FUnreal - Unreal Engine Extension for Visual Studio

FUnreal is an extension for Visual Studio with the aim of improve workflow of Unreal Engine C++ developers.

Basically if you've got to the point where you write all your code in one file just because the hassle of adding new files to the project (here I am ✋), this extension is for you 😉.

Just a taste of FUnreal in action

The main concept is an handy context menu in the Solution Explorer view to reach - just a right-click away - a bunch of useful operations without the need to launch an Unreal Engine Editor instance (as for creating plugins or common classes) or alternately working on the filesystem side (adding, renaming or deleting files) and then launching Unreal Build Tool.

Futhermore FUnreal will try to maintain consistent your project, updating UE descriptor files and sources depending on the scenario, so that you can keep the focus on writing code.

Features

FUnreal currently supports:

• UE: 4.x and 5.x Game C++ Projects
• IDE: Visual Studio 2022 (aka v17.x)
• OS: Windows

and offers the following features:

• Create/Rename/Delete files and folders (even empty folders will be visibles and manageables)
• Create C++ classes choosing from Unreal Common Classes or User Defined templates
• Create/Rename/Delete plugins choosing from Unreal Plugin Templates or User Defined templates
• Create/Rename/Delete modules (for plugin modules and game modules) choosing from Unreal Templates or User Defined templates
• Keep in Sync UE Project and VS Solution (invoking UBT automatically)
• Keep consistent the code base, updating properly .uproject, .uplugin, .Build.cs, .Target.cs, module source file, and C++ include file directive, even cross modules, depenging on the operation executed (look at this section for more details).

NOTE: While using FUnreal extension, it is still possible to create plugins and C++ classes from Unreal Editor, from other IDE plugins or doing operations on the project directly on filesystem. The important thing is that UBT has been run succesfully and VS Solution has been reloaded.

Activation

FUnreal starts automatically when detects an UE Project, even if the actual activation dependends on Visual Studio extension loading chain (so you couldn't see the context menu right away just after opening VS). Anyway, you can be aware when FUnreal have been loaded in two ways:

• A temporary notification message in VS Status Bar
• A dedicated Output window named FUnreal

Usage

Once active, FUnreal features are accessible via:

• a Context Menu on solution explorer items
• a Toolbar Menu to access configuration and run specific commands

Context Menu

FUnreal context menu is available in the Solution Explorer view on the following items:

• Game Project and .uproject file
• Plugin directory and .uplugin file
• Module directory and .Build.cs file (for both plugin modules and game modules)
• Any folder or file within a Module directory (or multiple selection of them)

On these items, you should find FUnreal menu at the very first position of the context menu.

After performing the selected operation, FUnreal will run Unreal Build Tool, so you should receive at end the usual VS dialog advising that the project has been modified externally and need to be reloaded.

Take a look at video page samples to see FUnreal in action!

Toolbar Menu

This FUnreal menu is located on the the main VS Toolbar under Extensions menu.

From there you can:

• Force reloading templates (in case you change your custom template configuration on disk)
• Regenerating VS Solution files on demand (basically a shortcut for running UBT from within VS IDE)
• Access options page, where you can configure the extension (e.g for tuning template configuration)

More info about FUnreal options and custom templates configuration can be found at this page.

Details

Read here for an insights on what FUnreal does for you under the hood.

Changelog

History of changes here.