UIWidgets is a plugin package for Unity Editor which helps developers to create, debug and deploy efficient, cross-platform Apps using the Unity Engine.

UIWidgets is mainly derived from Flutter @https://github.com/flutter/flutter. However, taking advantage of the powerful Unity Engine, it offers developers many new features to improve their Apps as well as the develop workflow significantly.

Using the latest Unity rendering SDKs, a UIWidgets App can run very fast and keep >60fps in most times.

A UIWidgets App can be deployed on all kinds of platforms including PCs, mobile devices and web page directly, like any other Unity projects.

Except for basic 2D UIs, developers are also able to include 3D Models, audios, particle-systems to their UIWidgets Apps.

A UIWidgets App can be debug in the Unity Editor directly with many advanced tools like CPU/GPU Profiling, FPS Profiling.

Install Unity 2018.3 or above. You can download the latest Unity on https://unity3d.com/get-unity/download.

Visit our Github repository https://github.com/UnityTech/UIWidgets to download the latest UIWidgets package.

Move the downloaded package folder into the Package folder of your Unity project.

Generally, you can make it using a console (or terminal) application by just a few commands as below:

 cd <YourProjectPath>/Packages
 git clone https://github.com/UnityTech/UIWidgets.git com.unity.uiwidgets

In this tutorial, we will create a very simple UIWidgets App as the kick-starter. The app contains only a text label and a button. The text label will count the times of clicks upon the button.

First of all, please open or create a Unity Project and open it with Unity Editor.

And then open Project Settings, go to Player section and add "UIWidgets_DEBUG" to the Scripting Debug Symbols field. This enables the debug mode of UIWidgets for your development. Remove this for your release build afterwards.

A UIWidgets App is usually built upon a Unity UI Canvas. Please follow the steps to create a UI Canvas in Unity.

1. Create a new Scene by "File -> New Scene";
2. Create a UI Canvas in the scene by "GameObject -> UI -> Canvas";
3. Add a Panel (i.e., Panel 1) to the UI Canvas by right click on the Canvas and select "UI -> Panel". Then remove the Image Component from the Panel.

A UIWidgets App is written in C# Scripts. Please follow the steps to create an App and play it in Unity Editor.

1. Create a new C# Script named "ExampleCanvas.cs" and paste the following codes into it.

    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using Unity.UIWidgets.engine;
    using Unity.UIWidgets.foundation;
    using Unity.UIWidgets.material;
    using Unity.UIWidgets.painting;
    using Unity.UIWidgets.widgets;
    
    namespace UIWidgetsSample {
        public class ExampleCanvas : WidgetCanvas {
            protected override void OnEnable() {
                base.OnEnable();
                    
                // Application.targetFrameRate = 60; // or higher if you want a smoother scrolling experience.
                
                // if you want to use your own font or font icons.
                // use the font family name instead of the file name in FontStyle.fontFamily.
                // you can get the font family name by clicking the font file and check its Inspector.                 
                // FontManager.instance.addFont(Resources.Load<Font>(path: "path to your font"));                
            }
                
            protected override Widget getWidget() {
                return new ExampleApp();
            }
    
            class ExampleApp : StatefulWidget {
                public ExampleApp(Key key = null) : base(key) {
                }
    
                public override State createState() {
                    return new ExampleState();
                }
            }
    
            class ExampleState : State<ExampleApp> {
                int counter = 0;
    
                public override Widget build(BuildContext context) {
                    return new Column(
                        children: new List<Widget> {
                            new Text("Counter: " + this.counter),
                            new GestureDetector(
                                onTap: () => {
                                    this.setState(()
                                     => {
                                        this.counter++;
                                    });
                                },
                                child: new Container(
                                    padding: EdgeInsets.symmetric(20, 20),
                                    color: Colors.blue,
                                    child: new Text("Click Me")
                                )
                            )
                        }
                    );
                }
            }
        }
    }
   

2. Save this script and attach it to Panel 1 as its component.

3. Press the "Play" Button to start the App in Unity Editor.

Finally, the UIWidgets App can be built to packages for any specific platform by the following steps.

1. Open the Build Settings Panel by "File -> Build Settings..."
2. Choose a target platform and click "Build". Then the Unity Editor will automatically assemble all relevant resources and generate the final App package.

1. Put your images files in Resources folder. e.g. image1.png.
2. You can add image1@2.png and image1@3.png in the same folder to support HD screens.
3. Use Image.asset("image1") to load the image. Note: as in Unity, ".png" is not needed.

UIWidgets supports Gif as well!

1. Suppose you have loading1.gif. Rename it to loading1.gif.bytes and copy it to Resources folder.
2. You can add loading1@2.gif.bytes and loading1@3.gif.bytes in the same folder to support HD screens.
3. Use Image.asset("loading1.gif") to load the gif images.

It's recommended to define the UIWidgets_DEBUG script symbol in editor, this will turn on debug assertion in UIWidgets, which will help to find potential bugs earlier. To do this: please go to Player Settings -> Other Settings -> Configuration -> Scripting Define Symbols, and add UIWidgets_DEBUG.
The symbol is for debug purpose, please remove it from your release build.

The UIWidgets Inspector tool is for visualizing and exploring the widget trees. You can find it via Window/Analysis/UIWidgets inspector in Editor menu.
Note

• UIWidgets_DEBUG needs to be define for inspector to work properly.
• Inspector currently only works in Editor Play Mode, inspect standalone built application is not supported for now.

You can find many UIWidgets App samples in the UIWidgets package in the Samples folder. Feel free to try them out and make modifications to see the results.

You can also try UIWidgets-based Editor windows by clicking UIWidgetsTest on the main menu and open one of the dropdown samples.

The develop team is still working on the UIWidgets Wiki. However, since UIWidgets is mainly derived from Flutter, you can refer to Flutter Wiki to access detailed descriptions of UIWidgets APIs from those of their Flutter counterparts.

If you want to join us, please contact us via Github and we will respond as soon as possible.

1. Import the Customized Code Cleanup Settings: Open Preferences -> Manage Layers, Choose 'Solution "<YourProjectName>" personal' and Click "Add Layer" ("+") -> "Open Settings File...". and Open the file "UIWidgetCleanupPlugin.DotSettings" under <YourProjectPath>/Packages/com.unity.uiwidgets/"

2. Cleanup Code style using the Customized Code Cleanup Settings: Open Code -> Code Cleanup, Pick a Cleanup scope as you want and Choose "UIWidgets" as the "Code cleanup profile", then click "OK"

3. Refine Code Style Rules: Edit the ".editorconfig" file under <YourProjectPath>/Packages/com.unity.uiwidgets/". Visit https://www.jetbrains.com/help/rider/EditorConfig_Index.html for the detailed.

1. Go to scripts Folder and Run npm install:

cd <YourProjectPath>/Packages/com.unity.uiwidgets/scripts
npm install

2. Run the codegen Command:

node uiwidgets-cli.js codegen . generate mixin code