Referencing TextField in new Unity 4.6 Text Object - text

Question

I have the following simple countdown script component attached the a Canvas object containing a single Text component. 'instruction' SHOULD reference the TextField, no? When I run it by calling startCountdown, the script hangs in the while loop at the line
Debug.Log ("TIMER countdown time = "+time+ " and instruction = "+instruction);
The instruction variable doesn't trace out at all. The public var 'time' is set to some value greater than 0 in the inspector.
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using System.Collections;
public class Timer : MonoBehaviour {
public int time;
Text instruction;
public void Start () {
instruction = GetComponent<Text>();
}
public void startCountdown() {
StartCoroutine (countdown ());
Debug.Log ("YES TIMER START!");
}
IEnumerator countdown() {
while (time > 0) {
Debug.Log ("TIMER countdown time = " + time + " and instruction = " + instruction);
yield return new WaitForSeconds(1);
instruction.text = time.ToString();
time -= 1;
}
instruction.text = "Blast Off!";
}
}

Answer 1

I think your GetComponent might be returning nothing. Hard to tell since I don't know what gameObject you've attached the script to. I use a public to reference the Text UI element.
I got this to work in Unity 4.6. You must drag a reference to the Text component into the script. I attach my script to an empty gameObject called SceneController. The following works for me (countdown, then blastoff!).
using UnityEngine;
using UnityEngine.UI;
using System.Collections;
public class Timer : MonoBehaviour {
public int time;
public Text instruction;
public void Start () {
startCountdown();
}
public void startCountdown() {
StartCoroutine (countdown ());
Debug.Log ("YES TIMER START!");
}
IEnumerator countdown() {
while (time > 0) {
Debug.Log ("TIMER countdown time = " + time + " and instruction = " + instruction.text);
yield return new WaitForSeconds(1);
instruction.text = time.ToString();
time -= 1;
}
instruction.text = "Blast Off!";
}
}