[WIP] Editor Window Designer

Hi all,

I wanted to post about an editor extension I'm working on for building customer editor windows. The extension follows a standard layout for form designers with a toolbox, canvas and properties panel.

It supports mixing and matching of layout and absolutely positioned elements, enables binding of controls to backend data and generates all the boilerplate code to make the form function.

When complete the GUI designer will be released on the Asset Store, but the widget framework the powers the whole thing will be open sourced and free to use/abuse.

So far I've got it to the point of being recursive, which is to say the editor can now support/design/build it's own windows, which will make life easier. Hoping to get a beta out in a few weeks.

The image below show the editor in action on itself. On the left is the toolbox, in the middle is that toolbox loaded into the designer surface and widget properties on the right.

Will keep everyone posted with progress.

A.

 

A quick update on this.

The Designer toolbox has been receiving work and can now handle widgets based almost entirely on attribute tags. This is important because it allows the widget framework to evolve separately from the Designer itself. Editor Windows built of this framework now serialize correctly, but there is probably more work to do in that space.

Speaking of the widget framework the first engineering drop of that has gone up on GitHub.
Full details can be found over on the Editor Extensions forum
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/editor-extension-editor-window-designer.337474/

 

This looks very clean and straight forward.
How does it compare to this?
Honest answer please.

 

Well it's a released product, so he's winning already.

I've not played with the extension directly (watched the video) so it's a bit difficult to comment. Once it goes live on the asset store, I'll be sure to check it out in depth. Particularly the editor window generation side of things which is a bit more where I'm targeting. The developer has obviously put a lot of effort into it and I certainly respect that.

My gut feel is that the two extensions are aiming at a similar goal, but targeting very different audiences. If you've never written immediate mode gui code before then CiON could look very attractive. If you're sick to death of writing immediate mode gui code the Editor Designer is going to offer a bit more. But that is a gut feel based on incomplete data at this point.

Mad props to Sykoo for getting the extension out there. I know how much effort that takes so kudos!