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Question by cantdutchthis · Oct 10, 2013 at 09:28 AM · appplatform-support

unity3d for apps, not games

I am considering making a small app for desktop pc's. I would mainly like to have support for mac and for ubuntu (linux) and I wouldn't mind support for windows as well. An easy way seems to develop an app using Unity, but it is more known to be an engine for games.

To my simple logic, there should be no reason why an app cannot be built with Unity. A platform that features the ability to create massive laser marine gunbattles should be capable of rending pretty buttons and a user interface. The plus side is that with unity you can port to all platforms that I would like this app to run on as well.

Am I making a bad assumption? Are there any people that have done such things? The app I would like to make might be open source, does the Unity platform limit me in any way here?

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avatar image Fattie · Oct 10, 2013 at 12:33 PM 0
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this happens every day and Unity is great for "non-game" apps.

one problem is unity does NOT have the typical crap for business apps, that you get in say native xcode apps. for example - just really simple obvious stuff like simple lists and tables of text, simple form entry and so on.

Enjoy

I have to ask though .. why make anything other than a game? :)

avatar image cantdutchthis · Oct 10, 2013 at 02:17 PM 0
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i only require buttons and a text editor. my main concern is that unity might be unnecessarily heavy for what i want to do.

avatar image Fattie · Oct 10, 2013 at 02:40 PM 0
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purely FWIW. On' man's opinion. the overhead of Unity will never be a problem. Just go for it.

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Answer by DaveA · Oct 10, 2013 at 09:31 AM

I don't suppose you are the first person to have this idea. Games are just a type of app. The real question is, do you need all the power (overhead) of a game engine to make your app? If your app is pretty much just buttons and user interface, you should probably consider another cross-platform solution (there are many). But if you need game engine features, Unity is great. FWIW I've done many apps in 5 years with Unity, none are really 'games' per se.

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avatar image cantdutchthis · Oct 10, 2013 at 09:41 AM 0
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can you give examples of other cross-platform solutions? you are right about the power/overhead, the app i am considering is supposed to be lightweight.

avatar image Fattie · Oct 10, 2013 at 12:33 PM 0
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Corona is an excellent cross-platform thingy, I've never had a chance to fool with really. Plus it has much more of that "low level stuff" that is handy for "business-like" apps.

avatar image cantdutchthis · Oct 10, 2013 at 02:15 PM 0
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corona is mobile only no?

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Answer by WizardGameDev · Jan 18, 2014 at 05:34 AM

I'm looking down this path because of cross platform capability and the specific nature of my application. In my case it is for a graphic t-shirt design / silk screen company. While Unity is overkill out of the gate, style and look, sound, and perhaps some 3d graphics can actually improve the customer experience. If this was an invoicing app, Unity would not be on the radar.

The big one is cross platform. If I want to have drag and drop t-shirt design, flip the t-shirt over with a cool animation, or perhaps show an avatar of someone wearing the tshirt... that starts to get into some areas where to deploy to all platforms gets more and more challenging.

One major gap however is the lack of any real datagrid control in Unity. NGui is great for just about all the other interface requirements... but without a solid grid control even relatively simple display of data becomes complicated.

I expect someone who could bring something as functional as old school Visual FoxPro/Delphi UI/Access (can't stand it but I'd sure take the functionality in Unity) designer into Unity it would be a big deal.

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avatar image Fattie · Jan 18, 2014 at 08:06 AM 0
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You are utterly correct ... unity is crying out for an equivalent of a UITableView. You should look to 2DToolkit and see what they're up to latest.

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