Plugins

This page will outline the flows users can perform to browse the plugin marketplace and manage plugin installations within their unreal projects

The interface and browsing the plugin marketplace

1. Clicking the plugins tab will navigate you to the plugins page.

   1. This is the marketplace view where you can browse published plugins and manage plugin installations.

   2. Plugins are sorted alphabetically

2. In order to begin managing plugin installations you first have to select an Unreal project context. You do not have to select a project to simply browse what is available.

3. The search bar will make it easier to find plugins if you already know what you want to add

4. If you are just browsing you can use the scroll bar to see more plugins

5. The plugin card shows some condensed information and actions you can perform for a single plugin. The actions that are available will change depending on the project you have selected

Once a project is selected, the view will be updated to represent plugins relative to the selected project

1. The selected project will be shown at the top of the page along with a button to open the project location in the file explorer and some text showing the free space on the projects drive.

2. The main view will now contain Compatible and Incompatible plugins collapsible segments to better organise the available plugins.

3. Each card will update to show relevant information and actions relative to the selected project (more detail on this in following sections).

4. Plugins that appear as incompatible have failed a strict compatability check. Any assets that have versions ahead of the current project version will fail to load in Unreal. If a plugin has no version that can be loaded then the entire plugin is considered incompatible.

Browsing the plugin marketplace can be done using the scroll or search bar. The search bar will filter assets by name, by assets unique id or by tag

Adding a plugin

To add a plugin, simply browse to the plugin you want to add and click the Add button. Once you click add, the plugin will be downloaded and added to your project.

By default for all compatible uninstalled plugins the Add button should be enabled and the most recent compatible version will be pre-selected. If you would like to specify a version to add you can open the Plugin Version drop-down menu and select a compatible version.

For installed plugins the pre-selected version will be the currently installed version.

Viewing installed plugins

1. You can filter by installed plugins if you would like to only see what has been added to your project.

2. Installed plugins are always sorted to the top of the view.

3. Installed plugins also display a green tick icon to indicate they are installed.

Upgrading or owngrading a plugin

A yellow warning icon is displayed when:

• The plugin is installed and not at the latest version.

• The plugin version does not list the current editor release the project is using as one of its compatible releases.

  • Compatible releases are sepcified by the author and are intended to display editor releases that have been explicitly tested to work with the plugin.

  • Plugins can be installed on projects not listed as compatible but users do this at their own risk as the author has not tested it will work as intended.

  • Compatible releases are specified per-version.

If the user selects a non-installed version for an installed plugin they will be shown a "Change" button. Clicking this will open a confirmation modal. Confirming the change process will trigger a download of the selected version of the plugin and will overwrite the current installation in the selected project.

Repairing a plugin

Users are given the freedom to locally modify any plugin they download. With this comes the possibility that the plugin becomes corrupted or otherwise gets into a broken state. In this event the user can attempt to modify the plugin further and fix any issues or may choose to "Repair" the plugin via the launcher.

For any installed plugin, the user will be shown a "Repair" button. Clicking this will open a confirmation modal. Confirming the repair will trigger a re-download of the installed plugin version and will completely overwrite the local installation with the factory plugin version state. This will undo all local changes and can be used to verify files.

Removing a plugin

Hovering over the green checkmark icon for any installed plugin will transform it into a red "X". Clicking this will open a confirmation modal and the user can confirm they want to remove the plugin.

Notes

• Plugins can be locally modified but any changes will be overwritten on repair or version change.

• Plugin versions that are downloaded are not cached. If you want to add the same plugin version to many projects it will be downloaded once per project.

  • You can get around this by copying the plugin folder to other projects under the same path. It will be detected by the launcher and show as installed.