Asset Factory

Open from menu item: Assets/Create/New Item...

This is my attempt at introducing a better workflow for creating new assets. This project is just a proof of concept. I stopped the development when I realized that Unity API doesn't provide an easy way to create every kind of asset from code.

Pitch

The variety of assets that you can create in a new Unity project is big and it is still expanding. Currently, to create new assets from the editor GUI Unity uses native menus. Menus with such a long list of items are becoming less and less easy to navigate.

I think that Unity would benefit from the new type of editor window whose main purpose is to create a new asset but also help in the item discoverability. UI could look similar to the "New Item" window in Visual Studio.

The window would show 4 panes:

• Item category
• Item list
• Details
• File Location

Item category

Shows a tree view of categories that the asset belongs to, like: C# Script, Visual Scripting, UI, Physics... Because this is a tree view, categories could be nested:

• Code
  • Testing
  • Runtime
  • Editor
  • Shaders

Item List

The item list would display all items from the selected category.

Details

The details pane would show a short description of the selected item in the "Item List" pane.

Possible asset details that could be displayed: UI Document:

• C# type name: VisualTreeAsset
• file extension: .uxml
• description: "(What is UI Document)"
• documentation link: Manual / Scripting reference links

File Location

This pane allows you to enter:

• Directory name
• File name
• Create Asset
• Close the window

Extendability

• User could open New Item Window from code with optional filters and options
  • Show only a,b and c items
  • x item can only be created in y directory
• The user could use C# API to add new entries to the New Item window.
• API should allow for adding multiple items just like UnityEditor.SettingsProviderGroupAttribute
• User could be able to configure asset with toggles and fields in details pane
  • Create Editor script for specific type
  • Create Assembly Definition Asset for testing/editor

Benefits

• Better discoverability
  • assets
  • features and documentation (Thanks to the details pane)
• Built-in asset creation logic that could be integrated into project specific dev tools