New project templates question

gianmichele · February 11, 2021, 12:16pm

Is there a way to add templates to the new project section?

It would be nice to point it to a custom template on github (I believe this is what the editor does anyway)

britzl · February 11, 2021, 12:30pm

The templates, tutorials and samples are defined here in welcome.edn:

defold/defold/blob/dev/editor/resources/welcome/welcome.edn

{:new-project
 {:categories [{:label "From Template"
                :templates [{:name "Empty project"
                             :description "Choose this template if you want to start from a completely blank slate."
                             :image "empty.svg"
                             :duration "Short"
                             :user-level "Beginner"
                             :zip-url "https://github.com/defold/template-empty/archive/master.zip"
                             :skip-root? true}

                            {:name "Mobile game"
                             :description "This template contains useful settings and assets if you want to start building a game for mobile devices."
                             :image "mobile.svg"
                             :duration "Medium"
                             :user-level "Advanced"
                             :zip-url "https://github.com/defold/template-mobile/archive/master.zip"
                             :skip-root? true}

                            {:name "Desktop game"
                             :description "This template contains useful settings and assets if you want to start building a game for desktop."

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The file gets included as a resource in the editor and is loaded when the Welcome screen is shown. There is currently no easy way to modify welcome.edn in a downloaded editor.

gianmichele · February 11, 2021, 12:48pm

Thinking ahead about the way I want to structure my point and click adventure kit. With native extensions, lua extensions, editor extensions, an initial folder structure, settings in game.project it makes sense to have a template to hold all of it.
It’s no big deal having to download it manually from github, but being able to specify a github zip just like the dependencies would be nice at some point

britzl · February 11, 2021, 1:23pm

I understand! Did you know that you can flag a project on GitHub as a template and then base new repositories on the template? That could be an alternative approach for you perhaps?

gianmichele · February 11, 2021, 2:24pm

Didn’t know that.
Yes indeed it’s a good starting point!