Hello! I’m experimenting with this in Defold Editor Scripts for several weeks and want to invite you to test it right now!
Long story short, I’d like to introduce the Defold in-Editor Asset Store:
Disclaimer
I’m still playing with it, but already want to share with you for the feedback. Thanks!
Asset Store
What it is, the In-Editor Asset Store? Let’s look at video
It’s a dialog window inside the Defold Editor where you can manage all your game dependencies.
You can find, install, and change versions, as well as quickly access repository links and API docs. And don’t forget to say thanks to your dependencies’ authors!
Share your feedback — it will be much appreciated!
Yes, it is marvelous work. Thank you and also thanks to @agulev. It is going to give assets much more discoverability.
Now we need a way to trigger fetch
Hello! I’m here to tell you what we currently have in the Defold In-Editor Asset Store.
You can open the Asset Store by clicking Project → [Asset Store] Dependencies in the menu.
There you will see a list of your installed dependencies, where you can:
See which dependencies you have installed
See which dependencies can be updated and update them with one click
Select any version of a dependency you want to install
Remove a dependency by selecting “delete” in the version list
Access a Repository button that lets you quickly find all documentation
Access a direct API button
Automatically fetch updated dependencies when a dependency is updated, so no any clicks needed
You can open the Asset Store and set Type to All to see all available dependencies.
Here you can:
See all dependencies you can install
Search for assets by title, author, description, or tags
See a list of all authors! Say thanks to this huge list of amazing people
Filter assets by tags
Preview assets using the API and Repository buttons
I’m able to add a sub-dependencies, so if they will be installed automatically
There are also some ideas about managing not only zip dependencies, but also standalone files as assets, which will be copied directly into your project. Which will be fully on your side, they won’t be updated and you can edit them freely.
Here is an example of how it may look, using Druid Widgets (GUI components):
See all widgets you can install
Use the similar search and navigation as in deps
Quickly access the API and a live examples, so you can inspect it instantly
After installation, the required files will be copied into your project
You can edit and adjust them to your needs immediately
The examples are built automatically from collections with a shared overlay GUI, where I can add navigation between all existing examples and provide buttons to instantly view the source code (similar to the Druid live examples — very handy!)
Publishing all of this is automated, so you only need to add your folder with assets to the asset-store repo. The goal is to keep low friction for anything you want to share with the community. It can be not only Druid Widgets, but also Editor Scripts, Shaders, etc.
I’ve been playing with it for some time, and honestly I’m starting to use things I hadn’t used before.
It started with the idea: “Oh, how do unlit shaders work? I want to see.” Now it’s: open the store → download a 3D Scene lib → inspect all the required files/examples
That happened with the editor scripts as well: “Oh, I remember there’s something to do that” two seconds and I try it
And then: “Hey, it would be cool to have a walking character move across the model”. Boom, here’s a kinematic walker
As I mentioned, there are some ideas not only for Druid widgets (which I really want to have, so cool!), but also for other types of assets: particles, materials or simple Lua modules. It would be nice to have the ability to search for and install them quickly.
There is an example with particles showing how it could look
I would love for defold to incorporate these ideas. And even link to a paid store so developers can make useful things for others. Kind of like unity and unreal engine do. I know they don’t want the burden of running a store, but I suspect they could find someone to run it for them for a cut of the $$$.
hello~very good to use! and I don’t know it is a bug? when I install many extension and the assetstore screen height over the screen and it doesn’t to resize the assetstore window size.
With Defold 1.12.2, I can start using images for the dependencies, so the navigation becomes much better! I love how it looks right now:
Also I’m publishing the new Asset Store release v2 and opening the Assets section, where you can find and download various assets for Defold, which are downloaded as files into your project. So it can be a good place to start something and no friction to edit and adjust assets for your needs.
Mostly I designed the Asset Store for the Druid Widgets, to make a place where you can find examples and useful widgets and also an easy way to publish your own widgets. For more information, read the publish readme file.
Also with Druid Widgets I created the particles, materials, editor scripts and lua modules stores. We’ll see if something of this will be useful for the community and if you want to share something, that would be very cool!
Here is how it looks now:
Use this link in your project dependencies to update your Asset Store:
Believe me, we’re discussing it! However, we don’t like the way for example current built-ins are constructed - it’s not versioned, some projects depends on builtins from past and we can’t remove or alter them significantly, so we want to avoid this nature of problems, and have to come with a better solution. This touches a bit stuff like the Asset Store and moreover we are still developing stuff regarding Editor Scripts and UI, like the images support added right now in 1.12.2, so I believe AS will evolve as well (I’m now working on a contribution to this assets store to include also somehow Defold examples), so I am sure it will be somehow part of the Editor in the future, as soon as all the other surrounding stuff is prepared
