Any interest in a module manager for Monkey?
Monkey Archive Forums/Monkey Discussion/Any interest in a module manager for Monkey?
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| I'm just cross posting this for Htbaa over in Blitz just to get more information from monkey users. Htbaa knows I have posted here ----------------------8<-------------------------- Having done a module manager for BlitzMax called Maximus ( http://maximus.htbaa.com ) I've received one question several times: will you also make a module manager for Monkey? My answer at the time was 'no'. Simply because I didn't use Monkey nor was I planning to. To be honest, I'm still not planning on using Monkey myself. But there are lots of people who do use Monkey and with the (my assumption) amount of available modules I think Monkey would benefit from a module manager. Sure, Monkey has http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/Community/modules.php which lists some modules, but that's just a listing. When in time there are more and more modules being released for Monkey it'll become more tedious and painful to manage all your (installed) Monkey modules. So I'd like to know if Monkey users (sadly I can't ask in the forums on MonkeyCoder) have any interest in a module manager which for users will allow them to easily install and update modules. For module authors it'll be an easy way to publish a module to a central repository (like Maximus does). That way everyone can benefit from a central repository hosting these modules. Why am I asking if there's any interest in this? I've got some ideas and I think it'll make up for a nice summer project. I'm interested to hear peoples opinions on this which I can use to decide to start it all up. ----------------------8<-------------------------- Kind Regards |
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| Yes' in short. I think a monkey manager would need to take all these repositories into account, and their respective host's. If as a module developer I could submit module information to the manager, like Title, Author, Website, Description, Direct Download, Repo Url then module authors would not need to start updated multiple locations, all they would need to do is add their repo to the manager and then continue to update their repo. If all that can be done in a way that simply presents the end user with an Update/Download button next to each module and masks where its getting the file from then I think it would be really cool. If I want to goto a modules repo host I can, but for quick updates having a manager let me click a single button and have it update all my modules would be very cool. |
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| Yes, but it's far better if it comes from inside the community. Ziggy already has the beginnings of this with his module updater. What's needed is for that (or another implementation) to be provided as an open-source command-line tool. That could then be wrapped by Ted/Jungle or whatever to give a GUI if someone desires. It would also be preferable if it were written in Monkey. |
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| I find that it would be helpful managing my 3 global module-folders and also to manage modules on a project (or folder) basis. Frameworks can (like diddy) have a folder with samples and a sub-folder that is the actual framework. There is no simple way to add that sub-folder to a project or a module-folder except manually or manually adding it as a modpath. That is fine if you make one game but once the count goes up it is quite a mess! Add to this that I need to move things over to the Mac to test for iOS. Add to this some games use "older" versions of a module or maybe even an "older" version of Monkey. Now it starts to hurt! There is defiantly a problem here that I'd love to see solved in a neat way. I have been thinking of a system that manages modules by copying them and allowing for click install & updates, instead of using the traditional global folder system. Plus there should be a good way of finding the module you need easily and learning what it does and how it works. One reason for gamecrater.net |
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| Long delay in replying but I think a universal module manager would be a brilliant idea for monkey. Maximus is a brilliant tool so it would be really good to get something similar for monkey. |
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