[Outdated Documentation] UnrealFrontend/Patching/Releases

General Feedback & Requests
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1

Hi,

While browsing the documentation around UnrealFrontend, Patching and Releases I’ve noticed that many options are not documentated or incorrect.

UnrealFrontend (Using the Unreal Frontend Tool | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation)

  1. The UnrealFrontend cannot be found anymore through Window, the only way I could open it was in the engine binaries (this is documented), maybe remove the section about how to access it through the Unreal Editor or clarify how we can access it. Device manager (which is only a small part of the UnrealFrontend) could be found under the launch menu.
  2. Just a small look gives you the impression the Unreal Frontend of 4.18 is totally different than that from the document, the session block is a new tab etc.
  3. The Unreal Remote Agent, is there any progress on the update? Searching through the engine files didn’t result in any results.

This tool looks amazing for companies to deploy machine power, automation tests,… but the lack of documentation on it is really annoying.

For the Release (Preparing Unreal Engine Projects for Release | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation) and patching (Updating Unreal Engine Projects With Patches After Release | Unreal Engine 5.1 Documentation) documentation many new options are not described.

  1. What is UAT, I presume Unreal Automation Testing, what is that? Maybe link to the UnrealFrontend section for this? Why do I want to build it?
  2. Describe the difference between Windows, WindowsClient and Windows, when searching Google I get other threads on UDN with the same question (What is the difference of WindowsClient, WindowsNoEditor, WindowsServer and Windows? - Platform & Builds - Epic Developer Community Forums, Whats the difference between WindowsNoEditor.pak and WindowsNoEditorP.pak? - Pipeline & Plugins - Epic Developer Community Forums) as top results without any response
  3. The advanced settings of Cook, Http chunks,…
  4. What does the “is this build for distribution to the public” mean in Package?
  5. …

Maybe even a livestream to clarify many things about packaging, testing,… At the moment many youtube tutorials do not really explain any of the options and why you should use what in which situation.

Thanks in advance!

2

@Tom00000

Hi Tom,

All of these issues are on our radar and I agree that these pages need some significant updates! It’s something that we’ll get to as soon as we can, but I don’t have a specific ETA for you though.

Some things to note:

  • Unreal Frontend can be accessed in the editor using the Window menu. It’s called Session Frontend there.
  • UAT = Unreal Automation Tool. This tool does much more than just testing. We’ve recently done some updates for these pages but some are still in our review process and not yet published.
  • I’ve just submitted two new pages that cover the Project Launcher and Build Operations for build cook run that should answer address some of your questions.

Thanks for letting is know these are a concern for you.

-Tim

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[USER=“4894”][/USER]

Hey Tim,

Thanks for the fast response, good to hear that these pages will receive an update! Hope to read about the UAT soon! These two new pages, are they publicly available or will they be after an intern review has found them suitable for public release?

Kind regards

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@Tom00000

Hey Tom,

So now that I’m at my desk and not writing a response from my cell phone while at the doctor’s office, I can provide better details and links to some pages that have already gone up. :slight_smile:

  • Automation System:

    • Between two of us on the doc team, we wrote, rewrote, or significantly updated a total of 6 pages for this section. Some of these still need to be reviewed before they are published, but they are coming! Some have been published and linked below. A lot of these pages give you a general idea about setting up different automation testing, although the automation system is used for much more than just testing (ie. packaging and buildgraph).

  • Project Launcher Reference and Build Operations (Build, Cook, Deploy, & Run)

    • I just finished writing these yesterday to submit, so they are still early in our review process (4 additional stages of checks to go through to make sure they are golden!).

    • The Project Launcher reference will be like any reference page and include all the properties and settings with their descriptions of what they do.

    • The Build Operations page will cover the following topics to which you should find some good value if you’re curious about cook processes:

      • It’ll cover the various Packaging Methods (Launch On, Using the Project Launcher, and Command Line)

      • It’ll break down the process for Content Cooking for **Cook By The Book **and Cook On The Fly

      • Lastly, it’ll cover some deploying builds using the Project Launcher.

  • Patching/DLC and Unreal Frontend.

    • just mentioning again that these are all on my own radar for ones to work on, and ones that our own developers have asked to be updated as part of our coordination with them to update and fulfill their own gaps and wishlists of documentation they’d like to see.

To answer some of your direct questions that I couldn’t earlier.

Unreal/Session Frontend

  • The UnrealFrontend cannot be found anymore through Window, the only way I could open it was in the engine binaries (this is documented), maybe remove the section about how to access it through the Unreal Editor or clarify how we can access it. Device manager (which is only a small part of the UnrealFrontend) could be found under the launch menu.

UFE can be found as an in-Editor tool under Windows > Developer Tools > Session Frontend. UFE is a standalone program that houses the device manager, project launcher, and the session frontend without using the Editor directly. The benefit of this is that if you use the in-Editor session frontend and the Editor crashes, UFE will not crash as well. There are other benefits, but that's a really big one since it is its own program that can be loaded. 

So with UFE, since it is a standalone program, it loads with the device manager and project launcher so that you can have access to the list of detected devices on the network you can claim and use. The Project Launcher enables you to use these claimed machines on the network to remotely cook build and deploy content to that can then be run and tested using the session frontend.

  • The Unreal Remote Agent, is there any progress on the update? Searching through the engine files didn’t result in any results.

    • I'd have to check, but I'm not sure where this stands with additional development. I can't find anything on it aside from posts from well before UE4 was announced, so my inclination is it isn't really being worked on and I've not seen anything come down the pipe about it. :/

    ** UAT and packaging**

    • Describe the difference between Windows, WindowsClient and Windows…

    I didn't include this in the BuildOps or Project Launcher pages, but this is good! It wasn't mentioned by the engineer as something to add, but I'll get that in before the pages go live. :)

  • The advanced settings of Cook, Http chunks,…

    • If you create a Custom Profile in the Project Launcher, most of these should offer a tooltip when hovered over. Some do not, but they'll be documented in the Project Launcher reference page.

  • What does the “is this build for distribution to the public” mean in Package?

    • Checked and this one definitely has a tooltip that reads "If checked, the build will be marked as for release to the public (distribution)". This is the same as setting "For Distribution" in the Project Settings > packaging. A for distribution build will use the Shipping Configuration meaning that it will strip out things like the profiling tools and console commands that are available in development builds. Distribution builds are also required for publishing builds to some places like the iOS App store or Androids Play Store.

    So hopefully that helps explain some of the plans (at least that I’m aware of, have personally worked on or will eventually work on). For the ones in the review process, I don’t have an exact ETA, but hopefully they’ll get pushed through our process soon enough. Towards this time of year with the holidays time can be much more limited, but we’ll do our best. :slight_smile:

    -Tim

    6

    [USER=“4894”][/USER]

    Thanks for the big reply which clarrified a lot! I’m looking forward to the updated/extra docs around these topics.

    7

    Every so often we meet with our engineers and try to get a sense of what documentation they feel is missing for their respective teams (which becomes our gaps and wishlist backlog that we try to work on when we can). The work linked above would be part of that backlog work that I’ve personally worked on lately or is on the radar to work on. That doesn’t mean we’ll get to it right away because our major releases will take priority for some documentation, but we try to get as much done as we can and turn it around fast!

    The parts of our process that Jeff alluded to will help us with our process of writing and getting docs out to everyone (and much more!), so in comparison to that work versus what I’ve done it will be more vague. I can link to these docs specifically because I’ve written most of them or will be writing most of them so that just makes it easier to point to their status. :slight_smile:

    We’ll be talking more about what Jeff mentioned soon and I’m certainly excited for you all to see the results of that work!