API Version History on Unity Script Reference Guide

This is more of a website issue, but since it’s related to the Script Reference Guide, I thought I’d post it here. Feel free to move it to a more appropriate section, if there is one.

It looks like the Unity Script Reference has had an overhaul. It’s looking pretty good, but I can no longer find a link to the API History.

There used to be a link in the left sidebar as shown in this screenshot:
1307778--61164--$unity_script_reference_history_link.png

Once selected, you were taken to a page that shows the API history with a flat list of changes for each version categorized by Runtime API and Editor API:

I can manually navigate to the history page (http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/40_history.html), but its format has changed as well. You must now select the version from a pulldown and it then gives you a long single-column list of links that don’t work. The new API History page looks like a work in progress, which is probably why there’s no link to it (not one I could find, anyhow).

Please keep the previous page format by including the entire history on a single page. That makes it really easy to scan the list and even search for text using the browser’s search feature. When developing tools for the editor, it’s important that we can easily identify which API version introduced a particular function or class. Having to mess with a pull-down control and manually check every single version is going to be a real pain to use. The flat list was quick and easy to use, and having a version filter significantly decreases usability.
If you’re set on including the version filter, please provide an option to show ALL changes and all versions at once.

I want to see old style history too. It was very usefull!!!

How Can I Know what new API added in 4.2?

Hi!

Unfortunately, the history is not present for this release and as Michael said, the page accessible only by URL was not intended to be found. The history data was maintained in a rather idiosyncratic way that was separate from the main doc production and an internal problem led to some of that data being lost. The good news is that we do believe it is possible to reconstruct the history data and since we are aware it is useful we will be reintroducing it as soon as we can.

@Michael: thanks for the feedback on the history presentation! The plan is to incorporate history data into each page and make it searchable. However, a full history list presented more or less in the familiar form will be made available too.

@Jes28: it’s not a complete solution by any means, but the 4.2 release notes might help you get a picture of what is new in 4.2.

BTW, for the time being, you can still view the not-quite-up-to-date history from the previous version of the docs:

http://docs.unity3d.com/410/Documentation/ScriptReference/40_history.html

Hopefully, this might solve some problems for now.

We’re genuinely sorry about this problem and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. As Santayana wisely said “those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it” :wink:

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There is Unity 4.3. Will history be available soon?

THANKS :smile: i didnt like the new overhaul, this is easier to use, no scrolling and losing the overview of featues :slight_smile:

http://docs.unity3d.com/410/Documentation/ScriptReference/index.html

What about post Unity 5? How are you tracking the changes?

My primary dev machine has exactly one bookmark:

http://sabresaurus.com/unity-api-versioner/

Thank you, Sabresaurus, for this awesome tool.

5 Likes

Unfortunately, this seems to be down :expressionless:

It seems to be intermittent. It’s up for me right now, but it’s been down in the past, too.

https://ngtools.tech/uv/

An alternative :slight_smile:

2 Likes

@TonyLi Am I your new number one bookmark? :smile:

Indeed you are! :smiley:

If anyone’s working with multiple versions of Unity, I can’t recommend the NG Unity Versioner enough. I use it all the time.

2 Likes