Expose "meta" to the Inspector. For real.

[YeldhamDev]

Second attempt. As requested by @akien-mga here: #22642 (comment).

Things that need to be worked out:

• Meta properties being inserted in scene files even if empty. Not caused by commit itself but by how dictionaries are handled. Will be fixed by the merging of either Dictionary values saved for instanced scene only when different from parent #29222 or Modify Array/Dictionary::operator== to do real key/value comparison #35816.
• ProjectSettings exposes it in its documentation.

(It will, hopefully this time) Closes #5433.

[Anutrix]

Fixes #18591.
For some reason, 5433 and 18591 was closed. Shouldn't one of them be open.

[aaronfranke]

There is already an add-on in the Godot Asset Library which does this: https://godotengine.org/asset-library/asset/637

Does this really need to be a core feature? Maybe that add-on should be officially supported somehow?

EDIT: Actually, I do think this should be a core feature, because it's needed for some things in the engine.

[Calinou]

Does this really need to be a core feature? Maybe that add-on should be officially supported somehow?

Until we have proper global plugins, I'd say "yes"... 🙁

[aaronfranke]

That sounds more like a strong argument for global plugins 😆

[ghost]

If meta data is an intentional feature, seems it would make sense there might be also a built in way to inspect or modify it.

[fire]

I exposed it this way #40474 (comment) Please comment.

[fire]

I missed that #35816 is required for this. It is required.

[RichardEllicott]

I missed that #35816 is required for this. It is required.

How come that is true?
The issue you link is a feature that is not normally present in Python or C# anyway (automatically comparing all the values in a dictionary?)

I really would love to access the metadata in the editor, will it be possible?

EDIT: someone linked me to addon which works great:
https://github.com/ballerburg9005/godot-metadata-inspector

[KoBeWi]

The meta property doesn't refresh when it's changed. E.g. when you toggle node's lock, it will add it to metadata, but you need to refresh the inspector manually to see it (if the property is opened).

Also I'd move the editor_description property under Metadata group, so we don't have 2 groups with single property.

I'm not convinced about usefulness of this feature though. If you want to tag some object, you can add a group or export a property. Metadata is mostly useful in scripts, to quickly pass some data etc.

[sairam4123]

I'm not convinced about usefulness of this feature though. If you want to tag some object, you can add a group or export a property. Metadata is mostly useful in scripts, to quickly pass some data etc.

I think it would be really helpful for debugging script's metadata.

[akien-mga]

Superseded by #59452.