Is the .gproj file necessary?

Comments

• talis Guru

  November 2017

  If you will open gproj file with a notepad, you can see that it has a plain xml format.
  It stores some important parameters like which file to be excluded from execution while building the project, package name etc..
  
  I know some of those properties can be set from lua itself directly, from the code like logical dimensions . But not sure that without gproj you can export your project correctly.
  
  As far as i know it is like a configuration file that is used by the IDE while building your project. (Exporting)

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• snooks Member

  November 2017

  Gideros projects need a .gproj file. Gideros projects ARE the .gproj file. It's where all file references, dependencies on each other, input options, export options etc are detailed.
  
  I'm guessing you maybe come from an HTML background where the folder is the project and no project files are required?
  
  If you create a file structure and a few files in a text editor, then you still need a .gproj file for them to do anything. Just create "New Project" in Gideros Studio and point the dialogue to the correct location. Then right-click on the project name in the file tree and "Add Existing Files". You might want to add folders too, to keep things tidy.
  
  Remember that folders you add in Gideros Studio are not added in the file system, they are purely for Gideros. This is normal for IDEs that use project files, it means you can have a nice looking project file tree that contains files from all over your hard drive(s). But it does mean that if you want an equally tidy project directory, you should deal with that as well.
  
  Once you've set up a project, you can edit the .gproj file in a text editor to add files. Be careful though, you can break it. If you do, you can create another one and "Add Existing Files" again, but in the 21st century we should all be using version control so that will never happen, right?
  
  
  

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• rpallen Member

  November 2017

  Thanks, talis and snooks.
  
  Snooks, I'm not coming from an html background, but rather from löve (love2d) which is also lua based but doesn't have a project file. You just put a project's lua files in the project directory and any other resource files (images, fonts, audio) in the project directory or sub-directories of the project directory. Again, no project file for organizing the project's resources (at least not to my knowledge and I've never used one in the projects I've done.)

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• antix Member

  November 2017

  @rpallen I think if you really wanted to compare Gideros to any other framework then it would be AS (Action Script). I think that it is loosely based on that

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• snooks Member

  November 2017

  @rpallen: Ah okay thanks, I'm not too familiar with love2d beyond having browsed some code and porting something to Gideros.
  
  Gideros does some clever performance-enhancing things under the hood too, like compiling files that don't have "Exclude from Execution" set to a single file for subsequent pre-processing with macros before compiling everything to universal bytecode. There's handling of native plugins too. So there's a necessary deviation from live interpreting files in a folder.
  
  Different animals, swings and roundabouts etc.

  Likes: SinisterSoft

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• SinisterSoft Maintainer

  November 2017

  @rpallen the Lua enhancements are documented here:
  http://docs.giderosmobile.com/reference/enhancement
  
  I think that work is also being done on a Love2D api compatibility 'plugin' that should allow many (all?) of the Love2D examples, etc to run within Gideros.

  Coder, video game industry veteran (since the '80s, ❤'s assembler), arrested - never convicted hacker (in the '90s), dad of five, he/him (if that even matters!).
  https://deluxepixel.com

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• SinisterSoft Maintainer

  November 2017

  The advantage of the project file over just putting all your lua files in one place is that it 'virtually' puts them all in one place. To the lua program they are all there - but in reality the same lua (or graphic, etc) file can actually be used in loads of projects. So you only have to update a single source code file and they all update. I use this ability on a couple of my games I've skinned differently - eg slots games.

  Likes: totebo

  Coder, video game industry veteran (since the '80s, ❤'s assembler), arrested - never convicted hacker (in the '90s), dad of five, he/him (if that even matters!).
  https://deluxepixel.com

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