VisualElementExtensions

Extension methods for UnityEngine.UIElements.VisualElement. Provides convenience helpers for visibility toggling and stylesheet management in UI Toolkit-based editor UI.

Definition

Namespace: Paragon.Editor Assembly: Editor assembly

public static class VisualElementExtensions

Quick Lookup

Goal	Method
Show/hide an element	element.SetDisplay(true) or element.SetDisplay(false)
Copy stylesheets between elements	source.CopyStyleSheets(target)

Methods

SetDisplay

Sets the display style of a VisualElement to DisplayStyle.Flex (visible) or DisplayStyle.None (hidden) based on a boolean value.

public static void SetDisplay(this VisualElement element, bool value)

Parameter	Type	Description
element	VisualElement	The element to show or hide
value	bool	true to show (Flex), false to hide (None)

Uses DisplayStyle.Flex for visible (not DisplayStyle.Initial). This means the element participates in flex layout when shown. For elements that need a specific display mode other than Flex, set style.display directly.

CopyStyleSheets

Copies all StyleSheet assets from a source element to a target element. Iterates the source's styleSheets set and adds each to the target.

public static void CopyStyleSheets(this VisualElement source, VisualElement target)

Parameter	Type	Description
source	VisualElement	The element whose stylesheets are copied
target	VisualElement	The element to receive the stylesheets

This adds stylesheets to the target without removing any existing ones. If the target already has stylesheets, the source's sheets are appended.

Common Pitfalls

SetDisplay uses Flex, not Initial SetDisplay(true) sets the display to DisplayStyle.Flex, which may change layout behavior if the element was originally using a different display style. This is the standard approach for most UI Toolkit layouts.

CopyStyleSheets is additive Calling CopyStyleSheets multiple times on the same target will add duplicate stylesheet references. Ensure you only call it once during element setup.

Examples

Conditional panel visibility

public class MyEditorWindow : EditorWindow
{
    private VisualElement detailPanel;

    private void OnSelectionChanged(bool hasSelection)
    {
        detailPanel.SetDisplay(hasSelection);
    }
}

Cloning stylesheets to a new element

VisualElement template = templateAsset.Instantiate();
VisualElement clone = new VisualElement();
template.CopyStyleSheets(clone);

See Also

• Editor Extensions README — Overview of all editor extensions