Add a shortcut for copying property paths in the inspector

[GameDevLlama]

Describe the project you are working on:

No particular one, but it happens for every project which heavily relies on Shaders / AnimationTrees I've been working on.

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project:

When having a complex AnimationTree with many Blend / Add / TimeScale related and nested parameters will automatically be exposed to the inspector.

Problem / Comfort issue at this point: depending on the complexity of the AnimationTree setup it sometimes gets quite annoying when params need to be configured via code, since you constantly have to switch between the parameter tooltip and the actual script in order to get the params right. (when the param gets longer)

tree["parameters/BlendState2D/1/TimeScale/scale] = x

(even now it required me to switch between the github preview and my markdown)

Describe how this feature / enhancement will help you overcome this problem or limitation:

An additional feature would be a small copy icon:
which would copy the parameters string of the property to the clipboard.

Show a mock up screenshots/video or a flow diagram explaining how your proposal will work:

It's not as beautifully done, but actually that's an easy one:

Describe implementation detail for your proposal (in code), if possible:

Sorry, unfortunately I'm still not deeply involved in the editor development.

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?:

Currently it can be done manually only (as far as I know)

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?:

It enhances the comfort of using the editor by a lot, while scripting for objects which heavily use direct change and access of those parameters.

[Calinou]

Should this only be exposed for specific nodes? I can imagine adding a "copy" icon to all properties would increase visual noise.

Maybe we should add a "Copy Path" context menu option for individual properties? This will require implementing the context menu in question.

[GameDevLlama]

For me personally it just felt odd that godot helps in a lot of situations by autocompletion in gdscript but not on this important case.

When it comes to copying strings of params (AnimationTrees, VisualShader-Uniforms) it quickly gets quite annoying, when you have to switch between the inspector and the script itself in order to get some properties right.

Besides that:
In AnimationTrees it is called

parameters/

While in VisualShader it is called

shader_param/

Which makes it even more confusing when you try to remember if it was singular, or plural and you'll really have to be careful to get those parameters right when using in gd script

[matts-dev]

I would also appreciate something like this. Right now, the only way I know to do it is to visually copy what the tooltip says. Which is prone to typo issues. Just pressing control+c while over tooltip would work I think?

[Calinou]

Just pressing control+c while over tooltip would work I think?

The thing is that you may not be able to hover the tooltip in the first place. If you hover the mouse long enough over a property for the tooltip to appear, it would make it more difficult to discard the tooltip to view/modify the properties above. It's the kind of thing that could become really irritating over time 🙂

[belzecue]

Not being able to easily copy properties paths from the editor is a big workflow drag.

I can imagine adding a "copy" icon to all properties would increase visual noise

No visual change is desirable or needed.

Just pressing control+c while over tooltip would work I think?

Solution to Calinou's concern: simply make it so that e.g. double-click on the property name in the inspector automatically puts the path string into the OS clipboard. Or, right-click on property name for a pop-up menu that includes "Copy property path" -- I think this is only warranted if there will be other actions added in future to do with handling property paths (unlikely?). Or, in a variation of mattstone22133's suggestion, click on the property name to highlight it then press CTRL+C to copy path to clipboard.

[Jummit]

Copying by double clicking and showing a notification afterwards would be my preferred solution.

[Calinou]

Duplicate of #106 (implemented by godotengine/godot#39404).