Coherent UI - HTML5-based User Interface middleware

Hey guys,

I have some exciting news for you. Soon we will roll out a new version of Coherent GT for Unity3D which will include a visual editor. Our visual editor is a powerful tool which will help you create beautiful UI even if you have little experience with web technologies. Find out more about the editor here.

Also, check out our public roadmap for the Coherent GT Editor and vote for the features you're most excited about!
https://trello.com/b/frsFI7Di/coherent-editor-roadmap

Enjoy!

 

... talking of which ... just wanted to re-download CoherentUI which I bought some time ago, but the Asset Store doesn't seem to have it? Where's my asset? Did you remove an asset I paid for because of a new pricing model? And if yes, where can I re-download my purchase?

... I also just read about the pop-up for Indie developers. LOL! You are advertising an asset for game developers at the start-up of a game to PLAYERS? Get serious, this is nothing but a lame excuse to force people into buying an extremely expensive asset. Yes, it's kind of funny to build your UI with HTML. Is it crucial in the process or even such a huge time saver? No. Does it qualify to cost tripple the price of the pro version of the entire underlaying game engine? No.

 

Yeah, aside from the dramatic new pricing model, I'm not happy where they have taken the product.

Early adopters who supported them from the start have been cast aside. Several of us reported and helped with various bugs. It's a pity Unity allow developers to remove their asset from the store, which has been paid for. You can still get the file on request, but you won't get updates and of course it's for Unity 4 so it's essentially obsolete. Tough luck appears to be the stance from Coherent.

Mobile appears to have been abandoned and only exists as a legacy feature in Coherent 1.x. A main attraction of the original Coherent was that it promised being able to using it across multiple platforms. Of course, on their website you will see hints and promises of a new mobile implementation in the future, but considering we were promised something that worked several years ago and they still haven't delivered. In fact now the situation is worse than before.

It's a pity instead of addressing that, they have poured resources into... a glorified HTML editor. It appears to be aimed at junior devs or 1-man teams that don't have somebody to do the HTML, but you have to wonder if this is the sort of demographic that can afford Coherent.

This message appears overly critical, but I hope that eventually they will change course and the product will meet my expectations. Failing that, does anybody know of any alternatives?

 

Thanks, Fanjules, for the message and the insight. It's quite disappointing, yes. Especially as I - as somebody who spent money on this - have not been informed in any way. Instead I get a mail with some senseless content to tell me that "soon they will roll out ..." - I would have at least expected a "hey, we just rolled out ...". Also, why do I get advertisment mails and advertisment forum posts at all from Coherent Labs when they killed the product I originally bought. Oh,maybe somebody truly thinks I will pay them again for the same thing.Right - so they can screw me over again when Unity 6 arrives.

Most surprising is: the asset store DOES have a built-in depreciated-functionality (e.g. see "Daikon Forge GUI Library") which easily makes the download of the frozen version available to customers who have paid. But Coherent Labs chose to simply delete the entry entirely. Bad style, if you ask me.

Fanjules, for me the alternative is going back to Unity's (5) UI system. We are developing nearly at the same pace, and it's all tied in in a better way. But if you want, I just googled this: http://uwebkit.com/

 

Hi Deepestblue,

Coherent UI 1.x has not been available on the Unity Asset Store for more than a year. You can find out why in this blog post: http://coherent-labs.com/blog/coherent-ui-will-not-be-available-on-the-unity-asset-store-from-aug-6/

If you get in touch with us at info@coherent-labs.com, we will send you the latest version of Coherent UI 1.x. Please, keep in mind that we have discontinued this product as we found serious limitations with the technology we have been using.

Please, let us know if you do not want to receive any newsletters from Coherent Labs and we will remove you from the mailing list.

Thank you,
Billy

 

Hi fanjules,

Thanks for the feedback!

We are working on a new empowering solution for mobile which is specifically designed for mobile game UI. It is built-from-the-ground-up and that is why it took such a long time for development. We cannot share more details about it at the moment but soon more information will be available.

Regarding the visual editor for Coherent GT, it is in early beta. We are constantly working on improving it. It will make prototyping with Coherent GT even easier and faster than before.

Billy

 

One requirement for mobile is that I am able to use the same codebase for desktop/mobile (as I did with Coherent 1.x). Will that still be possible with the new solution?

 

We understand your need for a smooth transition from Coherent UI 1.x to the new solution. One of our main goals is to make the transition simple and fast.

In its core the new solution is still an HTML5 renderer, supports CSS3 and JavaScript, and features a similar API as our PC products, but it is not going to be part of the platform support for Coherent UI 1.x. Does that answer your question?

Best,

Billy

 

No, that's not what I meant. With Coherent 1.x, you could write code for desktop+mobile and they would mostly work out allright. I am concerned the new mobile product will involve having to use something like "Coherent Mobile" for mobile, and regular Coherent for desktop, forcing split development paths. In the very least this would be the case if you used Coherent GT, which would be incompaitable with mobile? Perhaps I'm wrong, but we don't get any information, and their doesn't appear to be a road map for mobile, but regardless there is a lot that can be said for "write once, deploy anywhere".

 

Hi,

Coherent UI 1.x was designed for PC first. This was one of the reasons why, with Coherent UI 1.x we were not able to achieve the high performance we were targeting on mobile platforms.
Taking in mind the performance needs of mobile game UI, we designed a solution specifically for mobile platforms. Many clients, like yourself, use our products for both PC and mobile, that is why on mobile we will feature a similar API as the one on PC. In such a way, the transition from PC to mobile will require minimal efforts.

At the moment, our roadmap is not public but soon I will be able to share more details. If you are interested, stay up to date with our blog and announcements.

Billy

 

Will we be able to use javascript frameworks like angular with the new mobile solution?

 

We are still considering which JS frameworks will be supported by the new product. This is a great feedback.

Thank you!

 

This is a different question. But: How is Coherent GT different from Coherent UI 2.0, exactly?

The description seems to say it's designed to work faster on mobile. But if Coherent GT works on mobile with good performance, as well as PC, why would you ever want to use the alternative, Coherent UI 2.0?

 

Oh, one other question. Is the popup that shows for subscription buyers just for builds, or for the editor as well? (because I'd prefer it if it didn't impact the appearance of things while developing, recording videos, etc.)

 

Hi,
Coherent UI 2.x supports only PC, while Coherent GT supports PC and Consoles. Both of them do not support mobile platforms.
Here are several differences between GT and UI:

 

Hmmm. The second quote seems to have been lost. (I wouldn't mention it, except that I could actually really use a list of the differences, as I looked for a comparison list a while ago and couldn't find one)

 

Hi, sorry about the delay.

Coherent GT is based on WebKit. It is faster than Coherent UI and has both synchronous and asynchronous mode. Another difference is that it does not support WebRTC and Chromium plugins such as Flash while Coherent UI supports them. Coherent GT works on PC (Windows and Mac) and on consoles (Playstation 4 and XBox One). It has an integrated visual editor while Coherent UI does not support this feature.

Coherent UI is based on Chromium 40. It supports all Chromium plugins => can display any web page inside your game. It has multiprocess architecture and supports only an asynchronous mode. Coherent UI works only on PC (Windows, Mac and Linux).

I hope my response was helpful. I will make sure that we create a blog post explaining the differences between the two products.

 

Okay. Rather than ask further questions (e.g. if GT has enough of a speed advantage to be worth switching to for desktop-only games), I'll just wait until the blog post is written. (if you happen to remember when it's written, can you post a quick link to it here?)

 

Sure,

I found this comparison table which was made few months ago: https://coherent-labs.com/blog/announcing-coherent-ui-gt/

It might be helpful

 

Hey guys,

I promised to share more information about our new solution for mobile game UI. It has been over a year since we first started working on a high-performance technology, specifically designed for mobile user interface.

Project Colibri for games is an extremely fast HTML5 renderer, designed from scratch with the mobile needs in mind. It will change the way you create mobile game UI by improving your workflow and helping you reduce iteration time. In such a way you will have more time to focus on gameplay and user experience.

If you are interested, read more here and sign up for the Beta.

Best,
Billy

 

Hi guys,

I'm pleased to announce that the Coherent Editor is now included in the latest release of Coherent GT for Unity 3D. The Coherent Editor is a powerful WYSIWYG visual editor that anybody in the team can use to quickly create amazing looking Game UI.

You can check the Coherent Editor's Quick start guide here - https://coherent-labs.com/editor/documentation/04_QuickStart/index.html as well as the rest of the documentation.

We've also added an Online preview demo of the Coherent Editor - coherent-labs.com/editor so that you can check its features real-time in your browser without downloading and installing any software!