Grab Yer Assets (GYA) v3 - UnityPackage Import & Management

Thought I would post this for anyone wondering if the current PAL issue affects them:

GYA being an offline package manager, does not require internet access to function or to build it's default package data, meaning that it also does not require the 'Purchased Assets List' (PAL). GYA gathers its data directly from the asset packages that you already have downloaded on your system. The PAL is purely optional and does not otherwise affect GYA's operation or usage except as noted below.

Now, there are (4) Category/Search filters that are available when the PAL data is available. The main difference in not having access to the current PAL data is that recently Deprecated assets will not be denoted by an Orange Hazard Icon pinned to the right. For most, that's really it.

More specifically, as mentioned in the first post, access to the PAL data provides only the following:
1) 'Deprecated' assets that you might have will be denoted by an orange hazard icon to the right of the asset name.
2) Categories drop-down: 'Packages: {Deprecated} {Not in Purchased List} {Not Downloaded}'
3) Search drop-down (magnifier): 'by Date: {Purchased}'

Hope that answers any PAL related questions.

Now, for a glimmer of hope .. Restoring access to the PAL should be possible, it will just take some time. I would tentatively say a week to go thru everything.

 

Thought I would post some good news. A new version with restored PAL access should be available by end of week.

Just need to clean the code up a bit, then I will be contacting a few people to test out the changes over the next day or two. If you would like to be included in the testing, just let me know.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.5.2607

NOTE:
Older GYA versions, prior to 3.17.5.2302, will NOT be compatible in reading the updated PAL structure and may encounter an error, please update to the latest version.

With 'Persist Mode' enabled, you can easily do this via the menu: "Assets -> Import Package -> Grab Yer Assets".
This will import the latest downloaded version of GYA that 'Persist Mode' has copied to your Standard Assets folder.

- 3.17.5.2607
- Update: UI adjustments for using Zios Themes
- Update: Adjustment for PAL handling in Windows/Linux

- 3.17.5.2306
- Code cleanup

- 3.17.5.2304
- Fixed: Access to the 'Purchased Assets List' (PAL) has been restored for OSX/Windows/Linux.
- Updated: Session handling updated to work with the recent changes implemented by Unity
- Updated: Handling for the updated layout/structure/data of the PAL
- Fixed: If GYA detects that the PAL has an outdated structure, it will delete the file. The current version will be downloaded upon the next Refresh.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.6.405

- 3.17.6.405
- Fixed: Web calls using WWW were no longer reliable and may have experienced possible 'HTTP Error 500 Internal server error'
- Update: Web calls re-written to utilize HttpWebRequest instead of WWW
- Update: Code cleanup and optimization

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.6.1205

- 3.17.6.1205
- Changed: Modified popup menu handling.
- Added: Sort drop-down options; "by Date (Created)*" & "by Date (Updated)*", accessible if PAL data is available.
Information contained in the PAL does not cover different versions of the same Asset ID, all versions of the same ID
will be listed in order, please keep this in mind.
- Disabled: 'Consolidate' (Move Old Assets) features. Assets within the Old Assets folder will still show up
in the list so that they can be moved/deleted as always. This is primarily to prevent any issues with inadvertantly
moving old assets that shouldn't be moved considering the recent changes.
- Changed: Restored 'Packages Built with' & 'Packages of Type' sub-menus under 'Categories' for better organization.
- Fixed: Right-clicking 'Refresh' was not forcing a PAL update if 'Retrieve Purchased Assets List' was not enabled.
- Updated: Prefs window updated to reflect changes below
- Changed: Removed a few un-needed methods
- Changed: Modified how Asset Store folders are scanned to more easily handle changes between major Unity versions
- Changed: GYA Version routines updated to be backwards compatible with Unity 4
- Note: While untested, the above changes should have the side benefit of restoring support for Unity 4.2+.
If you decide to use under Unity 4.x, let me know if you have any issues.
- Update: Modified sessionID retrieval

 

Hi; sorry to bug you but Ive got two issues here:

Firstly, Ive been having problems with erratic behaviour of the listing of Ungrouped packages (anecdotally, Ive always found this a bit erratic, but this is definitely repeatable for the last couple of revisions). When I start Unity fresh, and select Ungrouped, it'll work, and continue to work as long as I dont Refresh. However, as soon as I do a rescan/refresh of the folders, selecting by Ungrouped stops working, and basically displays everything.

Secondly, Im still getting issues with PAL in the latest version ie

GYA - DownloadPALFromUnity: Error getting response stream (Write: The authentication or decryption has failed.): SendFailure

There is/was an 'AS Purchased.json' file in the GYA settings folder, but it'll delete it on a rescan, and wont create a new one. Ive tried signing out/back in to my account etc but that doesnt change anything.

Happens in an existing project or a new clean one. Versions are
GYA 3.17.6.1205
Unity 5.6.1f1

 

Not a bother, thanks for reporting any issues.

I'll take a look at the UnGrouped code and see what I can find.

Hmm, I haven't run across that error or had it reported otherwise but I am looking into it now.
GYA is performing a simple POST request for the data, so I'll have to look into why you are receiving that error.

Unity recently changed the internal structure of the file. Newer versions of GYA check to see if the existing PAL file is the old version and if so, it deletes it. And it's not being recreated due to the above error when requesting the data from the server.

Let me do some digging and I'll send you a PM later on, see what we can figure out.

 

I followed everything you mentioned and also tried anything else I could think of and didn't noticed anything odd.

Selecting 'Ungrouped' is showing the correct number of ungrouped packages.
Clicking on Refresh when a dropdown option has been selected, reacts as expected.
It resets the display to defaults, *excluding* the main view options, ie- the buttons on the 3rd toolbar and the search field.

This is as intended for the category/publisher/search&sort dropdown options; as they are designed to be for quick reference/temporary viewing.

If this is what you are noticing, I can keep it in mind for a future version.

 

@sxa - I've sent a PM with something for you to test.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.6.1801

- 3.17.6.1801
- Fix for possible 'Error getting response stream (Write: The authentication or decryption has failed.): SendFailure'

 

Is there a video available of your asset in action or better yet demo version available?

Update: Also is it possible to scan older projects without having to import CYA into them first?

 

Here is the link to a video that eagleeyez was kind enough to put up showing the features of GYA. While this is for an older version of GYA, the primary function and use remains the same.

As GYA is an Editor Extension and is primarily used to easily import *.unityPackages that you have already downloaded, it is required to be in the current project.

GYA scans the following folders: Asset Store(-5.x), Standard Assets, any User Selected Folders and the current project to check for any existing *.unityPackage files to include in it's list of importable packages. While most Packages do not include other unityPackages within themselves, some do and scanning the current project is provided to make it easier to import any packages that may have been imported into the current project.

Hope that answers your questions.

 

@Xeir Thanks for the reply - I guess what I was hoping/looking for is a package manager that can tell me the current versions of assets (not in .unityPackage form) in a particular assets folder and then compare that with whats currently downloaded in the unity asset cache vs whats available to be downloaded from the asset store in terms of new versions.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.7.1601

- 3.17.7.1601
- Fix for Alt Icons not showing the correct icon when processing Unity 2017 unityPackages

 

@ibyte Quite welcome. I looked into it at one time and it wasn't the easiest to work out a way to do what was desired given what is made available from within or by Unity, which happens to match with what you are looking for. I'd certainly add it as a feature to GYA if ever I find a way to do so properly.

 

GYA is on sale till the end of July !!

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.8.401

- 3.17.8.401
- Fixed: Possible FormatException error when processing the version info for packages submitted with the Linux version of Unity
- Changed: Optimized a few version related methods

- 3.17.7.2002
- Added: SQLite handling
- Updated session handling to use above

 

Im finding GYA problematic since going from 3.17.7.1601 to 3.17.8.401. Im afraid I dont appear to have a copy of the intermediate version (.17.7.2002) to test.
A refresh throws up the error message below, and the 'GYA Refreshing' progress bar never returns, while and Info button of the Preferences throws up a dozen or so of the same error.
Importing etc and everything else appears to work fine subsequent to the errors, although if 'Info' is used the Preferences window is unusable until closed and reopened.

This happens in all cases, from an existing project with GYA updated, to a brand new clean project, with no other assets imported.

Version of Unity is 2017.1.0f3, on Win7 x64.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.8.1301

- 3.17.8.1301
- Reverted changes made in 3.17.7.2002

@sxa - Thank you for letting me know. The issue appears to be on the Windows side, I will check into it.

Note: For anyone using Windows, please bypass the previous version and upgrade to this version.

Adjusted version # in intial post, as I had inadvertantly listed this update as 3.17.13.401 when posting this, sigh.

 

Does GYA provide user's descriptions for the assets? Because when the assets getting more and more, I can't recall the features I have tried for each asset. At last GYA to me is only for batch importing by groups. Still hard to say it can help me to manage my assets.

 

Hi @ctc5301 -

User descriptions (notes) for assets are not currently an option at this time. It is being considered for a future version along with tags.

GYA can certainly do much more then perform batch imports as you may (or may not) have already noticed. GYA provides fast access to your entire collection and offers a number of ways in which to locate a specific package or packages by means of the various search & sort options (by clicking the magnifying glass in the search-bar), by category/publisher, collections, groups for organizing assets as well as for projects, etc.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.8.2902
Containing the following changes:

- 3.17.8.2902
- Overall, this release is primarily for performance tuning (Memory use reduced and less impact on GC)
- Optimized more GUI calls in the scrollview

- 3.17.8.2702
- Performance tweaks involving string handling
- Moved some handling from OnGUI to Update

- 3.17.8.2603
- Re-worked some of the grouping functions to coincide with the recent changes

- 3.17.8.2501
- Many performance tweaks to the GUI and data handling

- 3.17.8.2402
- A few tweaks to the scrollview

- 3.17.8.2301
- Rechecked performance via a deep profile, found a few things that could use some attention
- Modified window code, should take care of the random namespace title

 

Feature Request: In the context menu, add URL for Help Forum.

I know this may be an issue because it probably isn't available in the "asset database" provided from Unity. But maybe you can overcome that by having a web page where users can suggest/provide the proper URL. Crowd source it and it shouldn't be that difficult to maintain.

Thanks

 

@Tinjaw - Hmm, I'll give it some thought and see what I can come up with as it's not a bad idea at all. As you mention, just have to find a good way to implement it. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

I have just purchased GYA and I am running it on Unity 2017.1.1p1 and for most parts it seems to be running fine.

I own 327 assets and have downloaded 160+ of them to my assets folder. Everything downloaded works great and is easy to find, catalogue, and install. Talk about a massive timesaver

However I am experiencing a small issue.
If I choose assets not downloaded it shows me a list of the rest of my asset store purchases but the titles are blank.
If I click on any of them or scroll down the list they appear correctly in the Package info box at the bottom (see picture attached)?

Anyone know how I can get the list to populate correctly?
Many thanks in advance.

 

@PaulGK

Just checked and you are correct. It must have slipped in with the last set of updates when I optimized a few things in the view. Didn't mean to optimize it quite that much! I'll check the code and I'll post an update once I've made the change. Thank you for letting me know!

Glad to hear that it's saving you a lot of time and eases the handling of packages, that's exactly what it is for.

Regards!

UPDATE: Fixed as of 3.17.9.901

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.9.901

- 3.17.9.901
- Fixed: Title not showing in scrollview for 'Not Downloaded' Packages due to the recent changes

- 3.17.8.3002
- Adjustment to UI skin texture, pinned icon background properly matches current UnitySkin
- Minor change to processing headers and update

 

Thanks Xeir.

Now thats what I call support
Will look forward to the update on asset store soon.

 

@PaulGK -

Quite welcome. It should be live, let me know if you have any questions, etc.
Enjoy your weekend!

 

Fantastic!! I have just checked the new version from the Asset Store and it is working great

Many thanks for what has already become my go to asset.

 

Im seeing a couple of new issues having upgraded to the most recent version.

GYA 3.17.9.901
Unity 2017.1.0p4
Windows 10 (10.0.0) 64bit

Issue 1 : When a custom group is selected, the right-click 'File Options' menu is missing; its still present under 'All', 'Store', even 'User'

Issue 2 : When a custom group is selected, the name of any missing assets is blank, although the orange [Missing] text, icon etc is still there. Under 'All', 'Store' etc, the name will be displayed properly.

Issue 3 : Ive been using this across two systems with different subsets of Assets downloaded to each; one system has all of them, another has a much smaller subset. The GYA settings files were being shared via (symlinks to) Dropbox, which allowed me to keep custom groups consistent across both systems. All I had to do was do a refresh and GYA would work with its 'All' list being the set of installed assets, and no assets which were not installed on that system counted as Missing. However, with this verson, the 'All' list is the full set, and dozens of assets which are not installed are now showing as missing.
Is this change intended? As if so, I'll have to reconsider how I do the sharing.

 

@sxa -

The first two are most likely due to the change in the view/data handling, I will correct that.
The 3rd one may be as well, but I will look into it, thank you for letting me know!

EDIT: Fixed the first two issues & sent a PM for more info on the third.

 

New version has been submitted: 3.17.9.1403

- 3.17.9.1403
- Fixed: Missing 'File Options' under Groups
- Fixed: Blank Title under Groups if the file is missing
- Fixed: Prefs OpenFilePanel may cause a NullReferenceException after loading alternative data file
- Fixed: Group data refresh may not have immediately updated status of file change: missing/exists

 

I have a desire for an additional feature. I have 550+ assets. Sometimes I would like to look through a "catalog" of what I have. I would like GYA to have the ability to create a PDF that has one asset per page. With each page having the main image from the asset's page along with its full description from that page as well. Then a table on the page with the info like the developer, category, subcategory, etc.

This would be much much much quicker to go through such a PDF than using the super slow Asset Store directly.

I would also like the ability to add a comment to an asset it GYA, and I would then like that comment as an element on the PDF page for that asset.

If this doesn't make sense, I guess I could make a few pages of mockup.

 

I too would like to be able to add a comment to my assets just so I can leave myself notes about any problems, or compatibility issues I may have encountered etc.
I could create a group and add those assets to it, but sometimes there may be other features of the asset that are still valuable so I don't want to permanently mark them as bad

 

Asset notes are in the works. It was to be included with a few other improvements, but I'm not happy with the overall changes as yet. So, I'm going to put the overall changes on hold and see about adding just the notes portion.

Now that's interesting idea, a PDF catalog. I will check into that.

 

I'm considering purchasing GYA as it looks great compared to using the Asset Store to find and import assets.

I really like the PDF Catalog idea too! I have tried printing out the assets from a web browser, but it's not adequate as there is not enough information for each asset.

 

@hoodoo

If you're looking for a quick and easy way to keep track of and import your assets, GYA was created with that in mind.

I agree, the PDF option does sound like it could be a useful addition. In the meantime, GYA does currently have an option to export your entire assets collection info as a CSV. This is located under Preferences-Maintenance-'Export Asset Data'.

 

Excellent! Which fields does the csv export? Does it include a description of the asset in addition to the name?

 

These are the fields included in the CSV at present:
"icon","title","link","id","pubdate","version","version_id","unity_version","category_label","category_id","publisher_label","publisher_id","filePath","fileSize","isExported","collection"

The description is not included as that data is not consistently available from within the unitypackage files.

 

Just purchased GYA - thanks!

 

Great to hear and welcome aboard. I am sure you will find it to be a useful tool for your asset collection!

 

Update: The update to add asset notes will be released sometime after the New Year as I will be away for a few weeks visiting family. This is mainly to make sure that GYA remains in a stable state while I am away.

 

I'm using the csv export with the latest version of Unity (2017.3.0f3) and it's looking good, except the icon value is blank for every asset. I'm guessing Unity must have renamed the field or changed it in some way in this version? Can you take a look and add the fix for this into your next release? Let me know if there's an easy change in the code in the meantime.

 

As I recall offhand, the url for the package is what is in the field and it only shows up when using Google Sheets as other spreadsheets will not show the icon. What app are you using to view/edit the csv?

I'll be away till a little after the New Year as mentioned above, but will see if I can look into it before that.

 

Yeah the icon field value is an empty string. The link field does have the URL to the asset store. I can see these in the csv file itself from a text editor, and I am using Google Sheets to view it. No problem, will wait for your return from holiday. Happy New Year!

 

Thanks for the info. Not easy to check into it further while away sadly, so I will most certainly look into when I return.

Happy New Year as well!

 

Hoodoo-

For the icon info to be accessible, the 'Purchased Asset List' needs to be enabled. To enable, go into Preferences and make sure 'Retrieve Purchased Assets List' is checked. Then perform a refresh.

And/Or, you can always right-click on GYA's refresh icon to simultaneously refresh GYA's asset data and perform a manual download of the currently available PAL data. Note: PAL data will not be auto-updated unless enabled as mentioned above.

If GYA reports 'Unable to retrieve the PAL at this time ...' make sure that you have logged into the Asset Store from within Unity. You can check PAL accessibility via GYA Preferences->Info tab.

That should do the trick.

 

Hi there,

I am using GYA v3.17.9.1403 and getting the following error while refreshing:

[Warning] GYA - Persist - Exception Copying: C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Standard Assets\ Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage
Please make sure you have Write Access to the 'Standard Assets' folder.
Access to the path "C:\Users\bpayne\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store-5.x\Xeir\Editor ExtensionsSystem\Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage" or "C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Standard Assets\ Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage" is denied.
GYAExt.LogWarning() Assets/Plugins/Editor/GrabYerAssets/GYAExt.cs:500
498: Debug.LogWarning(GYA.gyaVars.abbr + " - " + pString + "\n");
499: else
-->500: Debug.LogWarning(GYA.gyaVars.abbr + " - " + pString + (indent ? NewLineIndent() : "\n\n") +
501: pString2);
502: }

GYA.PersistEnable() Assets/Plugins/Editor/GrabYerAssets/GYA.cs:4449
4447: catch (Exception ex)
4448: {
-->4449: GYAExt.LogWarning("Persist - Exception Copying: " + pathCopyAsset,
4450: "Please make sure you have Write Access to the '" + GYAExt.FolderUnityStandardAssets +
4451: "' folder.\n" + ex.Message);

GYA.TBDrawLine1() Assets/Plugins/Editor/GrabYerAssets/GYA.cs:1184
1182: if (gyaVars.Prefs.isPersist)
1183: {
-->1184: if (PersistEnable())
1185: {
1186: GYAPackage.RefreshStandard(); // Scan just standard assets

GYA.UpdateWindow() Assets/Plugins/Editor/GrabYerAssets/GYA.cs:713
712: // -- 1st Toolbar
-->713: tbRows += TBDrawLine1();
715: // Check for GUI Override/Error State and prevent the rest of the GUI from displaying if so

GYA.OnGUI() Assets/Plugins/Editor/GrabYerAssets/GYA.cs:389
387: isMouseOutsideFoldOut = (evt.mousePosition.y < svFoldOutTop); // svFOHandling
-->389: UpdateWindow();
391: //switch (evt.type)

GUIUtility.ProcessEvent()


Any idea how to fix?
TIA,
Boysenberry

PS Love Grab Yer Asset!

 

Hey @boysenberry -

Glad you're loving GYA, always great to hear!

As to the following:

[Warning] GYA - Persist - Exception Copying: C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Standard Assets\ Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage
Please make sure you have Write Access to the 'Standard Assets' folder.
Access to the path "C:\Users\bpayne\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store-5.x\Xeir\Editor ExtensionsSystem\Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage" or "C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Standard Assets\ Grab Yer Assets.unitypackage" is denied.​

The 'Persist' feature of GYA does require write access to the 'Standard Assets' folder as indicated above and this can occur if write access has not been given for the target folder. You can check the permissions of the (C:\Program Files\Unity\Editor\Standard Assets\) folder to see if your logged in account has write access. If not, you can add your account with write permissions which should then allow GYA to maintain the copy of itself in that folder.

Let me know if that solves it for you or if you require further assistance.

Regards