Hello! This is a post about CollectionService, in a nutshell.
What’s CollectionService? Well, CollectionService is a service which allows you to manage groups of instances using tags which are simple strings, but you can’t see them.
CollectionService is very useful since it allows us to run functions or change properties from large groups of parts with a single script. Instead of having 10 scripts that do the same, you only have 1. Learning how to use this service will save us tons of lanes of code.
Let’s start by learning the basics about CollectionService, let’s create our first tag and let’s tag our first part.
1. Learning the Basics
Before starting with the functions, let’s set up our variables
local CollectionService = game:GetService("CollectionService")
--The service we're going to use
local instance0 = Instance.new("Part")
instance0.Name = "instance0"
local instance1 = Instance.new("Folder")
instance1.Name = "instance1"
-- The instances we're going to work with, a part and a folder,
-- remember that any instance can be tagged.
:AddTag(instance, string)
Our first function is :AddTag() and it will basically tag an instance with the given tag. If the tag does not exist, :AddTag() will create a new tag and then will tag the given instance.
CollectionService:AddTag(instance0, "Tag_A")
But… we can’t know if the part is actually tagged, because the tag is invisible for us even in studio, so let’s see the next one.
:GetTags(instance)
:GetTags() will return a table with all the tags of the given instance, keep in mind that it returns tables and not strings.
local instance0_tags = CollectionService:GetTags(instance0)
local instance1_tags = CollectionService:GetTags(instance1)
print(instance0_tags) --> {"Tag_A"}
print(instance1_tags) --> {}
-- Keep in mind that :GetTags() returns an array of strings, not a string.
print(instance0_tags[1]) --> "Tag_A"
:GetTagged(string)
:GetTagged() is pretty similar to :GetTags(), but instead of returning the tags of an instance, it will return all the instances with a given tag.
local tagged_instances_A = CollectionService:GetTagged("Tag_A")
local tagged_instances_B = CollectionService:GetTagged("Tag_B")
print(tagged_instances_A) --> {instance0}
print(tagged_instances_B) --> {}
-- Keep in mind that :GetTagged() returns an array of instances, not an instance,
-- neither a string.
print(tagged_instances_A[1]) --> instance0
print(tagged_instances_A[1].Name) --> "instance0"
:RemoveTag(instance, string)
:RemoveTag() removes a desired tag from an instance, and yup… that’s all it does.
CollectionService:AddTag(instance0, "Tag_A")
CollectionService:AddTag(instance0, "Tag_B")
print(CollectionService:GetTags(instance0)) --> {"Tag_A", "Tag_B"}
CollectionService:RemoveTag(instance0, "Tag_A")
print(CollectionService:GetTags(instance0)) --> {"Tag_B"}
:HasTag(instance, string)
This one is important, so watch out. :HasTag() checks if an instance has got a specified tag, the value in return will be true or false, depending on wherever the instance has got that tag or not.
CollectionService:AddTag(instance0, "Tag_B")
if (CollectionService:HasTag(instance0, "Tag_A")) then
print("yeah cool, you won some beans")
else
print("uhhh you've been a bad boy")
end
--> Output: "uhhh you've been a bad boy"
:GetInstanceAddedSignal() & :GetInstanceRemovedSignal()
These 2 functions will fire a callback function when an instance is added/removed from a specified tag.
CollectionService:GetInstanceAddedSignal("Tag_A"):Connect(function(instance)
print(instance.Name.." marked as Tag_A")
end)
CollectionService:GetInstanceRemovedSignal("Tag_A"):Connect(function(instance)
print(instance.Name.." unmarked as Tag_A")
end)
CollectionService:AddTag(instance0, "Tag_A") --> "instance0 marked as Tag_A"
CollectionService:RemoveTag(instance0, "Tag_A") --> "instance0 unmarked as Tag_A"
2. Using CollectionService
Now that we know all the functions, let’s see what we can do with this.
As said before, with CollectionService we can run functions or change properties for big groups of instances, how? Let’s take a look on how to do it.
So imagine that you have 3 parts and you want them to kill the player if it touches them, what would you do?
No! Never do that again, that’s time consuming and can even lead to problems that we’ll see now. Just stop doing that now and do this:
Okay that’s better. In this situation we only have 3 parts, so it would be very easy to just put the same script inside the 3 parts and job done, but imagine that you wanted to change the script because it doesn’t work correctly but instead of 3 parts you have 500. In this case CollectionService is going to be a hero for us, by using CollectionService we can change the same script for all the parts without having to update one by one the scripts.
Oh thanks god, this could’ve saved my time a lot of times when I didn’t know about CollectionService.
local CollectionService = game:GetService("CollectionService")
--: The first thing we have to do is loop through the parts tagged as "killers".
for _, part in pairs(CollectionService:GetTagged("killers")) do
--[[
Now that we've got our killer parts we're gonna bind them to a function,
so when they get touched they will fire that function.
--]]
part.Touched:Connect(function(hit)
--: Killing brick script, nothing new right?
if (hit.Parent:FindFirstChild("Humanoid")) then
local humanoid = hit.Parent.Humanoid
humanoid.Health = 0
end
end)
end
And now we have our 3 working killer parts by just using a script and about 25 lines of code. The best thing is that we can easily change the script whenever we want and all the parts will still work. Again, this is a little example, just imagine having 300 killing bricks without CollectionService and noticing an error in the script, ouch…
Well, maybe while reading the previous code you were thinking about using for loops to iterate through all the parts and connect them to a function, actually, that is what we did in the code above us, but there’s one little difference between using for loops and using CollectionService. If you wanted to use for loops to do this you would have to give the parts a Key name or insert some sort of value into them so the script could know they are the correct parts, by using CollectionService you can avoid those steps.
If you’re going to use CollectionService for your game, I really, really (just do it) recommend you installing Tag Editor Plugin, you can find a detailed explanation about it in the next paragraph.
3. Editing tags easily
Tag Editor Plugin
As I said before, @Sweetheartichoke’s plugin Tag Editor Plugin is a plugin that makes it easier & faster to manipulate tags on Roblox Studio.
If you want detailed information about the Plugin and you want to get it, check the original post linked above, here I’m gonna show you the basics and how to use this plugin to make your life much more easier when using tags.
Let’s imagine I want to create a new tag for the killing parts, instead of creating a whole script using :AddTag() & looping through a folder or group of parts, I will open Tag Editor and I will type the name of my new tag
Press enter and… there it goes, your new tag without having to script nothing
Now that we have our tag, we just have to select the parts and apply that tag to the parts.
If you want to know if you really tagged your parts, you can check it out activating World View. (also from the Tag Editor Plugin).
And now you will be able to see an outline or a box surrounding all the parts tagged with the tag that you selected.
And now that you have your tags created you can freely use them in your scripts, amazing!
4. Common solutions for common problems
Common questions
-
Do tags replicate from server-to-client and vice versa?
Yes, but only from server-to-client. Client tags will not replicate to something other than the client.
-
Can I use CollectionService in local scripts?
Yes, as far as you’re trying to access tags that were replicated from the server to you or tags that your own client added.
-
Do Tag Editor Plugin tags replicate to everybody?
In theory yes, but in some occasions (specially when assets are loaded/unloaded) its tags may not get replicated to the client nor the server.
-
Can I do x with CollectionService?
As long as your task includes instances that should/could be grouped or so, yes. But be aware! CollectionService may not be useful in all cases.
Managing DataStoreService values with tags would be a pretty bad idea, those things should be handled by dictionaries or arrays from the server with no services other than the needed ones.
-
Tags must be added in play-time?
Tags can also be added in studio mode by using the command bar and tags will persist through sessions. There’s no guarantee that they’ll persist forever, specially if you modify or change tagged instances.
Well that’s all about CollectionService, hope It was useful. If you want to know more about the Tag Editor Plugin just go and check the official post and get it!
