Adding one-line Notification banner and a News tab in the Project Manager

[Nodragem]

Problem or limitation

It can be hard to keep the community updated on community events, new releases, donation campaigns.

Gamedevs are likely to open the Project Manager everyday, so it could be used to reach them with Godot related news.

Proposed improvement

Although it is off by default, users will be able to activates the News tab and a one-line Notifications banner.

One-line Notifications banner:

News tab:

• no mock up at the moment, but basically similar to the projects tab, except that it shows Blogpost, Godot Releases, Events from a RSS feed
• the user could select what news they want to receive (e.g. blogpost, dev releases, beta releases, community events, etc).

For the sake of giving user full control over their software, I think that there should be a distinction between:

• activating the Asset Library tab (online)
• activating the News tab (online)

Offline First

When offline, the banner could show:
📰Activate the News tab (online) to get community updates and news ...

Then there would be a button to Activate News and a button Don't Show Again in or next to the banner, so that the banner is not shown anymore if the user choose the later.

Proposal review

• Yes, this proposal is highly specific and actionable.

[AThousandShips]

Was going to propose something like this, I believe increasing visibility of our communication would help greatly with donations and broader support

I believe the main issue with donations is not visibility in itself, but visibility of what we do, what we accomplish with those donations, and what we want to be able to do

[leandro-benedet-garcia]

Gamedevs are likely to open the Project Manager everyday, so it could be used to reach them with Godot related news.

There are two exceptions for this. I use Vscodium with Godot plugin to develop in Godot. I never open the project manager and there are other external tools.

Although those are the exceptions at the end of the day, I would also add a button in the godot editor itself, without the text just the icon and number of news somewhere in the UI. That will also guarantee that the news will be viewed more.

Because even in the project manager people tend to just open the very first project that is there and skip everything else. Although, Unity Hub have similar feature and since it's right on top of the first project, I still read somewhat the banner. So I might be wrong.

Although it is off by default, users will be able to activates the News tab and a one-line Notifications banner.

Why off by default tho? It's perfectly fine for it to always show the unread things at all times.

[AThousandShips]

Why off by default tho? It's perfectly fine for it to always show the unread things at all times.

Because the project manager is offline by default, so this can't be enabled by default

[leandro-benedet-garcia]

Because the project manager is offline by default, so this can't be enabled by default

I would activate it by default if the editor has internet access allowed then, because if the user needs to manually turn it on then, otherwise the main intent of it will be missed. Of course I would also have a separate setting that can disable the feature.

As an alternative, the news tab can always be there and the option to turn on internet access be inside the tab.

[Ivorforce]

I agree. I don't know what the reasoning is behind making it offline by default (maybe to make it 'well-behaved'?) but I think making the project manager online by default (keeping editor offline by default) is very defensible in 2026.

[AThousandShips]

For the context for the network mode, see:

• Improve layout and UX of the project manager godot#87443

IMO changing the default network mode now that it is well established would be a bad idea, if we had added it now it'd be a discussion but having it be default off and then changing that would be confusing to say the least

TBH if I used a piece of software that I knew had been by default offline and it suddenly, without warning, became online, I'd be concerned about the intentions of the people making that software (by "no warning" I mean regardless of having the setting work even after the change in existing installs, for example running a new self-contained instance or running it on a new device)

[Ivorforce]

If that's the main worry, we could always go for the "old users keep the old behaviour, new users get the new behaviour" approach.

[leandro-benedet-garcia]

Sad to say this, but if the feature is not on by default, it's effectiveness will drop drastically, so much so I don't think it would be even worth implementing it.

[AThousandShips]

This wouldn't be hidden so I don't think that's remotely true, by that logic the automatic engine update wouldn't be worth implementing, nor the template downloads

[Lerpwave]

Another option would be to ask the user once, if the user wants to connect to internet.

[leandro-benedet-garcia]

Another option would be to ask the user once, if the user wants to connect to internet.

I like this, basically we could set the default to online and people that had the internet option as off, we can just ask if they want to stay offline or allow Godot to connect.

[Calinou]

I don't know what the reasoning is behind making it offline by default (maybe to make it 'well-behaved'?

I believe this was originally done for GDPR reasons. Also, some institutions (such as schools) would rather not have Godot to connect to the Internet without being explicitly requested.

What we can do is display a "News requires online access" text instead of the news text when in offline mode, along with a "Go Online" button next to it. We do something very similar for the asset store when you try to view it while offline.

I don't think there needs to be a separate setting to control whether the latest news are displayed on the project manager; this should be controlled by online mode instead.

[Naros]

Could we also add a button next to the text when offline that gives the user a one-time opt-in to download the data for that widget only, without committing to online mode? I am just thinking of a scenario where a user may want to check it every few days but may not want to fiddle with the online toggle after enabling it for their on-demand curiosity.

The "Allow just this one time" style of confirmation you see for mobile apps and other things these days.