Enum outside class in Unity C#

Question

I'm creating a script to manage the fading of UI elements in Unity3D, and at some point I'm stuck with enums

The other day I saw a very cool asset to fade elements, and decided to reverse engeneer it

After some time researching with tutorials and reading questions in this page, I got stuck using the enums, I don't know how to access my enum from another class so I want to ask for help

I'm using Unity version 5.3.5f1

Goal

• Fade UI elements in Unity (Images, buttons, etc)
• Fade via script
• Use of enums to do it
• Acces enums outside a class

How to reproduce it

• New Unity project (doesn't matter 2D or 3D)

• Empty gameobject

• UI element (image)

• Image fill screen and chance its color (any color)

• New C# script, I called it Test

Done

• Read about enums
• Basic class with enum

Code C#

Here's my code (so far)

using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;

[System.Serializable]
public class FadeOperations
{
   public enum FadeManager
{
    fadeIn,
    fadeOut
};

  [Tooltip("Type of fading")]
  public FadeManager fadeType;

  [Tooltip("Duration time of the fading")]
  public float duration;

  [Tooltip("Select the image to fade")]
  public Image fadeImage;
}

public class Test : MonoBehaviour
{
  //Where do I acces the enum inside this class??

  //This is the variable for the inspector to see the elements inside the other class
  public FadeOperations[] fadeOperations;

  private void Start()
  {
  }
}

I'll be glad to read good explanations and noobfriendly answers

Thanks

Answer 1

Technically speaking, if you declare an enum inside a class, that enum acts as the nested class.

So, with the codebase you have at the moment, you would need to refer to FadeManager outside FadeOperations like here:

public class Test : MonoBehaviour
{
  // the variable of FadeManager type outside FadeOperations
  public FadeOperations.FadeManager fadeManager;

  public FadeOperations[] fadeOperations;

  private void Start()
  {
  }
}

However, you might find it more practical to move the enum outside the FadeOperations class instead:

public enum FadeManager
{
    fadeIn,
    fadeOut
};

[System.Serializable]
public class FadeOperations
{
    //FadeOperations body goes here...
}

Then you access the FadeManager class directly, by its name, in FadeOperations and other classes alike.

It's up to you to decide which works better for you.