What's different between Editor, Developer and runtime API?

Development Programming & Scripting
1

Hi, Friends,
I am going to develop a game with UE4’s API. From document, it seems most of functionality could be included in Runtime folder API. So would you like to let me know what the APIs in Editor/Developer folders are used for? Can I use them as well for my game and build/package out standalone exe?

Thanks,
Fei

2
  • “Runtime” is for code that may be used by anything, in any build configuration.
  • “Developer” is for code that may be used by anything, but only in a non-shipping build configuration (intended for developer or debug tools).
  • “Editor” is for code that may only be used by the editor.
2 Likes
3

Appreciated Jamie, got it.

4

So I want to know more about Editor API and customized Editor Module, if I added code into my Editor Module to do the special things, like adding special static meshes into the view-port. But I want to reuse the code and workflow in the game. How to do that? It seems the worse thing is to duplicate the code.

5

You can’t use editor code in a shipped game.

If your module doesn’t depend on Editor code then you could make it a Runtime module rather than an Editor one, but if it depends on Editor or Developer code then it can only be used in non-shipping builds.

6

thank you. :slight_smile: