So I’ve been working on some Unity plugins, and the first one is now released! One of the things that has always driven me crazy about Unity is that anything using List can’t be edited like a real list. It’s more like a stack, where I can push and pop from the end of it, but I can’t re-arrange elements or delete anything from the middle (using the inspector interface). So I worked on our first plugin, OtterList. This is a DLL you can drop into your project, and all your lists can now be inserted/deleted/re-arranged, without any extra code on your end! I’m super excited about it, hopefully it makes things easier for everyone. If you want to check it out, grab it from http://u3d.as/content/clockwork-otter/otter-list.
Just to give a bit of a preview on what I’m working on next, enums also drive me crazy in Unity. They come up in one giant list that isn’t easily sorted, filtered, or anything else. This is true for any large lists you’re doing (typically non-editable lists, like enums), but shows up primarily in enums. The next plugin that should be coming out will be one that you can drop in to automatically get a list that can support nesting and filtering. So you can have enums show up filtered and/or nested in the popups automatically. You’ll also be able to use the plugin for any lists you need to draw in your controls. I’m hoping to get that one submitted in the next week or so.
We’re working on a bunch more plugins with a focus on making game development easier. These tools are, at least at first, centered primarily around usability issues in Unity. Small fixes often get you huge gains in productivity, but are difficult to quantify and so rarely get the focus that they deserve. Stay tuned for more stuff about what we’re working on, and if you have particular things driving you crazy, don’t hesitate to let me know (or go to the Clockwork Otter pages and let us know in the forums)!