All The Tags! - Unity3D Tags Replacement (Multiple tags, better performance, etc!)

All The Tags!
Asset Store ($10) | Documentation


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All The Tags! Replaces the built in tagging system in Unity3D. It’s sole purpose is to allow you to add more than one tag to any object, however there other benefits too! It performs substantially better than doing a standard string compare, generates no garbage and allows you to customize your tags with colours to stay organized!

Screenshots​

FAQ​

The documentation mentions that the AllTheTags methods never return null? What do they return if it doesn't find any objects?

Spoiler: Click for answer

It just returns an empty collection of objects. This way you don't have to do null checks everywhere.

Code (CSharp):

1. var taggedObjects = Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag");
2.  
3. foreach(var taggedObject in taggedObjects)
4. ...

Instead of

Code (CSharp):

1. var taggedObjects= Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag");
2.  
3. if(taggedObjects!= null)
4. {
5.  
6. foreach(var taggedObject in taggedObjects)
7. ...

Do I need to ensure every GameObject has an AllTheTags component before I pass them along to an AllTheTags function?

Spoiler: Click for answer

No - AllTheTags is very rebust - if an object does not have an AllTheTags component, it will add it for you when you try to check that GameObjects tags. It won't throw any errors at you.

So you could safetly do Tags.HasTag/etc on any object in your project. Whether they have an AllTheTags component or not doesn't matter!

Simply add the 'AllTheTags' component to any object that needs one via the inspector, and the rest will handle itself

If an object does not have an AllTheTags component, it is considered to have 'no tags'.

Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag(string tag) - how exactly do I use it?

Spoiler: Click for answer

By default, the FindGameObjectsWithTag returns a ReadOnlyCollection of objects. This is just like a List except that you can't add objects to the list or remove objects from it! The reason it is done this way is because most of the time all you want to do with the result of FindGameObjectsWithTag is iterate over all of the objects and run some code on each object. A ReadOnlyCollection is fine for this task, and it means that we don't have to allocate a new List of objects in memory to hold the result of every FindGameObjectsWithTag operation. Nice and efficient.

You can iterate over a ReadOnlyCollection with a foreach statement, exactly the same as List.

If ReadOnlyCollection doesn't fit your requirements however, you can still get a normal List out of the results fairly easily so you can do whatever you like with the results!

Code (CSharp):

1. List<GameObject> myList = new List<GameObject>( Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag") );

 

Coming very soon is an update to quickly fetch all of the objects in the scene with a certain tag. Works much faster than the built in solution to Unity! I will release some figures soon

For now though.. Unity vs AllTheTags! when checking to see if an object has a certain tag.

I checked to see if a GameObject was tagged as 'MainCamera' 2 million times. The GameObject was tagged as MainCamera using the Unity tag system, and it was tagged as MainCamera and 3 other tags as well using All The Tags.

Unity3D took 568~ ms to perform this operation and generated 72.5 MB of garbage (GC Alloc).
All The Tags! took 412~ ms to perform this operation and generated no garbage.

As you can see the checks are very quick and very clean. You can have lots of tags on every object in your game and you can check the game objects tags instead of its components to try and figure out what type of object you are dealing with!

If your 'bullet' hits the a GameObject, how do you know if your bullet should deal damage to the object? You could do a GetComponent on that GameObject and check to see if it has a 'Damagable' component, or you can just check its tag to see if you should apply some damage to that object and only do a GetComponent when needed.

 

Hey look! Vouchers

If you like it, don't forget to rate us and leave a comment here! Enjoy!

- All Taken -

 

I got the middle one (ASV-77MU-NLAJ-XJPX-JWRF-RC6Y). Thanks!

I have your "Better Trails" is the reason this asset caught my eye. If I like it I'll buy one of your other assets (could use the NavMesh 2D) because it feels weird getting something for free.

 

Don't feel weird! You can always 'pay us back' by letting us know what you think! We'd love some feed back and we'd love to hear what type of features you all would like to see - that's why we are giving away a few copies! Right now AllTheTags! is in its infancy, but we've got a strong foundation to build up on!

As mentioned before, I am about to submit an update for AllTheTags. We're adding a function to fetch all the GO's in the scene with a particular tag and it is very quick compared to Unity's built in function (FindGameObjectsWithTag)! Thinking about adding some other helper methods too, like a 'FindGameObjectsWithTagAroundPoint'.

 

Was too late for the Vouchers. Will get it soon.

 

Uh, this could come in handy. But is it compatible with Unity 4.3.X ?

 

I imagine it would work fine, but I'll download version 4.3 and find out myself. Will let you all know in a few hours (I am not home right now!).

If it works fine I'll make sure I submit the next update under 4.3

 

@BTStone I am making use of [DisallowMultipleComponent] which is 4.5.X and up.

I think I can get rid of it and just do some checks to prevent multiple copies of the AllTheTags component on one GO. Should be able to make it work fine with 4.3 in the next update

If you end up buying it before the update hits the store, just remove that attribute from AllTheTags.cs and it will all work fine. Just avoid adding the component more than once to a GO!

 

Great, as soon as the update hits the store I'm on it!

And +1 to Helper-Functions!

 

Ok, Submitting an update for the asset store team to review now! This update introduces the FindGameObjectsWithTag method. Substantially faster than Unity's built in method. AllTheTags! will internally keep a record of all GameObjects and associated tags that exist within your scene. Makes it really easy and quick to find objects with tags. Here are some figures.

100 GameObjects.
'Test' tag applied to all GO's (Both Unity and AllTheTags!)
1,000,000 iterations - we invoke FindGameObjectsWithTag (Both Unity and AllTheTags!) a million times.

Unity3D took 2500~ ms to perform this operation and generated 405~ MB of garbage (GC Alloc).
950~ ms was spent on GC.Collect, 1550~ ms was spent on the actual operation

All The Tags! took 215~ ms to perform this operation and generated 12~ MB of garbage (GC Alloc).
30~ ms was spent on GC.Collect, 185~ ms was spent on the actual operation

I am really excited about this update. The method really helps showcase the power

 

Awesome news! 1.1.0 is live! More features soon, get it while it's hot

I've scrapped the GameObject extension methods as it was getting a little confusing..! GameObject already has some 'tag' methods, adding mine in there was a little bit too much. So now you can find all the AllTheTags! methods under the 'Tags' static class (ie: Tags.HasTag(gameObject,"tag"))

Change log 1.1.0

• New 'Tags' static class, will hold all AllTheTags! methods (Like HasTag, etc)
• Extension methods are now obsolete (Use the Tags static class)
• 2 new methods - FindGameObjectsWithTag and FindGameObjectsWithTagAroundPoint
• Now works with Unity 4.3.X onwards

 

Woo! We've reached 3 reviews now which means we finally have a star rating. Thanks everyone!

Soon I'll be releasing another update to help you find tagged objects that are childed to a specific object (FindChildrenWithTag).

Release soon and release often I guess. Your tags will be preserved in between updates - to update AllTheTags! In your project, all you need to do is import the newest asset from the asset store.

 

Thanks for the update. I am getting an error - "The namespace 'global::' already contains a definition for 'Tags.'

It's the only error in the console, but not sure if there is a way to check what other asset might have that same namespace? I want to keep All The Tags installed and get rid of any asset that is conflicting.

 

Hey @MIK3K
I am not sure what package it could be conflicting with. You need to open up your MonoDevelop and search your entire project for "class Tags". It should reveal to you the files that define a class called Tags.

I think I will move Tags class in to its own namespace in the next release to avoid any conflicts ("Tags" is a pretty common word..!).

My apologies

Let me know if you get it working!

 

Adding this to buy list, this is so amazing o.o

 

I just learned something new - how to search these things in MonoDevelop (I'm not a programmer . . . or anything computer related really haha - hobby for me). Found the other asset which a little RPG system to learn from. I already had it in another project and don't need it here.

Thanks for your time and teaching me something today!

 

@MIK3K

No problem! Glad you worked it all out Don't forget to drop us a review on the store once you are done evaluating it!

@Gekigengar

Thanks for the kind words man! When you get around to purchasing it, We'll be here for feature requests/suggestions/troubleshooting so feel free to get in touch with us.

 

+1 for own namespace

 

Haha I have everything internal namespaced already, I left the Tags static class in the global name space so it was less of a hassle to use, but I think it is decided now - definitely giving it its own namespace in the next update!

 

Just FYI - the asset it conflicted with is PhatRobit's "Modular RPG Combat" and you can see in the package contents way down at the bottom under the "tags" folder is "tags.cs."

I will definitely leave a review when I get a chance to use it. In-place animations and mecanim is making my head hurt really bad.

 

Thanks for that man!

I've submitted another update, will post a change list when it is approved and live! Keep an eye out

 

Would people be interested in PlayMaker support? I haven't had much experience with PlayMaker myself, but I think it would be relatively straightforward to integrate!

 

Hey all! New update it is live now so update your copy!

Change Log 1.2.0

• Moved Tags static class into its own namespace, import/use PigeonCoopToolkit.AllTheTags namespace to access it
• FindChildrenWithTag method!
• Light/Dark skin support
• New section in the docs which covers using AllTheTags with Javascript

 

Here is an image showing the difference between the light and pro skins! Much easier to read in Light skin now

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I think I will start a small FAQ section for AllTheTags! Here is 2 to start, and I'll add these to the first post:

Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag(string tag) - how exactly do I use it?

By default, the FindGameObjectsWithTag returns a ReadOnlyCollection of objects. This is just like a List except that you can't add objects to the list or remove objects from it! The reason it is done this way is because most of the time all you want to do with the result of FindGameObjectsWithTag is iterate over all of the objects and run some code on each object. A ReadOnlyCollection is fine for this task, and it means that we don't have to allocate a new List of objects in memory to hold the result of every FindGameObjectsWithTag operation. Nice and efficient.

You can iterate over a ReadOnlyCollection with a foreach statement, exactly the same as List.

If ReadOnlyCollection doesn't fit your requirements however, you can still get a normal List out of the results fairly easily so you can do whatever you like with the results!

Code (CSharp):

1. List<GameObject> myList = new List<GameObject>( Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag") );

The documentation mentions that the AllTheTags methods never return null? What do they return if it doesn't find any objects?

It just returns an empty collection of objects. This way you don't have to do null checks everywhere.

Code (CSharp):

1. var taggedObjects = Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag");
2.  
3. foreach(var taggedObject in taggedObjects)
4. ...

Instead of

Code (CSharp):

1. var taggedObjects= Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag("MyTag");
2.  
3. if(taggedObjects!= null)
4. {
5.  
6. foreach(var taggedObject in taggedObjects)
7. ...

Do I need to ensure every GameObject has an AllTheTags component before I pass them along to an AllTheTags function?

No - AllTheTags is very rebust - if an object does not have an AllTheTags component, it will add it for you when you try to check that GameObjects tags. It won't throw any errors at you.

So you could safetly do Tags.HasTag/etc on any object in your project. Whether they have an AllTheTags component or not doesn't matter!

Simply add the 'AllTheTags' component to any object that needs one via the inspector, and the rest will handle itself

If an object does not have an AllTheTags component, it is considered to have 'no tags'.

 

Small update! There was a small typo in the AddTag function which ment it wasn't working correctly and I feel silly about it. You should all update!

On another note, we've had some really nice reviews on the asset store and lots of positive feedback via email, glad you are all enjoying it. I plan to work on some example scenes soon but I am not sure exactly what I will put together yet. Stay tuned!

Change Log 1.2.1 Hotfix

• AddTag wasn't working as intended

 

I've been busy lately, and I am preparing another update!

I am introducing a new object called the TagList. A tag list holds a list of tags (surprise surprise), and you can use it for comparison operations. It is a serializable class, so you can add them to any one of your scripts as a public/protected/private field and edit them in the inspector.

Bellow is an example - in the example the idea is that our player will receive damage when it comes in contact with any game object tagged as a 'Hazard' or 'Enemy'!

Here is our player script, note the 'TakeDamageFrom' TagList!

Code (CSharp):

1. using PigeonCoopToolkit.AllTheTags;
2. using PigeonCoopToolkit.AllTheTags.Internal;
3. using UnityEngine;
4.  
5. public class PlayerScript : MonoBehaviour
6. {
7.     public AllTheTags.TagList TakeDamageFrom;
8.     public float Hitpoints;
9.  
10.     void OnTriggerEnter(Collider other)
11.     {
12.         if (Tags.HasTagFromList(other.gameObject, TakeDamageFrom))
13.         {
14.             Hitpoints -= 1;
15.         }
16.     }
17. }

And this is what it will look like in the inspector, we simply need to enter the tags that we want (In this case, 'Hazard' and 'Enemy') and presto!

 

Hello,

This is a pretty nice asset. Thanks!

I have a question though:

When using Tags.FindGameObjectsWithTag(string tag), it seems that calling it in (a script which is derived from MonoBehavior) the Awake() method, it doesn't find any of my tagged objects. But, it seems to work when called in the Start() method. Is this expected?

 

Hi -

Sorry, I should have included that in the docs. Yes, that is expected. The reason is the individual objects must first register them selves with the tag system, and they do this on Awake. You will have to wait for Start!

 

Would really love if you added playmaker support.

Lots of assets on the Asset Store are or have added playmaker support.
None for muti-tags though.

Edit: ok I did find one. {https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/21475}
But I really like yours better, organization in your is far superior.
I really hope you consider adding playmaker support.
I personally use playmaker because i hate coding, but If i have to i can probly write the action scripts myself. (But i would rather not.)

 

I literally just bought this assuming it already worked with Playmaker, so I'm hopeful you can get that working soon.