SaveAccess (C#)

SaveAccess is a system for easily saving data to text files in a JSON format.

Features Include:

• Saving entire scene trees.
• Automatic JSON serialization.
• Support for recursive save structures.
• ISaveable interface to allow modular save/load structures.

Classes

This plugin consists of 3 central parts: (all are located under the Ardot.SaveSystems namespace)

• SaveAccess (used to save ISaveable nodes and SaveData to files)
  
• SaveData (used to store and move data to and from ISaveable objects)
  
• ISaveable (used by SaveAccess to interface with nodes and objects that need to be saved)
  

Together, these allow entire scenes of ISaveable nodes to be saved in just a few lines of code.

For more information, see the code documentation.

Example

You have a node, 'Player'. You need to save its position. This is its code:

public partial class Player : Node2D
{
    public override void _Process()
    {
        //Movement stuff here
    }
}

To make it save, you would need to set it up like this. (this is using the ISaveable default implementation template)

using Ardot.SaveSystems;

public partial class Player : Node2D, ISaveable
{
    public override void _Process(double delta)
    {
        //Movement stuff here
    }
  
    public SaveData Save(params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Create and return a new SaveData with its key as GetLoadKey(), and its first value as GlobalPosition
        return new SaveData(GetLoadKey(), GlobalPosition); 
    }   
    
    public void Load(SaveData data, params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Checking if data is null, in case something went wrong.
        if(data == null)
          return;

        //Setting GlobalPosition to the first value of data, as a Vector2
        GlobalPosition = data[0].AsVector2();
    }
    
    public StringName GetLoadKey(params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Returning the LoadKey as 'Player'. It's important that this is unique, otherwise data can be confused
        //If there were going to be more than one player, we may want this key to include some other identifier, like the node's path
        return "Player";
    }
}

Now, all you would need to save the player would be to have some script that creates a SaveAccess and runs SaveTree().

public partial class SceneRootNode : Node2D
{
    public void SaveScene()
    {
        SaveAccess saveAccess = SaveAccess.Open("user://Save.txt");

        saveAccess.SaveTree(this);
        saveAccess.Commit();
    }
}

Advanced Example

Now, imagine that Player has an inventory. This inventory is a Resource with ISaveable implemented. It won't be automatically saved like nodes, because it isn't directly included in the scene tree.

What you can do is set up Player to save and load its inventory by including the inventory's SaveData in the player's SaveData.

using Ardot.SaveSystems;

public partial class Player : Node2D, ISaveable
{
    public Inventory playerInventory;

    public override void _Process(double delta)
    {
        //Movement stuff here
    }
  
    public SaveData Save(params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Create and return a new SaveData with its key as GetLoadKey(), its first value as GlobalPosition,
        //and its second value as playerInventory's SaveData
        return new SaveData(GetLoadKey(), GlobalPosition, playerInventory.Save());
    }   
    
    public void Load(SaveData data, params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Checking if data is null, in case something went wrong.
        if(data == null)
          return;

        //Setting GlobalPosition to the first value of data, as a Vector2
        GlobalPosition = data[0].AsVector2();

        //Loading playerInventory with the second value of data, which is SaveData
        playerInventory.Load(data[1]);
    }
    
    public StringName GetLoadKey(params Variant[] parameters)
    {
        //Returning the LoadKey as 'Player'. It's important that this is unique, otherwise data can be confused
        //If there were going to be more than one player, we may want this key to include some other identifier, like the node's path
        return "Player";
    }
}