Personalizing Unity
Unity gives you the ability change a lot of the workspace to fit how you like to work, and maybe more importantly what you’re working with.
Customizing the layout
One of the first things I like to do when first installing unity, is to set up the layout how I want it. This is easily achieved by grabbing the name of the ‘window’ and dragging it where you want it, indicators give you an idea of how the window will fit into your layout. Once you’re happy you can save it by clicking the top right dropdown menu, click ‘Save Layout…’ and give it a name. It is also possible to save it out into a file in case you would want to have a backup or share it😀
You could have separate layouts for landscape, portrait, animation and so on, it’s all up to you!
Layouts can then easily be switched between by using the dropdown menu and selecting the one you want from the list.
Light vs Dark Theme
Unity previously had “Dark mode” only available to those who had a paid license, that has fortunately changed. Switching between them is as easy as going to Edit -> Preferences... -> General and choosing the Editor Theme you would like.
Colors
Unity further gives you a lot of options to change various colors to suit your preferences. One very common one to change is one called “Playmode tint”.
Because changes made to game-objects during runtime aren’t saved, knowing if you’re in playmode or not can be a huge timesaver.
There is nothing fun about having spent a lot of time tweaking something in the scene and then realizing (or wondering) why the changes didn’t “stick”.
Below you can see me first starting play-mode, there’s a subtle shift of color, then I proceed to changing the color to something which is much harder to miss.
To alter colors you go back to the Preferences, select Colors instead of general and you’ll see a list of them. If you need to reset the colors there’s a button at the bottom.
Aspect-ratio
I would recommend using a fixed aspect ratio or resolution. This can save you a lot of headache working with UI elements, especially if you’re not used to working with it.
This is an option easily available within the Game view. If you can’t find the aspect you want or need, you can click the “+” icon to add it.
My Personal Layout
I prefer having the Scene view and Game view visible at the same time while working. That way I am able to place things in the scene and see the result immediately on the game view. Furthermore I put the Project view to have a one column layout, I do this by clicking the three dots to the right of the “Project” tab and select it from the drop-down menu.
One column layout makes it look more similar to the hierarchy and, to my mind, gives a better overview and a more efficient use of space given the rest of my layout😄
Thank you for your time and attention.
