New UI - Referencing deep nested components on an prefab instantiation

Question

I have created a visualy attractive dynamic "High score Board" (C#) using the new Unity UI system. : But I cannot find a way to populate each "rows" text felds (3 Days of searching) on what I would guess is a fundamental newie question :

How do you change the text on a nested Text component that is runtime instantiated from a prefab ?

I have tried all the direct methods - and learnt that you cannot create a reference in the root of the prefab that survives instantiation (but - hell - I could have got half of those wrong !) Everything works perfectly untill I want to populate the score data ! (yes - the data is there !)

Hierarchy : alt text Code : (On the controller GO)

 public class SummaryController : MonoBehaviour {
 
 public GameObject PanelHolder;
 private List<GameObject> listOfPanelItems;
 //---------------------------------------
     private void Show_HasResult_Panel(int ActivityCount){    
             
         var nextNameNumber = 0;
         for(var x = 0; x < ActivityCount; x++) {
             GameObject SummaryItemPanel = Instantiate (SummaryItemPanelPrefab) as GameObject;
             SummaryItemPanel.transform.SetParent(PanelHolder.transform);
             SummaryItemPanel.name = "SummaryItemPanel_"+nextNameNumber;             
             
                  // would like to have populated here  (directly on SummaryItemPanel)
                  // But : hey ho - cant get it to work, so added to list for later use
                  listOfPanelItems.Add(SummaryItemPanel);
                  nextNameNumber++;
         }
         for (var y = 0; y < ActivityCount; y++) {
              GameObject thisPanelItem = listOfPanelItems[y];
          GameObject B1_P1_Text_Item = thisPanelItem.transform.Find("B1_P1_Text").gameObject;
          Text B1_P1_Text_Val = B1_P1_Text_Item.GetComponent<Text> () as Text;
          B1_P1_Text_Val.text = "Howdy";
                }
 }

addendum: listOfPanelItems = new List(); is in Start() and all namespaces correctly included!

It seems so simple (and I would have no problem in a host of other languages) - I have RTFM (*over & over) - watched GB's of video and I still cant nail it ! : can someone put me out of my misery ! (and show me how I am being blind ?) Thanks.

Answer 1

Ok – I am going to answer my own question : or at least post up the solution I found (Précis)

 //Hard set the prefabs internal ‘paths’
 private string[] myComponentPaths = {        
 "HozPanel/C1_Panel/B1_Panel/B1_P1_Text",
 "HozPanel/C1_Panel/B1_Panel/B1_P2_Text",
 "HozPanel/C2_Panel/B2_Panel/B2_P1_Text",
 "HozPanel/C2_Panel/B2_Panel/B2_P2_Text",
 "HozPanel/C3_Panel/B3_Panel/B3_P1_Image",
 "HozPanel/C3_Panel/B3_Panel/B3_P2_Text",
 };
 
 private string itterantName;
 private string itterantPath; 
 var nextNameNumber = 0;
 // Main loop for data “rows”
  
 for(var x = 0; x < ActivityCount; x++) { 
  GameObject SummaryItemPanel = Instantiate (SummaryItemPanelPrefab) as GameObject;
  SummaryItemPanel.transform.SetParent(PanelHolder.transform);
  itterantName = "SummaryItemPanel_"+nextNameNumber;
  SummaryItemPanel.name = itterantName;
 
 // inner loop for nested prefab components
  for(var z=0;z<myComponentPaths.Length;z++){
   // build dynamic 'path'
   itterantPath = (itterantName+"/"+ myComponentPaths[z]).ToString ();
   switch (z) {
    case 0:
     GameObject.Find (itterantPath).GetComponent<Text> ().text = row_B1_P1_Text;
    break; 
    << snip >>
    case 4:
     GameObject.Find (itterantPath).GetComponent<Image>().sprite =  Resources.Load<Sprite>(row_B3_P1_Image.ToString());
    break;
  }
 nextNameNumber++;
 }

All well and good - It works :

But - this can hardly be the best way - can it ??

Anyway I hope this helps someone - I wasted a hell of a lot of time trying figure this out for myself : the crucial bit was using the newly assigned name NOT trying to use the instantiation return GameObject (Which I still feel I should be able to use instead)

New UI - Referencing deep nested components on an prefab instantiation

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