I’m playing with a new C++ third person project today, and began to look at classes inside the Asset Tree (found in the Content Browser tab).
When I click on class (PlayerStart, for example), my natural inclination is that it would open Visual Studio and show me the code for that class, whether the .cpp file, or even the .h, if Epic was trying to hide the code.
It doesn’t do anything though.
Right clicking only highlights the class, and left clicking does not bring forward a toolbar or something to inspect the class. You can only drag and drop into the scene.
Is class inspection a feature that Epic would like to introduce in the near future? I look at it as faster route to find the code for an object (whether it is a native part of the engine or one of my own), rather than opening up Visual Studio myself, navigating through the source tree, and finding it there.
What are your thoughts on this?
I cross-posted this in the forums as well, as I wasn’t sure of where it belongs. As soon as I find out which area is more appropriate, I will delete the other post.
This is something we’re still looking for feedback on. We’ve gone back and forth here on the tools team about whether Classes should be in the Content Browser at all. Right now we’re leaning toward removing them.
Either way, I agree we should facilitate quick access to the source code from the editor where you can interact with classes.
We do have an experimental feature called “Code View” if you select an Actor in your level, you can expand Code View in the actor’s Details, and double click on class methods to navigate to the code, as long as the code was written by you (doesn’t work for Engine classes where the source isn’t available in Rocket.) Let us know if you check it out and have any feedback.
–Mike
I am a little confused as to why having fast code access via the editor is even important.
I’ve been working quite a bit on my ue4 project, and I dart back and forth between three programs constantly
- 3ds max
- ue4 editor
- my own chosen c++ editor
I’ve never once thought it would be necessary or even convenient to see the c++ while in the editor when I have all my classes open in a dedicated editor.
And I cant imagine the other project members needing this option since they probably wouldnt be the programmers
For me the whole point of the editor is to remove the c++ awareness and replace it with far more user friendly GUI systems like blueprints
One thing that I think would be useful though would be a way to get a list of all blueprintcallable functions from any class, as that would be the only thing relevant to the editor anyways 
Just sharing my thoughts hope you enjoyed the read
Rama
Got it. Thanks for the feedback.
Good points all around. I always felt it was a quick and easy way to get a glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes.
Otherwise, I need to switch to VS (which I have open anyway), search for the class, and open the class that.
Or I can just right-click on the class and see the script within the Rocket Editor, like in Unity 
Mike, I’ll try out that code view today, thanks!