Unity: Creating a professional layout
When you install and open Unity, it comes with a default layout. It’s not bad; it contains everything you need in a fairly logical way. I have customised my layout in Unity and it’s similar to one used by many other Unity developers, and I’m going to share it with you in this article.
So this is the default layout. Like I say, it’s not bad but there’s a couple of things I find get in the way a bit: firstly, you have to swap between the Scene and Game views when I prefer to be able to see both at once, and secondly I find the Project and Hierarchy panes are a bit detached from the Inspector. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.
First up, we’re going to start our new layout from a default that’s closer to the end result. Click on the Layout drop-down in the top right of the window and change it to Tall.
Straight away this brings both the Hierarchy and the Project panes right next to the inspector which I find makes it easier to work between the two; select an object and instantly see it’s attributes right next to it.
Next I bring the Game view below the Scene view so they are both displayed at roughly equal size. I’ve made the Unity window smaller here to help you to see the changes better, but on my 32 inch, 1440p monitor, this gives me a lot of real estate to work with.
I then change the way the Project pane is displayed so that it shows all my assets in one navigation tree which I find makes it easier to find everything. Click on the three dots in the top-right of the Project pane, then click One Column layout.
Finally, don’t forget to save the layout so you can recall it if things get messed up. Go back to the drop-down in the top-right of the Unity window then select ‘Save Layout…’. Give it a snappy name and you are done!
Remember, this is just how I have my Unity set up. You can completely customise your view by dragging windows and panes around and positioning them in a way that works for you. The key is to make sure you can work efficiently so you don’t spend half your time frustrated in the actual use of Unity.
