VS Code - Defold Buddy (extension with productivity tools)

mikatuo · November 2, 2023, 8:55pm

Defold Buddy

Tools for Defold to make your life easier and coding experience nicer. The main focus of the Buddy is to automate repetitive boring tasks.

Features

IntelliSense for Defold API and project dependencies
Autocompletion for Defold URLs of your project
Asset Portal
Open Defold Editor from VS Code
Build (run) your game via Defold Editor from VS Code
Fetch libraries via Defold Editor from VS Code
Hot reloading for script and lua files on save
Create a complex Game Object file from Explorer context menu
Generate manifest (reduce game bundle size)

IntelliSense for Defold API and project dependencies

Demo (Defold API)...

Open a Defold project
You should see a prompt to initialize the extension

or

Press Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P) or go to View > Command Palette.
Select Defold Buddy: Initialize

Demo (project dependencies)...

Autocompletion for Defold URLs

Demo...

Note: read about the addressing if you are not familiar with the concept

Known issues

For now the suggestions are not refreshed automatically when you make any changes to your .go and .collection files. For now you need to re-index them manually by runnin a command.

Open a .script file, you should see suggestions after typing a ", or pushing Ctrl+Enter with cursor next to a ".
Run “Defold Buddy: Index game files for autocompletion” when you need to refresh the autocompletion

Asset Portal

Demo...

Press Ctrl+Shift+P (or Cmd+Shift+P) or go to View > Command Palette.
Select Defold Buddy: Asset Portal

Build (run) your game via Defold Editor from VSCode

Demo...

Note: requires Defold editor running in the background

Note: you can set a hotkey for this command as well as for any other command

Hot reloading for script and lua files on save

After a .script or .lua file is saved it is automatically hot-reloaded if the game is running.

Demo...

Note: read about hot reloading in Defold

Open Defold editor
Run your game via the editor
Modify a .script file and save it, the modified file should be hot-reloaded

Create a complex Game Object file from Explorer context menu

Create a Game Object file (.go) with components (sprite, script) and a factory file (.factory) for that Game Object with less clicks

Demo...

Generate manifest (reduce game bundle size)

Demo...

You can generate the app manifest from Defold editor:

fc6f5813cdea82f6a8f264f7634f3b28855e6a3f_2_408x429

Or from VSCode:

Feedback

If you would like to collaborate, contribute or request a feature feel free to do it at Github

Credit

Manifest generation code was copy pasted from Defold App Manifest generator by britzl.

Resources

Annotations used in this extensions are generated with Defold Lua Annotations.

mikatuo · January 26, 2023, 11:37pm

It would be great to add debugging. I read that mobdebug is used in the Editor and there is a VS Code extension for it. If anyone knows and can explain how to use it with Defold then it should be possible to add debug settings into one of the above extensions.

And it would be even better to start the project directly in Editor from VSCode (not via Bob because it didn’t work for me when I tried it in one of the existing extensions).

britzl · January 27, 2023, 6:27am

This is something we will look into. I can’t say when though. We have a few performance related tasks that we are currently focusing on.

I need to look up the details. I’ll share here later today.

Pawel · January 27, 2023, 8:32am

Wow! Thank you @mikatuo !

Btw. Is there any request for something like this:

to implement e.g. in game.project settings? That would be a great feature! I know Defold App Manifest generator, but if it would be a part of Editor it would be a blast!

Mathias_Westerdahl · January 27, 2023, 9:07am

The long term plan is for us to have it configurable in the editor yes (with more features), but for now the online tool is doing the job well enough.

mikatuo · January 27, 2023, 9:26am

Thank you! No rush. Once it’s ready I will add it into the extension.

Online manifest generator is great! Since it’s JavaScript it was super easy to add it.

britzl · January 27, 2023, 9:26am

It is part of the editor now? @vlaaad added support for it a few months ago:

Pawel · January 27, 2023, 9:40am

Yes, I totally missed it!

vlaaad · January 27, 2023, 9:59am

Indeed, I ported manifestation web tool into the editor

gianmichele · January 27, 2023, 4:41pm

That is fantastic!

mikatuo · February 23, 2023, 11:25pm

Experimenting with more interesting stuff. Generating hashes for instances and components for all .collection files. It doesn’t include components for referenced instances yet.

Demo

mikatuo · February 23, 2023, 11:24pm

v.0.6.2 - Added autocompletion for url-s inside .script files:

Demo

britzl · February 6, 2023, 10:46am

The debugger is started by the editor when start.lua script is loaded and run in the engine. The script is sent as a RunScript protobuf message to the running engine to the /post endpoint on the engine service.

mikatuo · February 7, 2023, 11:32am

Thank you! And this readme DEBUG_PORTS_AND_SERVICES.md also helped a lot.

Can’t get it to work yet, but at least it doesn’t crash when I post a reload message. Will need to dig more into it.

britzl · February 7, 2023, 4:21pm

Let us know if you get stuck!

mikatuo · February 23, 2023, 11:24pm

v 0.7.2 - Create .go + .script + .factory files from the Explorer’s context menu

Demo

mikatuo · February 27, 2023, 1:44pm

Added intellisense for project dependencies.

Demo

COCO · February 24, 2023, 8:45am

Great feature!
I found in some extensions, when calling a function, “:” is used instead of “.” , like “room:send()”, but the intellisense always uses “.” :

mikatuo · February 24, 2023, 9:48am

Nice that you are using the plugin))
I can have a look. What was the extension? It might be that EmmyLua annotations are required to correctly identify “:” vs “.”

COCO · February 24, 2023, 11:40am

The extension is Colyseus-Defold and the annotations are written by myself.