Turn on Shuriken "Simulate" from script in Edit mode?

Hi all,

In one of my workflow scripts, I have a hotkey so I can play only a selected particle system within a prefab (as opposed to playing the whole thing, or having to manually disable the pieces I don’t want to see.)

The “problem” is, this only works in Edit mode if the Simulate button has been pressed. Alternatively, it works in Play mode without any additional steps.

I would REALLY like to be able to trigger Simulate from my script, to save me the button press (I work with a LOT of effects, this would be a time saver for me).

Is it possible? I’m going to guess not, but thought I’d ask.

I found the answer… I needed to add a validate method for my MenuItem method that was playing the selected particle… weird.
Basically I have a method which returns whether the selected transform’s gameObject has a ParticleSystem component. If it does, then my “play selected particle” method works, and turns on the “Simulate” you see in-editor.

This is NOT the same “Simulate” as the one found in the API for ParticleSystem… that one is used to simulate a specific time/state in the particle’s duration, it does not turn on or interact with the editor’s “Simulate” button. Kind of confusing.

Code looks a bit like this:

[MenuItem("...Play Selected Particle...")]
public static void PlaySelectedParticle() { ... }

// Validate above MenuItem
[MenuItem("...Play Selected Particle...", true)]
private static bool PlaySelectedParticleValidate() {
   Does selected transform's GO have a ParticleSystem component?
}