Some stupid questions -adding assets to my project

MauMau

I just installed Gideros and tried to add some graphics to my project, but I am a little bit confused by the project manager's behaviour.

Within the project manager, I created a new Project and a subfolder called "gfx" where I want to place my graphics. After creating the "gfx" folder in the project manager, it is actually not created on the hard disk -at least there is no "gfx" folder shown in the Windows file explorer. So is this just a virtual folder?

Then I right-clicked on the "gfx" folder in the project manager and added a .png graphic from another location on my hard disk. Again, no copy is created. So does Gideros only create a reference to the original graphic instead of making a copy?

I find this very confusing -especially because the docs do not cover this.

Can I add the required folder ("gfx") manually to my project, using the Windows file explorer, and just copy the desired graphics into it? Or am I forced to do so using the project manager?

ar2rsawseen

@MauMau yes Gideros file managing is completely different from your File system. You can put files from different locations and combine them in any virtual folders inside Gideros Project management as you want.
This is done to provide you a flexibility of managing multiple projects using same code base, like game versions for ios and android, or different resolution projects, etc.
And yes you are basically forced to add everything through Gideros project manager.

Basically what I do, I usually copy a file into Gideros project folder and then add it through Gideros Studio. You can also add multiple files there, but not directories

keszegh

if you use zerobrane studio or some other editor, you can also directly edit the 'yourproject'.gproj file, by looking at it, it is quite easy to add a new file to your project directly by editing this gproj file. also, adding dependencies etc is possible.

MauMau

Ah ok -so I can create two subfolders manually below the Project folder ("gfx" and "sound") using the Windows file explorer, put some files into them and after that, also create these two folders using the project manager and then add the files within these folders using the "Add existing files" dialog. Is this correct?

I understand that a virtual file management may be useful for some developers -but in my opinion it's just twice the work if you are used to work on files directly :-(

Mells

@MauMau
I used to think like you.

But now I have a "Master" library that contains a lot of assets that I reuse between projects (buttons, text titles, icons, sounds, gfx, classes, everything) :
I don't need to duplicate those files, just import them.
It's also easier to backup.

Now imagine if you have a "template project" that have all the files already imported.
When you create a new project, you just need to duplicate that template project and all file associations are already made.
You just keep a few files locally to handle specific files for the project, no need to copy everything between projects when you update your UI (for ex if you change everything to adapt to ios7?).

In my case, I like how Gideros works *a lot* because I have adapted my workflow to it.

The things I have found to be missing would be :

1. The ability to flag a folder as "auto-update" (false by default) so any file added to that folder (that is a reference to a real folder on the hd) would be added to the project automatically
2. The ability to import entire folders (by drag and drop), instead of creating the folders in Gideros Studio, "Add files" etc which is cumbersome

Don't forget that there are several IDE for Gideros :

• Zerobrane Studio by @paulclinger
• Lua Glider by @mydevelopergames
• CodeHelper by @VladuBogdan (Check out LevelHelper and SpriteHelper too, great tools)
• etc

and that they offer different kind of workflow.
The developers of those IDE are all doing a good job and offer great support.

cubuspl42

I had exacly the same problem, @MauMau. And I solved it.
http://giderosmobile.com/forum/discussion/3272/partial-solution-for-adding-folders-to-gideros-studio-projects#Item_7

plamen

I love to duplicate my files. I copy these as many places i can. But hey this is me. I am not exactly organized kind of person :-P