Implement project-wide node groups

[DarkMessiah]

This commit based on #24262.
Fix godotengine/godot-proposals#3789 and maybe godotengine/godot-proposals#3351 :)
Bugsquad edit:

• Fixes Add project-wide group management godot-proposals#907

• Global Groups - stored in the godot.project and visible to all nodes.
• Local Groups - these are just a list of groups derived from nodes in the current scene, excluding global groups.

Global groups editor in Project Settings.

Editor

Remove global group dialog

Reworked Groups Editor.

• Removed Manage Groups button + dialog
• Added filter for groups
• Added create button
• Reworked tree. Added categories for Local and Global groups.

Groups Editor

Ability to create Global and Local groups.

Ability to Covert Global to Local and Local to Global. Rename. Delete.

P.S. I have one problem. I store local groups cache inside Map<Node *, Set<StringName>>. When I opened scene, I'm storing all local groups into this Set where key is a edited_scene_root_node. I want to know the moment, when scene is closing and I can release a data from the Map.
I use Map<Node *, Set<StringName>> , because when you adding local group and unckeck it from all nodes, you can lose it when you are switching tabs.

[Calinou]

Should "Local Groups" be renamed to "Scene Groups" to make it more obvious that those groups are scoped to the currently open scene in the editor?

[fire-forge]

This is great! I like this workflow much better than the old one.

A few suggestions:

• Move the + button to the right side. Most other Add/+ buttons throughout the editor are on the right.
  
• Change the + button tooltip to just "Add a new group" instead of "Add/Create".
  
• Change the "Groups" tab to "Global Groups" in Project Settings to make it clear that this is only for global groups and not all groups.
  
• Split "Remove Completely" and "Make Local" into 2 buttons in the tree instead of combining them in the same button. The dialog is a bit confusing right now.
  

[DarkMessiah]

What icon could I use for another remove button? :)

[fire-forge]

What icon could I use for another remove button?

I have no idea. I looked around for a good icon to use and I can't find one. Maybe someone else has an idea?

[DarkMessiah]

I have no idea. I looked around for a good icon to use and I can't find one. Maybe someone else has an idea?

There is a Close icon, but I think it will be not clear for users.

What do you think about CheckBox in dialog? :D

[fire-forge]

A checkbox in the dialog is good. But the text to the right of the checkbox be a part of the checkbox (using the text property) instead of a separate label, so that the whole thing can be clicked.

[DarkMessiah]

• Rename Local groups to Scene groups

• Moved the + button to the right side and changed tooltip text.
  

• Rename tab in Project Editor to Global Groups

• Redesigned removing dialog
  

[fire-forge]

It looks great! One change I would make is removing "This action is undoable!", because other actions that are undoable don't have anything saying that. Usually it's the other way around, with actions that can't be undone having a warning and everything else is just assumed to be undoable.

Also, I don't know if this will make it too cluttered, but you could try adding icons to "Scene Groups" and "Global Groups" in the tree. The PackedScene icon will work for scene and Environment for Global:

I don't have any more suggestions regarding the design. I'll do a review of the code when I get a chance to :)

[DarkMessiah]

Done!

Screenshots

[fire-forge]

I would review this right now, but it doesn't compile :( The error messages are referring to HashMap, so I assume it's a difference introduced by #60881 or #60999.

https://github.com/godotengine/godot/runs/6427783069?check_suite_focus=true

[DarkMessiah]

@fire-forge I need to know when node added to the scene tree. Is there any signal for this?

[DarkMessiah]

I removed my caching code, because it didn't work as I expected. Now the list of groups is updated every time when:

1. New node added
2. Any node removed
3. Scene tab changed

Also I added icons for groups from packed scenes:

Groups from a packed scene cannot be removed or renamed outside of the packed scene.

When you'll try to remove these groups, you just remove them locally from the current scene, the packed scenes will not be changed. For the rename action I added TODO. Now I'm not showing anything, but maybe we need to show a warning message or create a new group.

[DarkMessiah]

Removed hacks related to disabled Checkbox state, because Checkbox in Tree now has a disabled state: #84845

Stale review, cache implemented

[YuriSizov]

The OP is unclear whether this closes godotengine/godot-proposals#3351 or not. So, does it?

[YuriSizov]

Thanks! And thank you for sticking around for over a year to see this finished 🙂

[Exerionius]

Just saw this PR in the changelog for 4.3 dev1.

The description of local groups is kinda confusing.

derived from nodes in the current scene

What does this mean?

Does this mean that if I have two separate scenes with a bunch of nodes in them, and both scenes define a group called "test", then calling get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("test") from one of the scenes will return nodes only from the same scene regardless if a group with the same name exists in a different scene?

Does this mean that the old behavior of groups was what is now called "global"? But now we have "local" groups in addition to that?

How can we know in code which group is local and which is global?

This needs to be thoroughly documented on this page: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/groups.html

[Mickeon]

The description of local groups is kinda confusing.

derived from nodes in the current scene

What does this mean?

Does this mean that if I have two separate scenes with a bunch of nodes in them, and both scenes define a group called "test", then calling get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("test") from one of the scenes will return nodes only from the same scene regardless if a group with the same name exists in a different scene?

It's much simpler than you're imagining.

The underlying logic of groups is unchanged. Groups with the same name are the same.
The way groups are organized and displayed in the editor has changed drastically to make keeping track of them easier.

All groups are stored alongside the node they belong to in a PackedScene. When you load the scene, every node's group is kept track of and displayed in the Group Editor for easy access.
This is the exact same behavior as prior to this PR.

How can we know in code which group is local and which is global?

The only difference between "local" and "global" groups is...

The "global" groups and their descriptions are stored in the Project Settings (underneath [global_group] in the .godot file). The PR also implements some internal methods in the ProjectSettings class to retrieve them, but they are not exposed.

In code, you may write something like this (I don't see why you'd need to but...):

static func is_global_group(group_name):
    return ProjectSettings.has_setting("global_group/" + group_name)

This needs to be thoroughly documented on this page: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/scripting/groups.html

I wouldn't say "thoroughly" because again, your code would be entirely unaffected, but the page does need to be entirely refreshed for the new interface, yes.

[Exerionius]

@Mickeon thanks for the explanations, it makes it a bit clearer.

So it's the opposite of what I was imagining: the old groups are what "local" means, but now we have "global" groups which is editable in the project settings and that's the only difference between the two (from the usage perspective).

[fire]

Many people are able to reproduce a crash at #86844

[aobrem]

The "Manage Groups" dialog provided a way to add multiple nodes to a group all at once. Is there still a way to do that after these changes?

[Mickeon]

I'm afraid that's not as doable as before. That's mainly because the Node dock refuses to work when more than one Node is selected. I can see someone lifting this limitation in the future. It probably was done because it does not play nice with the Signals sub-section.

[sancho2]

I can see someone lifting this limitation in the future.

Do we need to do up a proposal for this or is it obvious to everyone that the manager is going to be missed?
I just added 12 items to a group and the lack of a manage-window made even that small amount of nodes a small misery.
This change is an incomplete change in the absence of an edit window.

[KoBeWi]

It's best to open a proposal if it doesn't exist yet.

[sancho2]

In my opinion this proposal covers it.
Thank you.

[Mickeon]

It's a general quality of life. For anyone reading this with the know-how, they should feel free to open a PR. The implementation details should be discussed in the PR itself, I feel. Namely, what to do with the Signals tab on the side.