This project contains an Unreal Editor plug-in used by Visual Studio to display information about Blueprints assets in the C++ code.

It can be installed in the Engine or Game project sources and is automatically invoked by VS when opening an Unreal Engine C++ project.

1. Visual Studio 2022, with the "IDE features for Unreal Engine" component installed in the Gaming Workload.
2. Unreal Engine, either installed or built from source.
   1. See the following link for instructions on how to install or build the Engine: Installing Unreal Engine.
   2. We have tested the source and instructions below using Unreal Engine versions 4.27, 5.0 and 5.1.

Have an engine installed with the Epic Game Launcher and just want to use the plugin? You can skip the steps bellow and install from the Epic Marketplace using this link: https://aka.ms/vsueplugin.

The simplest way to use the plugin is to clone this repo under the Plugins folder of your game project or the engine source. If you have multiple projects in the same Visual Studio solution, it's recommended to use install the plugin at the engine level, and share the binaries across the projects.

1. Clone the repo under the project plugin folder.

   cd <Project or Engine root folder>/Plugins
   git clone <repo url>

2. Optional: Regenerate the Solution for your game project, so the plugin source will be visible in Visual Studio.

3. Rebuild the game project, which will build the plugin.

After that, Visual Studio should detect the plugin when opening a solution or project and start processing the blueprints in the game.

You can also force VS to invoke the commandlet in the plugin using the option Rescan UE Blueprints for <Game Project Name> in the Project menu.

If you want to keep the plugin repo outside of the engine/project sources (e.g., share it for multiple engines) check these instructions for some tools that help building and installing the plugin in those cases.

The plugin descriptor comes with "EnabledByDefault = true" set, so it should work without having to enable it for every game project. If that does not work (e.g. UE is not building the plugin when building the project), you can enabe the plugin explicitly with one of the following options.

1. Using the plugin manager in the Unreal Editor and selecting VisualStudioTools.
2. Manually editing the .uproject descriptor for the game project and add an entry for the plugin.

In both options the end result should be a new entry in the Plugins array in the JSON file.

{
 "FileVersion": 3,
 "Category": "...",
 "Description": "...",
 "Modules": ["..."],
 "Plugins": [
  {
   "Name": "VisualStudioTools",
   "Enabled": true,
  }
 ]
}

The plugin is intended to be used by Visual Studio, so it does not add any UI, commands, or logs to the Unreal Editor. It still possible to test it's execution, but running the following command:

The command bellow will run the plugin for the specified project and save the Unreal Engine blueprints information in the output file. The optional params help to run the command faster.

& "C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_5.0\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealEditor-Cmd.exe" "$Env:UserProfile\Unreal Projects\EmptyProject\EmptyProject.uproject" -run=VisualStudioTools -output "$Env:Temp\vs-ue-tools.json" [-unattended -noshadercompile -nosound -nullrhi -nocpuprofilertrace -nocrashreports -nosplash]

For more information about the command line parameters of the commandlet, run it with the -help switch.

& "<Editor-Cmd.exe>" "<path_to_uproject>" -run=VisualStudioTools -help [-unattended -noshadercompile -nosound -nullrhi -nocpuprofilertrace -nocrashreports -nosplash]

For UE4.x, the executable is named UE4Editor-cmd.exe, under a similar path.

For common issues, please refer to our Troubleshooting guide in the repository. We will periodically update the guide to provide solutions for common issues.

To report issues, provide feedback, and request features, please use one of the following options: Report a Problem and Suggest a Feature.

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repos using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact [email protected] with any additional questions or comments.

The code in the repo follows the existing code conventions described in the Unreal Engine's Code Standard document.

This project may contain trademarks or logos for projects, products, or services. Authorized use of Microsoft trademarks or logos is subject to and must follow Microsoft's Trademark & Brand Guidelines. Use of Microsoft trademarks or logos in modified versions of this project must not cause confusion or imply Microsoft sponsorship. Any use of third-party trademarks or logos are subject to those third-party's policies.