Unity Editor -> Asset Store -> Download Manager -> Asset Updates available per project

A feature for the Unity editor that I think would be useful is the ability for the Download Manager to keep track of Updates for asset packages on a per project basis. This would be something where the user can see each project needing updates for specific packages. If you have more than one project this can get tough to keep track of, you might even forget there was an update for other projects you have.

 

You've definitely got a point that it's information we should have available to us somewhere. The number of assets I've got where there's no clear indication of what version you've got in your project is a bit silly.

I don't know if having the Download Manager keep track of that is practical, though, purely because it's entirely possible for people to modify an asset after it's imported into their project. Then it's version no longer aligns with the vendor's releases, and the Download Manager can't easily track that.

Additionally, when I've got something working in my project I want to avoid updating or changing it unless I have some particular reason to. Being on the latest version isn't worth the potential effort / QA unless you're getting something out of it.

Personally, I think that requiring a text file be included with a version number for all assets would be a simple but workable solution, even if that just means adding a line near the start of an existing readme.txt file.

Getting a bit more advanced, there could be some kind of official manifest file that the Editor knows to look for with standardised fields in it and maybe a hash... which might actually solve the problems I mentioned above. The DM knows what to look for to see what packages are included and what versions, and if the hash doesn't match the contents then it also knows you've modified it and can behave accordingly.

The other half of this problem is being able to easily retain or download old versions of asset packages. In my old job I often wanted to be able to match versions of assets across projects so that we could easily stick to supported/known versions of things. This meant either manually copying the package files from the download folder or copying stuff between projects.