Official What’s new with Collaborate in the 2018.3 Beta?

Stability
Based on your feedback, 2018.3 changes to Collaborate focus primarily on stability. Our most significant change moves Collaborates proprietary snapshot solution to a Git-based solution. The initial release further reduces unexpected behavior, eliminates disk vs. repository integrity problems and allows us to implement more advanced features in the future. This move is still in progress and will continue through future package releases.

Please see the list of included fixes and known issues below for more information.

Distribution & Installation
Another major change is that we have started moving Collaborate to a package, rather than having it bundled directly in the editor. This will enable us to deliver new features and stability fixes quicker as we will no longer be tied to the release cadence of the editor.

Requirements

1. 2018.3 Beta
2. Project must be on scripting runtime version .NET 4.x Equivalent (This is the default for new projects in 2018.3 Beta. Instructions on changing your project can be found here.)

Installation
If you are using the 2018.3 beta then you will have a Collaborate 1.2.x package installed by default. The stability changes mentioned above are part of version 1.3.x+, which is currently being offered as a preview-only package on the staging repository. You’ll need to update your manifest to install a package in staging.

Here are the steps:

1. Make sure the Unity Editor is open.
2. Open manifest.json, which is located under the Packages folder in your project root.
3. Change the existing “com.unity.collab-proxy” dependency from “1.2.9" to “1.3.0-preview.2”
   
   
   Code (CSharp):

   1. "dependencies": {
   2.     …,
   3.     "com.unity.collab-proxy": "1.3.0-preview.2",
   4.     ….
   5. }
4. Add the following line to the end of your manifest:
   
   
   Code (CSharp):

   1. {
   2.     “dependencies”: {
   3.     …
   4.     },
   5.     "registry": "https://staging-packages.unity.com"
   6. }
   
   Note: Make sure to include a comma after the dependencies closing brace.
   
   
5. You will be asked to migrate to the new .collabignore. You must accept for the package to work correctly. Click Continue to accept.
   
   
6. Close Unity without checking in pending changes to Collaborate. On relaunch you should be good to go as usual.

Included Fixes

1. Files can now be renamed and/or moved in the same check in that an edit has occurred without losing the changes on upload.
2. The snapshot is no longer treated as the single source of truth. Instead, Collaborate will check against the latest revision on git. This prevents the case of users being out of sync with what is actually published and not being notified.
3. Collabignore now works exactly the same way as Gitignore. Aside from the format parity, this means that changes to a file you have previously published will be tracked even if the file is covered by ignore rules later on. This allows for the creation of blanket ignore rules while still letting tracked files through.
4. The Collab toolbar will show the correct number of pending updates.

Known Issues

1. Sometimes Collaborate will not prompt you to migrate your .collabignore file when upgrading. If you run into this, you can replace the old Collab file located in the root directory of your project with the file attached to this post. (Make sure to extract it.)
2. You will be asked whether you want to migrate .collabignore when downloading a project for the first time, even if you have already done so.
3. Custom folders outside of the Asset folder are not supported.
4. Sometimes the toolbar will indicate that you have “zero files to publish” rather than telling you that you are fully synced. Note: this issue is also in the 1.2.9 package.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does this remove the "Checking for changes" at startup?
A: Unfortunately, moving to Git does not help with Collaborate checking for changes at startup. We know that this is an annoying behavior and are planning on addressing it in an upcoming release.

Q: When is branching coming?
A: One of the benefits to moving to Git is that we will be able to add branching support to Collaborate. We do not have a timeframe yet, but it is high on our roadmap. We will share more details as soon as we can.

Q: Can I use the Git Command-Line now?
A: Not currently. We need to add additional support to Collaborate to support this and it is on our roadmap. We will share more details as soon as we can.

Q: Can I publish to git providers such as GitHub or BitBucket using the Collab UI?
A: Currently, the architecture only supports pushing to the Collab service.