Hey Is it possible to add the ability to lock assets locally in content browser?
I dont mean via source control, I mean to stop me from editing it all together. Otherwise I end up clicking in, take time doing changes then only to realise later that Ive been wasting time of the wrong file.
Overall should improve productivity as it stops you from making a mistake in the first place instead of at the point of saving.
Also ability to password protect files would be a bonus. We regularly have set dressers, photographers… etc to help dress and compose scenes. They have, and only need a very basic understanding of unreal to drag and drop objects. Ability for specific people to lock/unlock certain assets on specific machines is very useful for these types of scenarios.
Thanks!
[edit: removed “+ password” from the title to reduce confusion, main point is to lock assets locally to reduce mistakes and confusion.]
Where’s the downvote button? Mission creep would lead to this feature being extended to prevent editing / viewing of assets (as opposed to loading / running). So it’d be abused by many marketplace creators out there, which would make UE even harder to use.
Suggestion:
You can always right-click on an asset in CB, choose view in explorer and set the asset to read-only at OS level. That should prevent any kind of accidental over-write. But best practice is regular backups / source control and so on. So not at all what you’re proposing.
thanks for the os read only… havent thought of that will give it a try!
Will just be nice to do it all inside unreal tho…
Just like locking items in viewport, I recently got an plugin that could do it and it has completely changed my experience that I moved from UE4 to UE5 just to use it (despite UE5 being less stable than UE4)
Regarding marketplace… well i mean you get what you pay for right? as long as its advertised correctly… and then it will just be a case of tagging as locked/unlocked assets. This may also be useful for trial or licensed products.
Anyways I should emphasize that passwording/permanent locking is not the point of the request. Main point is to be able to lock files locally to prevent mistakes.
Locking files in-editor could be useful (as long as its not password locking). As you say it’d be like viewport locking of actors to prevent accidental dragging movement. But better if the feature just has a lifetime of editor-session and not editor-restart (persistent). So yes it sounds useful. The suggestion above has been tested in Windows and UE4. Been using it for years to avoid where you’re on a laptop on a moving train and accidentally fudge click SAVE-ALL when the changes you just made were high-risk and very experimental.
It will be great if you can choose as I mainly need persistent
My master materials are a bit heavy, every time I accidentally open it I have to wait for it to compile.
Also due to the amount of crashes on UE5 (Im using a custom build) I find my self spamming SaveAll all the time, My UE4 build is very stable but even then, especially on some of the bigger projects I’d continuously hit that button (i dont even trust the shortcuts, has to be file->saveall lol)
When working late nights… sometimes its just peace of mind knowing you cant touch these files/folders by accident lol.