Sprite Editor is NOT a built in package? Since when?

Hey Guys,

I just started a new project, and I imported a sprite sheet, and when I went to open the sprite manager window, it told me the package wasn't installed. I have never seen this before. How is this package not one of the default packages that is loaded anytime you start a project? And I can't just download the package, because I am on my laptop, which is at the moment offline. So does this mean I can't ever start a project offline anymore?

Edit: upon further troubleshooting, I'm finding that I'm only experiencing this issue with version 2020.2.6f1. It is not occuring on version 2020.1.2f1.

 

So, as a follow up question, is there any way I can download packages ahead of time so that I'll always have the option of installing them when offline?

 

Hey there, the team have come back to me with the following:

This is interesting. The team checked out the editor manifest from 2020.1 and 2019.3 and it doesn't seem that com.unity.2d.sprite was ever a default package. In any case, the package is bundled with the editor so you should be able to install it while offline if you go to the "Unity Registry" tab in the Packman UI

Regarding your follow-up question: Whenever you install a version of a package, Packman will download and cache the package in the global cache. This means that other projects can install the package directly from the cache without downloading anything.

But - as we said, com.unity.2d.sprite is bundled with the editor so there should be no download in the first place.

What may be causing confusion is that you have to look at the "Unity Registry" tab. It's not clear whether this package will be downloaded from the registry or whether it's already bundled but in this case it is bundled.