Maintaining Mods with Github

[Ventessel]

Question for any veteran modders out there. I created a github repository for my Ground Assault mod, and wondered if anyone had any better ideas for updating the mod than manually copying from the repo into the local mods folder, launching the game, and updating the mod under the tab in the launcher?

I feel as though there ought to be some way to link the github repo to the main mod folder via Steam, but I don't know where I would begin to look.

 

[Shaggo]

you could use your mod directory as github directory. this would allow you to test everything you change instantly. the huge downside of this would be that the game generates "caching" files, everytime you want to publish your work you would need to clean up these files, first. Other than that, I always copy the content of my git into my mod folder when i have something new. this takes longer than directly starting from github directory but i dont have to clean it every time i release a new version. It also gets complicated with the "caching" files when there are more contributors working on the project. hope that helps and maybe someone else has a better solution

 

[Ventessel]

Ok, that was kind of what I wondered. I guess I'll stick to the 'ol copy/paste method for now.

Maybe I'll write a utility that removes the cache files and cleans up for me, since I'm learning C# anyways this summer.

 

[Idhrendur]

Ok, that was kind of what I wondered. I guess I'll stick to the 'ol copy/paste method for now.

Maybe I'll write a utility that removes the cache files and cleans up for me, since I'm learning C# anyways this summer.

I would highly recommend writing scripts/batch files that can handle the copying and cleaning up for you. It's always best to automate such things.

If you're on Windows and not familiar with writing batch files, you can use the following files from my own projects as examples:

https://github.com/Idhrendur/paradoxGameConverters/blob/Vic2ToHoI4/Vic2ToHoI4/Copy_Files.bat
https://github.com/Idhrendur/paradoxGameConverters/blob/Vic2ToHoI4/Vic2ToHoI4/build.bat​

 

[Ventessel]

I would highly recommend writing scripts/batch files that can handle the copying and cleaning up for you. It's always best to automate such things.

If you're on Windows and not familiar with writing batch files, you can use the following files from my own projects as examples:

https://github.com/Idhrendur/paradoxGameConverters/blob/Vic2ToHoI4/Vic2ToHoI4/Copy_Files.bat
https://github.com/Idhrendur/paradoxGameConverters/blob/Vic2ToHoI4/Vic2ToHoI4/build.bat​

Aha, step one of writing a program - find out if someone else has already done it!

 

[Moopli]

Another way to deal with cache files is to gitignore them. The gitignore gets committed to the repo, so all contributors will be able to avoid committing cache files. That way, you can still keep your repo inside the mod directory.

 

[Ventessel]

I'm looking at the file structure in the Documents/Paradox Interactive/Stellaris/mod folder, but I don't see any caching files being generated in there. Is there somewhere else you would recommend storing the mod, or could I keep the git repo there?

 

[Moopli]

I just tested using a symlink to let you keep the mod outside the mod folder, meaning you could keep your repo separate. So something like this:

$ ll .local/share/Paradox\ Interactive/Stellaris/mod/
...
lrwxrwxrwx 1 me me   18 Jul 18 17:23 test-mod -> ~/somewhere/else/test-mod//
-rw------- 1 me me   86 Jul 18 17:16 test-mod.mod
$ ls ~/somewhere/else/test-mod/
your-code-here

You could even have the link point to a folder within your git repo, in which case your repo can have other folders of, say, helper files, notes, and other things you wouldn't want Stellaris to attempt to load as mod files:

$ tree -a ~/somewhere/mod-repo/
mod-repo/
├── .git
│  └── ...
├── .gitignore
├── notes
│  └── notes-and-stuff.txt
└── test-mod
  └── mod-stuff-here
$ ll .local/share/Paradox\ Interactive/Stellaris/mod/
...
lrwxrwxrwx 1 me me   18 Jul 18 17:23 test-mod -> ~/somewhere/mod-repo/test-mod//
-rw------- 1 me me   86 Jul 18 17:16 test-mod.mod

This, I'd say, is the cleanest option. One thing I didn't check, though, is whether uploading to steam workshop will upload the symlink or follow the symlink. But it seems like Stellaris itself follows the symlinks, so hopefully the upload would too.

 

[Ventessel]

Very interesting, I wasn't aware that was possible in this case. Thanks!

 

[SeeGee]

This is helpful info! I use winmerge to point out differences between the Github repository and my current files. What caching files do you speak of, and how would I exclude them from the repo?

 

[Moopli]

I don't know what caching files Stellaris might generate (as I've barely looked into it), but you can simply keep an eye out as you work and if you see any cache files appearing in the output of git status, you would edit your .gitignore to make git ignore them.

Later, when you want to publish but don't want any cache files, or when you have made and committed big changes (and maybe invalidated cache files which you want to delete just to be sure), you can remove all the (cache) files that you've ignored as above (and even (cache) files that you didn't ignore) by running git clean -fxdn :/ to see what will be deleted (in case you forgot to commit some work which you of course do not want to lose forever, or in case you realize that you were keeping files in your repo that you were never planning on committing, you have a chance to move them somewhere else or just commit them already like a normal person) and then git clean -fxd :/ once you're sure.