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Infinity Auto Packager - automatically generate mod packages when you publish a release

ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
edited August 2021 in General Modding
Infinity Auto Packager

What does this tool do?
A tool that automatically generates Infinity Engine mod packages when you publish a release.

What are Infinity Engine mod packages?
They are standardized, universal and cross-platform Infinity Engine Mod Packages
  • .zip package
    It contains the latest WeiDU executable for Windows and macOS (for Linux is impossible) and .command file for macOS.
  • .iemod package
    The IEMOD format is intended to be a platform-independent distribution format for modifications for games using the Infinity Engine. The .iemod packages are used mainly by mod managers. Among other things, they offer a "double-click at file>extract>install" feature.

General info
  • can be combined with the ModRelease tool
  • the package name is taken from mod metadata ini file
  • the package version is taken directly from the tp2 file
  • packages always have the latest WeiDU version, at the time when they were created
  • the tool is a serverless microservice - it will work as long GitHub Actions will exist in any form

Example: ( repository )
IL3b4CH.gif


How to do the one-time installation inside your mod repository?
- by adding to the repository
  1. Mod directory structure: Example\Example.tp2
  2. Git repository structure: must have a top-level mod data folder
    Example\...
    Example\Example.tp2
    README.md
    
  3. Download Infinity Auto Packager repository, extract InfinityAutoPackager-master.zip file
  4. Copy '.github' folder into your mod repository
  5. Commit and push changes to the remote repository

- by using the Github webpage directly
  1. Open the main page of your mod, locate the "Create new file" button
    AdQe2jf.png
  2. Paste this into the filename
    .github/workflows/InfinityAutoPackager.yaml
    
    , do not skip dot at the beginning
    kazdfBr.png
  3. Open "Infinity Auto Packager" file, copy all content and paste it into the editor, then click "Commit new file" in order to save changes
    N6PKhUW.png

How to use it?
  1. Publish release
After a few moments, the .iemod and .zip packages will be automatically created and added to the published release. How long it takes depends on how big the mod is.

If you have additional questions, feel free to ask :sunglasses:
Post edited by ALIEN on
_Luke_jasteysmady3fearless

Comments

  • _Luke__Luke_ Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 1,535
    Thank you, it's much appreciated!

    Is this meant to automate the creation of a Windows / macOS / Linux package of the mod in question?
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    edited February 2020
    Luke93 wrote: »
    Thank you, it's much appreciated!

    Is this meant to automate the creation of a Windows / macOS / Linux package of the mod in question?

    Yes. The .zip package contains weidu executable for Windows and macOS (for Linux is impossible) and .iemod has no executables because Mod Managers handle them. I've added this info to the first post.
    Post edited by ALIEN on
  • GwendolyneGwendolyne Member Posts: 461
    edited February 2020
    Official SHS Github account is using it for a while, and it works fine. So don't be afraid to test it. ;)
    ALIENjastey
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    This looks really cool. Thank you so much for your work, @ALIEN !

    Although I have the slight suspicion that this might be part of your efforts to bringing modders to upload their mods to GitHub. :D
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    jastey wrote: »
    This looks really cool. Thank you so much for your work, @ALIEN !

    Although I have the slight suspicion that this might be part of your efforts to bringing modders to upload their mods to GitHub. :D

    Ha! It looks like but I will also release the 'local' version of this tool for people who just want to have nice packages uploaded whenever they want :wink:

    Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoy it, given the number of mods which you modernized and updated.
    smady3jastey
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    Hi @ALIEN ! First, let me thank you for this tool. I watched the mod packages pop up in the SHS repos where @Gwendolyne integrated the tool and it felt really good!

    But apparently, adding a folder to my repo to make the tool work is too complicated for me. Would you have a look at why the packages do not get added to the new I4E release here? Help would be very appreciated.
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    @jastey You installed the tool correctly. It's GitHub who's stuck on "Starting your workflow run..." as you can see it here: https://github.com/Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever/runs/1084930657?check_suite_focus=true

    Can you open https://github.com/Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever/settings/actions and see if "Enable local and third-party Actions for this repository " is enabled?

    6f4kmsk4a9i8.png
    jastey
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    Thanks for the quick answer. Unfortunately I do not have the rights to see these settings. I'm contacting G3 admins currently.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @ALIEN
    Can you open https://github.com/Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever/settings/actions and see if "Enable local and third-party Actions for this repository " is enabled?
    It is enabled and it also was enabled before, but I didn't have admin rights when I integrated the .github/workflows folder, maybe that was the problem?
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    edited September 2020
    @jastey No, only 'Write' rights are necessary.
    I need you to perform some diagnostic:

    - Try to create a 'test' release inside you fork repo: https://github.com/Gitjas/Imoen4Ever/releases - it should definitely work for you.

    If that will work, you need to 'republish' v5beta release of the Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever:

    1. Remove current 'execution of the Infinity Auto Packager', nothing is really lost, it's just cleanup
    mvv0khfbsf93.png

    2. Edit v5beta release: https://github.com/Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever/releases/edit/v5beta
    3. Remove the associated tag from the release:
    3awv3yc6sg3v.png
    and click 'Update release'. That way, the release will be set as 'Draft'.

    4. Open 'v5beta draft release' again, set 'v5beta' tag again and click 'Update release'
    5. The release should be republished again and the new execution of the Infinity Auto Packager should trigger

    Let's hope that it was a temporary hangup on the GitHub side.
    jastey
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    edited September 2020
    @ALIEN thank you for the suggestions. I did so, but the workflow does not get started anew: https://github.com/Gibberlings3/Imoen4Ever/actions
    Maybe it is because G3 GitHub is an organization and I am not an Owner? You already said that writing rights should suffice, I'm just guessing because it was no problem to tag a test release in my own GitHub Repo.
    I'll come back to this after I tagged a new release at G3 in the future.
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    @jastey Yep, probably it was a temporary issue.

    For the record, in case this error will occur again: you don't have to create a new release/new tag. You just have to follow the instructions above. The release can be set to 'Draft' and published again or deleted and recreated in order to trigger the new attempt to create packages.

  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @ALIEN I did the suggestion with setting it to draft and re-releasing it (twice), but it didn't (re)start the workflow in my case.
    The Beta 0.2 contains fixes so that was no extra work in that case.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @ALIEN I am still appreciating the work this tool saves me. Thank you again for your work on this.

    I am a bit unhappy with the naming scheme of it, though. That or I am doing something wrong when versioning my releases.

    For example, for this repository the automated generated packages (for this version) ended up having the name "-veaob.1.zip" and "-veaob.1.iemod". I uploaded a renamed package by hand.

    For this repository, the name (for this version) became "grey-the-dog-npc-for-bgt-bgeesod-bgiiee-and-eet-5.zip" which is a bit long.

    I assume the tool goes for something like repo name+version number, so I am not sure what happened in these instances.

    Do I need to do something differently or is this something you can fix on your end? Is there an error in the InfinityAutoPackager.yaml I am using maybe?
  • GwendolyneGwendolyne Member Posts: 461
    The first part of the release name is taken from the mod.ini name keyword:
    Name = Grey the Dog NPC for BGT, BG:EE(SoD), BGII:EE, and EET
    

    If the ini file does not exist, I guess it takes the mod folder name.
    jastey
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    @Gwendolyne ah, that makes a lot of sense. I wasn't aware it takes the name from the .ini, I thought it uses the Repo name somehow.
    So the Grey mod name was because I chose a stupid mod name in the .ini and the name for BST was because I forgot to put in an .ini yet. @ALIEN I can live with that. :)
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    @jastey

    Gwendolyne is right, it takes the name from ini. I already saw that you have altered 'Grey the Dog NPC', added new guidelines to the wiki.

    My motivation for use ini was to skip 'yet another place' where you would need to provide 'customized package name' :wink:

    BTW: That version name for "Balduran's Seatower" mod is really awful. It doesn't mean anything. It should be number with 'alpha' or 'beta' to give players some indication of what they are dealing with.
  • jasteyjastey Member Posts: 2,669
    edited December 2020
    ALIEN wrote: »
    BTW: That version name for "Balduran's Seatower" mod is really awful. It doesn't mean anything. It should be number with 'alpha' or 'beta' to give players some indication of what they are dealing with.
    EAOB stand for Early Access Open Beta, which people know when they download the mod after reading the full version title.
    Besides, naming it alpha/beta.xy wouldn't have helped with the name the Infinity Auto Packager gave the packages which lacked the actual mod name.
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    edited December 2020
    @jastey Point taken, I'm nitpicking too much.
    jastey wrote: »
    Besides, naming it alpha/beta.xy wouldn't have helped with the name the Infinity Auto Packager gave the packages which lacked the actual mod name.
    That's a bug and it will be fixed.
    Post edited by ALIEN on
    jastey
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    edited September 2022
    @ALIEN - I'm new to working with GitHub workflows. I want to tweak the workflow to copy the README.md file from the main folder of the repository into the mod folder for packaging (i.e., so I don't need to maintain two copies of the README).

    Any advice on how to add that to the workflow?

    Thanks!

    EDIT: Nevermind! Solved it!
    name: copy readme
    on: [push]
    jobs:
      build:
        name: Build
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        steps:
        - uses: actions/checkout@master
        - name: copy file with args
          uses: canastro/copy-file-action@master
          with:
            source: "README.md"
            target: "ChattyImoen/README.md"
            flags: "-f"
        - name: Commit files
          run: |
            git config --local user.email "action@github.com"
            git config --local user.name "GitHub Action"
            git add ChattyImoen/README.md
            git commit -m "Add changes" -a
        - name: Push changes
          uses: ad-m/github-push-action@master
          with:
            github_token: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}
    
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,270
    edited September 2023
    @AstroBryGuy Hey! This is a very nice solution, which doesn't interfere with Infinity Auto Packager, congrats man!

    I've played with it a bit and come up with a general solution that runs only when README.md file is modified and doesn't require constant modification of 'MOD_FOLDER' name. It should work for standard mod directory structure aka: MyMod/MyMod.tp2.
    name: Copy README.md
    
    on:
      push:
        paths: 'README.md'
      workflow_dispatch:
    
    jobs:
      CopyREADME:
        if: github.ref_type != 'tag'
        name: Copy README.md
        runs-on: ubuntu-latest
        permissions: write-all
        steps:
          
          - name: Checkout repository
            uses: actions/checkout@master
            
          - name: Find tp2 file
            uses: ab185508/file-type-finder@v1.0.0
            id: findtp2file
            with:
              path: "/"
              type: ".tp2"
          
          - name: Get mod folder name
            uses: JungWinter/split@v2.1.0
            id: split
            with:
              separator: '''' # split by two single quote characters 
              msg: ${{ steps.findtp2file.outputs.names }}
          
          - name: Copy README.md into mod folder
            uses: canastro/copy-file-action@master
            with:
              source: "README.md"
              target: "${{ steps.split.outputs._1 }}/README.md"
              flags: "-f"
    
          - name: Git add & commit
            uses: EndBug/add-and-commit@v9.1.3
    
    Post edited by ALIEN on
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    @ALIEN - Thank you! Your GitHub workflow skills are awesome!
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