Making a static class derive from MonoBehaviour in C#

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Hello!

I'm just learning about "more" objective oriented programming in C#. I already made a small mobile game in UnityScript, but that turned out as spaghetti code.

Is it possible for a static class to inherit from MonoBehaviour? Because i'm making some classes like GameManager, SoundManager, UIManager etc. I want to be able to call functions on these from any GameObject, like so:

 GameManager.SetScore();
 SoundManager.PlaySound();

Without having to have a reference to the specific manager. Hence, I want them to be static. However, i'll need to use the built-in functions like Update, Awake etc in these managers. It seems I can only do this if the class derives from MonoBehaviour, and it can't if it's static. It just throws an error.

Am I thinking backwards here? If so, please tell me how you would do these managers. Thanks!

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Answer by hulahoolgames · Jan 21, 2016 at 08:49 AM

Well one thing you can do is, have static classes for these and call the required functions from the Monobehavior funtions of other classes. For example, say you have a SplashScreen UI that has a Monobehavior. In its Awake() you can call GameManager.init(), SoundManager.init() and do the initialization of the managers. Also instead of having Gamemanager and SoundManager their own updates, call the appropriate functions in the manager classes from the updates of other monobehaviors. Hope this helps.

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alexanderflink · Jan 21, 2016 at 08:58 AM 0

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So I could have like a ManagerController or something, that's instantiated on the scene, and just calls functions on the managers on update / awake etc? That sounds like a pretty good idea! Thanks. :)

I'll keep this open to see if anyone else has another suggestion.

rob5300 · Jan 21, 2016 at 10:22 AM 1

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This would be the best way to approach this. For reference you may want to use a Static Constructor aswell, assumuming you are using c#. Take a look here for the documentation: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k9x6w0hc.aspx

KazYamof · Jan 21, 2016 at 11:58 AM 0

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Why dont you create only the methods you need static as static and let the class untouched?

alexanderflink KazYamof · Jan 21, 2016 at 01:00 PM 0

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Well, I'd still need to instantiate the class as a script on a gameobject then, right? I would prefer not to have to instantiate all of the manager classes i'll have, since it's unnecessary.

rob5300 alexanderflink · Jan 21, 2016 at 03:20 PM 0

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Can you give us some background do what your GameManager and SoundManager do? As for example if they need to use the MonoBehaviour events frequently maybe having a MonoBehaviour with some static methods could be a good idea as long as you are comfortable with static members mixing with non static members.

You could try having a single MonoBehaviour called Events to simply manage calling certain static methods from your managers from Update, ensuring that only one MonoBehaviour exists and you can keep the managers as purely static classes.

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Answer 2

Answer by rob5300 · Jan 21, 2016 at 03:25 PM

Copied from my comment:

"You could try having a single MonoBehaviour called Events to simply manage calling certain static methods from your managers using Update() or Start() or FixedUpdate() or even OnLevelWasLoaded(), ensuring that only one MonoBehaviour exists and you can keep the managers as purely static classes."

You could even go into using Interface events. I haven't tried this myself but try reading the MSDN page about it here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ak9w5846.aspx

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Answer 3

Answer by tomachinz · Sep 07, 2021 at 02:31 AM

Yeah you can do that, it's called a Singleton. But the inspector would need to built as it could never be selected nor attached to a game object unless you want to mix instances with singletons. For my project I am putting those into an EditorWindow which can always stay visible, and made to appear from the Window menu. It seems there is multiple ways to do things, which is nice.

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Making a static class derive from MonoBehaviour in C#

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