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Official New Package Lifecycle taking effect in 2021.1

Discussion in 'Package Manager' started by LeonhardP, Jan 25, 2021.

  1. LeonhardP

    LeonhardP

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2016
    Posts:
    3,132
    Hi everybody,

    We want to share a couple of upcoming changes to the package lifecycle with you. Starting in 2021.1 alpha and also now in 2021.1 beta, we are changing the way we publish, show and label packages in the Package Manager. In an effort to provide more clarity around package readiness and expected release date, better quality packages, and as a direct response to feedback from you, we’ve created a more rigorous process for labeling packages, as well as new categorizations for packages.

    The following summarizes each phase of this new lifecycle.

    Packages now labeled as “Experimental” and “Pre-release” will no longer be discoverable by default in the Package Manager, however they will still be available to you. Your feedback on these early versions of packages is invaluable to us and is a critical part of the package lifecycle process. We’re building out a dedicated forum and a webpage to keep you up-to-date and communicate all the latest available Experimental and Pre-release packages, and we will share details in our beta communications as well.

    Experimental
    The Experimental phase contains exploratory and cutting-edge packages. They are not meant and have not been tested for production, and they are not necessarily part of any roadmap. While individuals or teams might offer direct support to users for Experimental packages, they are not maintained by official Unity support channels. Experimental packages can be deprecated without being released.
    Given the potential risk associated with using Experimental packages in production projects, they will not be discoverable in the Editor’s Package Manager, however you can find information about ongoing Experimental packages in the forum and through Unity beta communications, where you can also find instructions on how to add them to your test projects and discuss them with the developers.


    In 2021.1, Preview packages from previous Editor versions will be considered Experimental packages and as such will no longer be discoverable in the Package Manager window. You can discover and find these packages in the previously mentioned forum.

    Pre-release
    Pre-release packages are actively being developed and need feedback from early adopters. It is expected that those packages will stabilize and reach the Released phase by the next Unity LTS (long term support) release of the year. Pre-release packages are officially supported by Unity and are part of the roadmap. To discover these packages in the Editor Package Manager, you need to enable this option in the Project Settings. Information about these packages will also be shared in Unity beta communications.



    Release Candidate (RC) – only available in Alpha and Beta versions
    Pre-release packages that will be classified as Released at the time of the current Unity Tech Stream version will be labelled as RC (Release Candidate). This should help you determine whether to use the package in a production environment when the Tech Stream version comes out.

    Released
    Released packages are the equivalent of the Verified phase of the previous lifecycle. They constitute the default discovery experience in the Package Manager window, ensuring that all packages discovered in the Package Manager by default are fully validated by Unity and safe to use in production projects.

    You can find information about specific Released and Release Candidate packages in the Unity Manual. For information about Experimental and Pre-release packages, please go to the forum.

    FAQ
    • What happened to packages that were previously available as Preview?
      • All Preview packages will be classified as Experimental in Unity 2021.1. Teams at Unity will promote these packages to Pre-release state when they are on track to become Released by the next LTS release of Unity and they are heading towards a set of stable APIs.
      • Packages can remain in the Experimental stage for an indefinite amount of time. They are unsupported and might not ever be Released.
    • How can Experimental packages be discovered or tested?
      • You will be able to learn about Experimental packages through beta-related communications and in the forum. These packages are high risk and intended only for testing purposes. They will typically be announced for product feedback or specific testing needs.
    • How will deprecated packages be announced?
      • Information about Experimental packages will be shared in a package’s dedicated forum thread.
      • Released packages that are being deprecated will be announced publicly as part of the general communications.
    • Which Unity versions use which lifecycle?
      • Unity 2018 to Unity 2020: Lifecycle v1 (Preview, Verified phases)
      • Unity 2021 and newer: Lifecycle v2 (Experimental, Pre-release, Released phases)
    • How can newer versions of Released packages be discovered and tested?
      • Newer versions of the packages will be released in the Pre-release stage, which is discoverable if you have enabled this option in Project Settings.
    • Where can I find non-released packages that are now not visible?
      • If the packages don’t get to the Pre-release state, we can’t guarantee their availability or support. We recommend that you visit their forum threads to learn about the status so we can help you find an answer.


    Thank you!

    – the Unity Team
     
  2. JesOb

    JesOb

    Joined:
    Sep 3, 2012
    Posts:
    1,106
    Hi
    Thanks for this new flow, way better then previous.

    Q:
    Why not start new workflow for new Unity LTS (2020) that will be released in almost half a year (5 Months)?

    Q:
    Packages in dedicated forum is good but when there will be available all Experimental packages that unity have?
    i.e. now there zero packages from ECS ecosystem
     
  3. charlesb_rm

    charlesb_rm

    Joined:
    Jan 18, 2017
    Posts:
    485
    Because 2020 LTS is a stabilization only release and we don't want to introduce regressions in that version. But thanks for your suggestion.
     
  4. LeonhardP

    LeonhardP

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2016
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    3,132
    The list is still work in progress. The goal is to have all actively developed user facing experimental packages to be represented on it.
     
  5. jbooth

    jbooth

    Joined:
    Jan 6, 2014
    Posts:
    5,461
    I like this, I think it better aligns with the goal of giving most users a better idea of what should be stable.

    But will it rein in the Unity marketing machine that has been driving users towards unstable packages for ages? For instance, a large marketing push started for LWRP and HDRP before they were even close to being ready (Hey, LWRP is production ready! Canceled!), same for DOTS, etc. Being more realistic about what stage things are in, in terms of bugs and stability, won't do much to change the situation if the marketing engine is just driving everyone into the meat grinder.

    As a contractor, I'm often surprised to come into projects (of well funded studios, mind you) and discover that they are doing things like "Requiring that everything be built on the Hybrid Renderer v2", simply because they heard it was the latest thing, often without really understanding the tradeoffs involved. So while I think it's great for Unity to talk about what they are working on, and get early versions out there, and hope that continues, having Jochanim give a talk at Unite and show stuff off is very different than putting it on the front page of Unity's blog and twitter as if everything is ready to go.
     
  6. So let me get this straight. You invented packages, so you you can release stuff independently from Unity versions and get smaller engine size and all that jazz.

    And now...
    - packages are tied to engine release cycle... (???)
    - packages aren't discoverable in the manager, so experienced users, who know what they are doing still should visit various places to get info what to look for instead of accepting the warning that there be dragons...
    - more and more built-in packages which couldn't be even removed without chain-reaction
    - and the engine size went from ~3Gb to ~6.5Gb

    So we have the packages, so I can spend another hour to pick them one by one and wait for the recompile every single time.
    Are there enough advantages for us, users to still have packages?
     
    Novack, funkyCoty, firstuser and 7 others like this.
  7. joshcamas

    joshcamas

    Joined:
    Jun 16, 2017
    Posts:
    1,276
    I VERY heavily believe there should be a way to enable experimental packages in the editor viewer. Put it in the editor settings with a big warning, or even have it as a manual ini file change.

    Experimental packages should allow those who wish to experiment (and know the risks) to do so effortlessly, instead of scouring the internet for these packages, which have no single location where they are consistently listed.

    Also, a lot of "core" packages are not visible in the editor either!! Imo any package that exists should be somehow visible. I've had so many issues trying to find various packages, even ones that are "ready for production" but are for whatever reason hidden in the listing.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2021
  8. Rowlan

    Rowlan

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2016
    Posts:
    4,200
    What's with e. g. entities. Will it become visible again or is it still "common knowledge" that one must import it as "com.unity.entities" via git?
     
    MoonbladeStudios and OndrejP like this.
  9. runner78

    runner78

    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2015
    Posts:
    789
    This is actually normal in many other software projects too, as a web dev I have a lot to do with Angular, and I can't use Angular Material 11 with Angular 10, for example.

    One of the advantages of the package system is that you only use the packages you need. And for build-in packages, Unity can exclude them from building if they are not used and reduce the build size.
     
    LooperVFX likes this.
  10. iamarugin

    iamarugin

    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2014
    Posts:
    880
    The huge problem is that you can not update package that have critical bugs without migrating to the newest version of Unity. Which is ridiculous. Moreover, when updating to the newest version of Unity, packages are sometimes updated automatically, which can introduce more bugs in them.

    So imagine you have a critical bug in 2019.4 that Unity resolved as "won't fix" or something, but it is fixed in 2020.1 So you are migrating to 2020.1. It is fantastic, working great and so on. BUT. There is a package named "Superpackage" that was automatically updated to version 8.2 which has a critical bug. But this bug was fixed in version 10.1. But this version is only available in Unity 2020.2. "Superpackage" is working now, but Unity 2020.2 now has a showstopper, which was fixed in 2021.1 beta...

    This is how working with Unity feels when using packages tied to Unity versions (like graphics). This usually called "The Wheel of S***" and it is very frustraiting.
     
  11. Kamyker

    Kamyker

    Joined:
    May 14, 2013
    Posts:
    1,085
    Old post I've sent ~20 times but no one read it from Unity:

    ---
    Recently I've noticed that https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics has not only scriptable pipeline packages but also vfx and shader graph. There was a certain feature that was missing in VFX graph that required only one line change https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/Graphics/pull/2030. It was nice to see that my PR got accepted in 4 days.

    I have similar changes in other packages lying around as embedded ones in my project. I could try to show them on forums but generally it's a waste of time as there's high chance of no one from Unity seeing them.

    This brings up a question: why more (or even all) packages are not on GitHub? If that was the case users would also have motivation to improve them. Not to mention how much time of using messy forums would be saved.
    ---

    Are there any plans to improve communication between users and Unity regarding packages? I can't understand how huge Unreal is fine on github taking PRs but here smaller packages are getting hidden and removed from github.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2021
    Novack, firstuser, mischa2k and 17 others like this.
  12. Ramobo

    Ramobo

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    Dec 26, 2018
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    212
     
    firstuser, LooperVFX, frarf and 2 others like this.
  13. runner78

    runner78

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    Mar 14, 2015
    Posts:
    789
    For production ready packages, Unity should also provide bugfix updates for older packages, especially packages in LTS versions. It is only problematic if it is not possible to fix bugs without breaking changes.
    Upgrading the major version just because of bug fixes is the wrong way, Unity should invest a little more in package maintenance so that this is not necessary.
     
  14. JoNax97

    JoNax97

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    Feb 4, 2016
    Posts:
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    I'd also like to know Unity's opinion on this
     
  15. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    Oct 5, 2013
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    This looks way better than before - but the entire packages concept and the way its implemented and managed is still way out of touch with reality in terms of what users actually need and want.

    I have not found a single organisation I contract for so far (both big and small) that is not having headaches with packages in some form, and the issue with the "marketing machine" mentioned above is definately the root cause of it all.

    I just dont think you can backtrack the fact that a lot of the packages people have issues with still, were being marketed as far back as 2017/2018 for some and its still causing headaches in 2021.

    Right now either a package has a bug in your version of unity, or your version of unity has a bug but the packages dont. Getting a little tiring trying to find the right set of options when we should be worrying about developing our projects.

    And because absolutely everything is being spun off into a package lately, it sort of feels like they defeat the entire point as to use unity for basic things you need to spend ages getting the right set of 10-20 packages just to do what was once ready to work with at project creation. Usability dumpster fire right there.
     
    Novack, NotaNaN, firstuser and 6 others like this.
  16. andybak

    andybak

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    Jan 14, 2017
    Posts:
    569
    I think this is an acceptable compromise.

    However - one post per package?

    There seems to be an almost pathological misuse of the forums here.

    Every message board I've used in the past tries to encourage people to post single topic threads and avoid creating "megathreads".

    Unity on the other hand seems to do the opposite. Every single one of those discussions will grow to be some 2000 page monstrosity with everyone speaking over one another and all the different questions interleaved.

    This is not how you structure a user forum.

    You have sub-topics. Just use them. Please.
     
    Havokki likes this.
  17. LeonhardP

    LeonhardP

    Unity Technologies

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    Jul 4, 2016
    Posts:
    3,132
    Hi @andybak,

    The majority of the listed threads in that forum is locked for replies exactly for that reason.

    You can find the right place to post new threads in for any of the listed topics by looking at the location of these overview threads within the forum.

    2021-03-22_17-38-13.png
     
  18. andybak

    andybak

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2017
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    569
    That's rather confusing. I never would have thought of looking there.

    On one hand - you've locked the threads which is good.

    On the other hand - you've locked the threads! ;-)

    Please give the forums a bit of UX love - and that's not neccesarily a design or coding task. A bit of thinking and coordination about how to use them - and a bit of renaming and reorganization - would go a long, way.
     
  19. ScionOfDesign

    ScionOfDesign

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2016
    Posts:
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    This seems like it will do nothing but annoy your advanced users who like exploring preview packages, and just make it more tedious for them to discover, test, and offer feedback for these preview packages. As a whole, this seems like just another hoop people have to step through in order to give feedback, which is counterproductive to good software development.

    Please allow us to see preview/experimental packages by enabling an option in the editor rather than manually scouring the forums and editing the package repository file.
     
  20. cecarlsen

    cecarlsen

    Joined:
    Jun 30, 2006
    Posts:
    858
    As an Asset Store publisher, all I really want to know is the status of Asset Store adapting to the Package Manager. It would be fantastic to reference dependencies between assets without adding clumsy define symbols.
     
    FernandoMK likes this.
  21. Hypertectonic

    Hypertectonic

    Joined:
    Dec 16, 2016
    Posts:
    75
    Good with the renaming. The previous one was absolutely terrible.
    Bad with hiding experimental packages. Users shouldn't have to jump out of Unity to discover them, or download them. Don't add more mental stress to using Unity! What's so hard about putting a BIG, BAD, RED, warning sign?

    And for the love of all that is holy, can you backport this new nomenclature to 2020.3? A lot of people will be using it for a long, long time, and starting new projects in it, and having two different package nomenclatures is again, more confusion and mental stress. Especially since the old one was disastrous... it means you are dooming all your LTS users (supposedly, you are encouraging people to use LTS versions for projects...) to remain on the known bad one.
     
    reinfeldx and MoonbladeStudios like this.
  22. joshcamas

    joshcamas

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    Jun 16, 2017
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    Random forum posts is not a good way to find and access packages. Please, PLEASE reconsider this.
     
    reinfeldx and firstuser like this.
  23. AngrySamsquanch

    AngrySamsquanch

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    Dec 28, 2014
    Posts:
    24
    Hiding the experimental packages is really complicating ml agents. The huge warning was good enough.
     
    reinfeldx and firstuser like this.
  24. vildauget

    vildauget

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2014
    Posts:
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    I'm here, after several google searches, trying to find the packages I need, wasting time as everyone else.

    Edit:

    So, for anyone else looking for UI Toolkit, here's how it is right now:

    A new project will already have a package called Unity UI. This is not the correct package, but manually add com.unity.ui .... of course... that is the UI toolkit. When it installs, it shows up as "UI Toolkit" in the package manager.

    This added level of hidden packages on top of the different UI solutions and inconsistent naming is pretty frustrating, I must admit... and why isn't that package listed under these experimental packages?
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
    elZach, reinfeldx, firstuser and 3 others like this.
  25. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    I am ok with that as long as there is a place for me which list out all the experimental package name, so I don't have to spend hours searching for it.
     
  26. FernandoMK

    FernandoMK

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    Feb 21, 2017
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  27. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Hi,

    I have a grudge about the packages: the documentation included is in markdown (md) making it unusable when you are offline. I can export the .md files into html with Visual Studio Code but the result, although more agreeable to read, is far less practical to navigate (basically the index.md page is useless).

    The documentation furnished with the editors is in html; if I click on index.html the page opens in my browser and from there I can navigate to all the pages contained in the documentation folder!

    After opening index.html and clicking on "Working in Unity":

    Capture d’écran_2021-07-13_13-29-17.jpg
    and then clicking on "Scripting API":

    Capture d’écran_2021-07-13_13-31-39.jpg
    No need for an internet connection to browse the editor documentation! Could you do the same for the packages documentation? Please? :)

     
    LooperVFX likes this.
  28. UnityMaru

    UnityMaru

    Community Engagement Manager PSM

    Joined:
    Mar 16, 2016
    Posts:
    1,227
    Thanks for the feedback!

    We've spoken to the documentation who say that package docs should be available offline as part of the user manual in the new pipeline they are developing. However, there's no ETA at present on when this will be released. All I can just say is that it's being worked on.
     
    LooperVFX likes this.
  29. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    Ah, okay then. :)

    The sooner the better.
     
  30. Deleted User

    Deleted User

    Guest

    What about today, do you have an ETA? I have limited access to the internet, I need to be able to browse the packages documentation in off line mode. Thanks.