Attribute Manager

A dockable attribute collection panel for Maya 2024.2. Aggregates frequently used scene attributes into one panel with grouped management, drag-and-drop reordering, and per-scene persistence.

中文文档见 README_zh.md。

Features

• Add attributes from Channel Box or manual plug input (auto-searches Shape nodes)
• "+ Last Lock Attr" quick button: fills the plug from the most recent "Lock" gesture — right-click an attribute in the Attribute Editor and choose Lock to record it (a global command hook captures the setAttr -lock command, no Script Editor needed). The attribute stays locked, and is unlocked automatically when actually added through the Add dialog (real lock intentions are never hijacked)
• Auto-matched controls by type: Slider+SpinBox / CheckBox / ComboBox / Color swatch
• Display type override: Auto / Number / Color; color attributes open Maya's color editor
• Custom slider range: right-click the slider → Set Min/Max/Range/Reset (default range wraps the current value)
• Global Int/Float Snap toggle: integer steps vs float steps (3 decimal places)
• Group management: collapse, rename (double-click), drag reorder
• Entry management: drag reorder, cross-group drag, double-click rename; empty groups show a placeholder and remain a valid drop target
• Full undo support: attribute edits (including slider drags) are undoable; config saves never pollute the undo stack
• Undo/redo sync: panel values auto-refresh after Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z
• Config persistence: stored on a locked attrManager network node in the scene
• UUID-based node resolution survives renames and reparenting
• Reference support: referenced scenes' attrManager configs display read-only (grouped, namespace:-prefixed names, italic rows, drag/drop and rename blocked); editing a referenced attribute creates an in-place override — the row stays in its original group, gains an override badge, and can be removed with the × button to restore the read-only entry. The panel re-reads configs automatically when references are created/loaded/unloaded/removed and when files are imported; renaming a reference's namespace fires no event, so use the toolbar Refresh button to re-read and correct the prefixes
• Main-scene entries pointing at referenced nodes (e.g. Translate Z added manually) also show the override badge

Performance

• Config saves are 300ms debounced; slider drags collapse into a single undo step
• Reference namespace detection: creating/loading/unloading/removing a reference and importing files re-read the config automatically via MSceneMessage events. Renaming a reference's namespace in the Reference Editor fires no Maya event at all (MNamespaceMessage does not exist in either Python API and NameChanged is not triggered), so use the toolbar Refresh button to re-read the scene config (pending saves are flushed first, then the config is reloaded and prefixes/ref groups correct themselves)
• No background polling: the panel performs no periodic queries, so playback and interaction incur zero extra overhead

Testing

The suite is split into two halves:

• Pure-Python (no Maya) — tests/test_attr_data_pure.py and tests/test_merge_pure.py, run with pytest under any system Python. CI runs this automatically (GitHub Actions, Python 3.13, aligned with Maya 2027).

  python -m pytest -v

• mayapy (Maya required) — drives the live kernel (scene I/O, references, command hooks). Run locally with Maya's mayapy.exe:

  mayapy -m unittest discover -s tests/mayapy -t tests -v

Coverage table and headless gotchas: see tests/README.md.

Quick Start

1. Download and extract the repository
2. Double-click copy_to_clipboard.bat — the launch command is copied to clipboard
3. Paste into Maya Script Editor and run

Co-existing with other tools

Attribute Manager shares the flat core/ui top-level package names with other Maya tools built the same way (e.g. BatchAttributeEditor, materialConvert). They can coexist in one Maya session on a "last one launched wins" contract: at startup this tool takes over the names (it evicts every foreign core.*/ui.* module from sys.modules, cached submodules included, and puts its own path first), while windows of an earlier tool keep working because they hold direct references to their own module objects. Slider drags and overrides access the main window through ui.context instead of a late import, so they keep working after a take-over.

Usage

Or manually run in Maya Script Editor:

__file__ = r"PATH_TO\launch.py"; __name__ = "__main__"; exec(compile(open(__file__).read(), __file__, "exec"))

Note: If downloaded as ZIP from GitHub, the folder will be named attr_manager-main. Adjust the path accordingly.

The panel docks to Maya's right side. Each call hot-reloads all modules for development iteration. After restarting Maya, the panel automatically restores to its previous dock position (via the workspace control's uiScript mechanism).

Requirements

• Maya 2024.2 (Python 3; UI layer supports PySide6 or PySide2 — it falls back to PySide2 automatically)
• Tested on Maya 2024.2 only. Other Maya versions are not tested — please test them yourself.

Project Structure

attributeManager_maya/
├── copy_to_clipboard.bat  # Auto-generate launch command
├── launch.py              # Single entry point (hot-reload + launch)
├── __init__.py            # Package re-exports (launch/reload_modules)
├── core/
│   ├── attr_data.py       # Data model + JSON serialisation
│   ├── merge.py           # Display/persist/convergence merge transforms (pure Python)
│   ├── scene_io.py        # Scene node read/write
│   └── channel_box.py     # Channel Box queries + Last Lock Attr hook
├── tests/
│   ├── pytest.ini                     # testpaths=tests, ignores tests/mayapy
│   ├── conftest.py                   # pytest bootstrap (sys.path)
│   ├── _fixtures.py                  # pure-Python data factories (no Maya)
│   ├── test_attr_data_pure.py        # core.attr_data: data model + serialisation
│   ├── test_merge_pure.py            # core.merge: merge_for_display / collect_for_save / merge_configs
│   ├── support.py                    # shared mayapy harness (import-safe)
│   └── mayapy/                       # MAYA-DEPENDENT tests (local only, not in CI)
│       ├── test_attr_data.py         # Serialisation + resolve_entries (real nodes)
│       ├── test_scene_io.py          # Persistence / locks / undo footprint
│       ├── test_channel_box.py       # setAttr parsing + command hook
│       └── test_reference_integration.py # Reference lifecycle end-to-end
└── ui/
    ├── main_window.py     # Dockable main window
    ├── context.py         # Neutral current-window holder (take-over safe)
    ├── group_section.py   # Groups + drag-drop
    ├── attr_row_widget.py # Attribute row controls
    ├── add_attr_dialog.py # Add attribute dialog
    └── styles.py          # QSS stylesheet