit vague and could mean any number of things?

I also was wondering if there is an option to use the previous legacy sorting by name as currently the new system seems to disrupt the work flow of the project I'm currently working on due to our reliance on the name sorting.

 

So it looks like Unity 4.5 has new functionality that allows us the overload how the hierarchy window sorts gameobjects in code using BaseHierarchySort which is mentioned here:

http://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/BaseHierarchySort.html

Though I'm still unclear on how to implement it. Do we put our derived class in an Editor folder, or some other folder? Is there anything extra to set it up?

 

The "upgrade guide" at the bottom of this page links to this docs page which gets you most of the way there. I don't see a way to actually set this class to take effect, which would be a good thing to add to the docs...

 

The custom sorting is a really cool feature, though it might help if you guys have a tutorial video or explicitly state how to set this up for people who aren't aware of this. I only realized how to do this because I was part of the Beta and I checked in those forums. Thanks for the response.

I think the upgrade guide can be easily missed, but hopefully people find this forum thread if they do miss it.

 

That 'new feature' is super annoying. Is there any way to turn it off in the editor without resorting to scripting?
(Sort of a leading question btw)

 

EDIT: I see, you have to write an editor script to do that. It's a shame, I suppose, that the order got moved about on the upgrade,rather than starting out as alphabetical.

 

Read his post more carefully - that button appears only when you have another kind of sort somewhere in the project (it doesn't have to be in an editor folder, either).

Here, I've put the sample code into a script file for script-averse types. Just download the attached script and drop it anywhere in your project. It'll compile, that new button will appear, and you can choose the AlphaNumericSort.

There is a good point of feedback here, though - Unity's Standard Assets should probably be updated to include AlphaNumericSort.

I for one am going to find this feature incredibly useful. Now I can sort objects based on how far through the level they are, for example, which is going to be really handy when laying out levels.

 

Count me among the nonplussed: the presentation of this new functionality is completely lame. The benefit of custom sorting isn't offset by the annoyance of having to write a script to restore the previous behavior.

One of the great things about Unity is how it empowers non-coders to create games. Defaulting to transform sorting (whatever that is) without an easy way to select alphabetical sorting is a real head-scratcher. User-unfriendly and tedious to undo.

I'm sure many will appreciate the ability to create custom sorting, but it shouldn't have defaulted to a poorly-explained default without an easy way to preserve the kind of sorting that pretty much everyone is used to.

StarManta, thanks for providing a script, by the way!

 

you guys should try to get comfortable with the new system. uGUI will use the order of transforms to determine its Z order ( depth )

 

Well, I'm impressed, this is quite a nice way to handle hierarchy sorting.

 

Completelly agree.

 

What does this actually mean? My hierarchy is reordered but I do not understand how this relates to the transform order. I want my gameObjects to be ordered based upon their "z", it is not doing that.

 

I think just the notion of "Transform order instead of name" was really a bad way to say it, as transform order can mean a lot of things to different people.
Now when you explained it, I know you meant the order in the array.

I actually find this a welcome change. The ability to re-order is a nice feature.

 

"Manual reordering" maybe?

 

Now I get it - awesome! I hated the alphabetical ordering.

 

Regarding manual reordering, it seems to be ok when loading and unloading gameobjects from scenes, but where it really seems to have an issue is when you LoadAdditive. Is there a way to control how the new gameobjects that come into the scene can be sorted by transform?

 

To work with previous versions:

Code (csharp):

1. using UnityEngine;
2. using System.Collections;
3. using UnityEditor;
4.  
5.  
6. #if UNITY_4_5
7. public class AlphaNumericSort : BaseHierarchySort
8. {
9.     public override int Compare(GameObject lhs, GameObject rhs)
10.     {
11.         if (lhs == rhs) return 0;
12.         if (lhs == null) return -1;
13.         if (rhs == null) return 1;
14.         return EditorUtility.NaturalCompare(lhs.name, rhs.name);
15.     }
16. }
17. #endif

Manual sort is great, maybe two lines to explain what "transform sort" is, it would be great for new users.

Regards

 

I'm going to have to agree with OneThree. While Unity may have good reasons to sort it in this manner, from my point of view it just went from "sorted" to "not sorted". Whatever nice things are happening on the back end because of it, it has the appearance of taking a step backward in functionality.

Having other sorting options is fine, but please include some defaults.

 

non-alphabetical sorting as default?! That's odd and annoying. Having to get a script to enable the option to put it back to how it was!? guys.........

 

As of now now there is not. I believe that doing a LoadAdditive will place all the newly loaded Root GO's (those with no parents) at the bottom of the hierarchy.

 

Of course, in this case "writing a script" is literally copying and pasting code off the documentation into a file, adding "using UnityEditor;" and "using UnityEngine;" to the top and saving, so while it was possibly not presented in exactly the best way imaginable, it's not really a problem.

 

Does it mean we will get gameobject update order based on Hierarchy? If not, I really don't see the usefulness of this sort by transform to users.

 

Doesn't providing the new sorting functionality and script just lead to the same problem in the long term though? Whether it's there by default, or given out as a solution to the legacy view order preference that some of us have, it's still going to cause problems down the line.

It may have been better to provide a quick way of re-ordering the actual transform list instead of leaving it as-is and just changing your view of that list. Maybe a right click option in the hierarchy view, or in the edit menu, that allows you to re-order all the child transforms alphanumerically. That way legacy projects could have quickly re-ordered everything to be alphanumeric initially, and then gradually weened themselves off of that dependency over time (especially as they move on to using the new GUI system). Instead what you are going to have is the same misunderstanding, but in a more fragmented way.

I actually like the new way of doing things, it makes sense, but it seems like this transition period for legacy projects could have been handled more cleanly. I'll probably end up writing my own scripts to do what I've described above.

Is there an intended use for the hierarchy view sorting functionality beyond this issue? It seems dangerous to me to add that functionality if you're also starting to build features that rely on the actual order, because you are now letting people hide that from themselves.

 

I've been a programmer for 30 years, using Unity for the last 3 and I thought I wasn't stupid. I know what an index is, what a transform is, and what a parent is, but I have no idea what the "index of a transform" is or how that relates to the parent - and what if there is no parent? Devil_Inside say it's

I know what an array is, but what array is he talking about? I've traversed through this new sort and I can't detect a pattern - it seems random. So, please explain what

means, because I'm sadly lost...

Last question - if you manually reorder, won't that also mess up the new GUI system?

 

I get the use of the manual sort feature, though I'm not seeing any advantage myself. And it's super tedious that my Hierarchy got completely scrambled on the upgrade but I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What bothers me though is that my Hierarchy doesn't actually seem to be saving properly. I'll rearrange things (mostly alphabetically, to be honest), save, then reload the editor later and find that my changes don't persist. That, uh, seems to run contrary to the spirit of manually ordering my gameobjects.

 

I don't have that button in my hierarchy window. What can I do? My objects are all scrambled. I can't find a thing!

 

Why not just make something that order by transform if its parent has a canvas component? Otherwise, order them alphabetical?

@leo.carneiro Also, a bit out of subject: it would be hard to implement a virtual folders system for the hierarchy? Is it possible to do without a plugin?

 

UT... you actually came up with a sorting method that makes alphabetical... depreciated. A true mechanim moment.

You can almost imagine the meeting where everyone sat down nodded and said "Yeah...no one would want their child objects alphabetical anyway...right? This is so much better."

 

Who in their right mind would think of giving up alphabetical ordering?

 

This sounds like a shortcoming in the code/coders, not the user. Can anyone think of any....any software company, QA manager or paying client that would approve this mildly insane hodgepodge solution? I get what you're saying. But the fact that UT couldn't figure out how to avoid user confusion is not a reason to depreciate Alphabetical order. Wow...

 

The idea of ordering GameObjects according to their appearance order along a particular axis does sound most useful. Or radius from a centre-point.

Keeping a fallback of Alphabetical could also be useful. e.g a number of objects are all the same distance from the centre point. These objects are listed alphabetically and between objects closer and further away.

 

The new hierarchy sorting is causing a lot of problems in terms of editor performance. If you have a very large scene and multiple hierarchy window, the sorting is enough to freeze the editor for long periods of time.

I have tested the same scene with 15000 empty gameobjects in 4.3 and 4.5 and the result was an instantaneous response in 4.3 and a 1 minute 40 seconds freeze on 4.5. (for more info: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/unity-4-5-hierarchy-window-causes-game-view-lag-issues.248944/)

4.5 is currently unusable for scenes with > 5k game objects unless you manually close or hide the hierarchy window(s).

 

Why not give us both options as 2 windows. SortedHierarchy and UnsortedHierarchy, Unity boasts an extremely customizable editor right? This would solve a lot of problems, without the issue of sort button or not, those that wish to use a sorted can do so, and those that have issue with the sorted version can go on their merry way as well?

 

This really is annoying. Having to put a script IN EVERY PROJECT is a complete and total fail reminiscent of the good old Unix Haters Handbook. I'm getting sick of dealing with it.

When you go to the Project pane, you find things alphabetically.

When you go to the Hierarchy pane, why should it be different? It's foolish and annoying that the default is anything other than what it has always been, than what the Project window still is.

And the fact that it changes dynamically as things are added and removed is an even WORSE fail.

Has anyone written a Python script to go and "inject" this script into every unity project it finds on your hard drive? I'm seriously getting tired of doing it by hand.

Please, just turn the Hierarchy pane sort back to the way it has always been, and if you must, put a button somewhere that we can enable IF (and ONLY IF) we happen to need to use the new GUI.

Here's an excellent idea: make it exactly as non-intrusive as the 2D/3D button. That thing is NEVER a problem... because I don't use it. This shouldn't be any different.

Thanks,
Kurt Dekker

 

agtreed really annoying, please give back our old hierachie!

 

I think the issue is beyond ease of use or user friendly-ness.

The fact is this is a broken feature because of the performance issues. Even with the alphabetical sorting override implemented, the performance problem still exists.

With the launch of this feature in 4.5, Unity now no longer supports large scenes and/or multiple hierarchy windows.

So much for saying bringing AAA capabilities, if you cant even have a scene with 5-10k objects without freezing the entire editor.

 

For anybody who's dealt with z-ordering in NGUI, particularly older versions, this change should be quite welcome!

 

This new 'Default' ordering is not a plus. At best, it should be an option, should someone need to use it. I can't believe you adopted this without community input... just wow.

This is not a casual change....it's fairly significant. There may be some 'uniquely convenient' situations where this sorting scheme might be handy. But no sane individual could argue that this is a preferred method of sorting objects as DEFAULT.

It feels like there is a massive shortcoming/problem in the new GUI implementation that required this new default sorting, and we may in fact be stuck with it because the engineers can't solve it. That sucks.

UT wanted to know what would make things better? Come clean on this... Is there an inherent flaw in the implementation of the new GUI system that forces users to possibly live with this unwelcome sorting order scheme?

If there isn't something significantly broken, and you think a non-alphabetical default sorting order is a good thing, you are sorely out of touch with users (one fellow's opinion, of course), and Every other professional software I have ever used.....ever.

 

Then I guess that means I'm insane.

I've always disliked it when objects got automatically reordered every time I added something to the scene. Always having to rename things so they appeared at the top, etc. This fixes all that!

I do, however, think there should be some kind of "built-in" alphanumeric sorting option. Maybe you can just disable alphanumeric sorting for uGUI elements, so users don't get confused?

 

You could use GetComponentInParent<Canvas> (or something like that, I don't have 4.6), and if it's found one, then you sort by transform index order, otherwise sort by name. Custom sorting functions have lots of power to tap.

 

Perhaps insane was a bit much. And although the usage you mention is certainly handy, make it default? The asset menus will still be alpha, so you'll be looking at one list that was manually sorted, the other alpha. That should be fun if you have 500+ objects, or the poor fellow above who mentioned 10,000+. It should be a useful option, not default behavior. (Most devs I'd imagine name their gameObjects pretty carefully as they work. Need to find, ExplosiveAmmoDump135, bet it's near ExplosiveAmmoDump134 & ExplosiveAmmoDump136.

I like this 'option', quite a bit. Being able to drag your GUI into the order you wish to see it could be appealing. But not at the cost of default Alpha sorting. The real question again, is why MUST it be this way. I've hired enough contractors (digital and house construction), to get a sense when someone is trying to whitewash an inadequacy. "Yeah, those kind of windows are suppose to open like that. Upside down the new in style."

This feels forced. I can see folk defending it, but does anyone actually think this was the design from the start or a way around a flaw?

 

I think UT saw that people kept renaming and prefixing their object names with spaces and numbers to get them to sort the way they wanted them to sort, and saw this as a problem to be fixed (in addition to needing drag-to-reorder for uGUI).

And adding extensibility in the form of scripting a custom comparer is, frankly, a stroke of brilliance. I've been sorting my sidescroller by X Position, and it makes it stunningly easy to find the exact one of the 30 identical objects I want to reference. I've also written a sorter that puts cameras and singletons at the top of the hierarchy then sorts everything else by name. The versatility of this feature is crazy.

The only thing UT did wrong in this, IMO, is not being clear about the sorting front and center of the changelog, and not providing a link to download the AlphaNumericSort script easily.

 

Not that my opinion counts for much but I have two comments;

a) I can understand the need to manually sort GUI elements. How about a special GameObject (or folder) called "GUIObject" who's children are not alpha sorted, leaving the other game objects sorted as expected...

b) get a new alpha/beta tester team...

 

@leo.carneiro no problem at all, it's because sometimes this is not the best thing to do because of the transform component. That was already discussed here, but it's all good!

 

There's definitely advantages and disadvantages to both automatic alphanumeric and manual transform sorting. Let's look at the trade-offs:

Automatic Alphanumeric sorting:

• Advantage - Automatically keeps the hierarchy organized by name.
• Disadvantage - Can't manually reorganize the hierarchy, forcing you to use special naming conventions to customize the order.

Manual Transform Sorting:

• Advantage - Allows you to sort and customize the order any way you like.
• Disadvantage - Hierarchies can become cluttered and disorganized quickly with no way to automatically organize them.

Alphanumeric sorting is great in a lot of ways, but why exactly does it have to be automatically enforced? I think this might be the key problem here.


Instead of forcing people to choose either automatic or manual sorting, you could simply keep the manual ordering as default, but provide a button that would allow you to manually reorganize all or just the selected content in the hierarchy, alphanumerically. This option would actually change the transform order, but based on the alphanumerical values. Giving you the best of both worlds; allowing you to automatically reorganize the hierarchy at anytime, but also manually change it afterwards.


This feature could be further extended by allowing people to choose between ascending or descending order when sorting and you could also include a special tag called "don't sort" that could be applied to objects so they are never affected, including the new uGUI elements. You could even create a weight tagging system (e.g. 0-25) to allow for semi-automatic sorting based on weight.


Project Upgrade fix

It sounds like the hierarchy in a lot of projects upgrading to 4.5 are becoming completely unorganized messes. I think this may be the main source of anger concerning the sort change.

I think this is because the old way of sorting was only really a visual thing, meaning it did not represent the true transform order. So when people upgrade their projects all they see now is the true and completely unorganized transform order.

A way to fix this might be to ensure upgraded projects have their transform order reorganized based on the alphanumerical values to preserve the old hierarchy layout. This would be very similar to the manual alphanumerical reorganizing option suggested above.