Godot: Better root path for assetlib unzipping

[bojidar-bg]

Operating system or device - Godot version:
Arch Linux x64, Godot "master"

Issue description (what happened, and what was expected):
As I was installing the all-new GroupManager plugin (by @kubecz3k ), it failed to install it in the res://addons folder, but unzipped it in the root folder instead. With @akien-mga we discussed on IRC that res://addons/<name>/ would be way better for an install path for non-templates. @reduz WDYT?

Steps to reproduce:
Download any asset from asset lib, it would install it in res://, not in res://addons//

Link to minimal example project (optional but very welcome):

[akien-mga]

In case the res://addons/<name> path is occupied, a unique name should be created to avoid overwriting a potential other addon with the same name. It could easily be done by appending a number to the name just like done when duplicating nodes.

[bojidar-bg]

I disagree, if we do this the paths inside scenes would be totally broken.

[akien-mga]

I don't see why they should be more broken than with res://addons/<name>. Do you expect people to pack their scenes in the root folder of their repo, but code them to expect paths starting with addons/<name>?
Either we fix paths ourselves on install, or we don't promise that absolute paths would work. I'm still not sure what would have hardcoded paths though, as we excluded templates already.

[kubecz3k]

If you are arguing about what to do if many plugins have the same folder name... then well, when it comes to asset Store we could not allow to update plugin with exactly the same name as any other plugin that's already in a store. When it comes to manually installed plugins via Godot UI maybe just throw an informational error that plugin cant be installed, together with reason?

[reduz]

1) Plugins should be always zipped from the root dir, i don't think one has
to expect them to unzip in addons/ or anywhere in particular
2) If files conflict, the unzip dialog already shows this and you can
choose what to overwrite

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 9:29 AM, kubecz3k [email protected] wrote:

If you are arguing about what to do if many plugins have the same folder
name... then well, when it comes to asset Store we could not allow to
update plugin with exactly the same name as any other plugin that's already
in a store. When it comes to manually installed plugins via Godot UI maybe
just throw an informational error than plugin cant be installed?

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[akien-mga]

So what's the point of the res://addons folder then? I thought it was hardcoded somewhere? (#4279)

Still, it's fully unmanageable to unzip the contents of github zip archives in res://. At the very least, 50% assets will have conflicting LICENSE.md, LICENSE.txt or README.md files.
I kind of fail to see how we want to handle all that..

[akien-mga]

Which also means that people will choose not to install the README.md or LICENSE file to avoid overwriting their own/that of another plugin, and thus miss potentially important info in the README.md, and potentially violate the license if it's one that requires to distribute the full license text and it's not hardcoded in the plugin's files.

[akien-mga]

As mentioned initially, I think there's no better solution than to unzip each asset in its own folder, and let the users manage their filesystem themselves. There's nothing I dislike more than self-extracting archives that pollute my project trees.

I'd be for installing all assets to res://assetlib/<name>/ and let people do what they want with the content they download there. Some might want to keep it there for traceability, others might prefer to move the files individually to wherever they would be most sensible in their project (moving art assets to an art/ folder, or to player/john_doe/hat.png, etc.).

[bojidar-bg]

I'd be for letting the user choosing his own target folder, with probably some per-asset default.

[reduz]

The problem is that there is a lot of things you want to download that:
1) Are not addons
2) Include scenes/assets, which will not like it if you move directory
3) Include settings of engine.cfg that you might want to merge or not.

So the limitation of README.md files being polluted is unavoidable, and
trying to work around this will make the whole system a lot more complex.
If you really hate this, we could make an option to rename those files with
the name of the asset upon install, like README.assetname.md

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 1:44 PM, Rémi Verschelde [email protected]
wrote:

As mentioned initially, I think there's no better solution than to unzip
each asset in its own folder, and let the users manage their filesystem
themselves. There's nothing I dislike more than self-extracting archives
that pollute my project trees.

I'd be for installing all assets to res://assetlib// and let people
do what they want with the content they download there. Some might want to
keep it there for traceability, others might prefer to move the files
individually to wherever they would be most sensible in their project
(moving art assets to an art/ folder, or to player/john_doe/hat.png,
etc.).

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[reduz]

We can just harcode a list of files and document it.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 2:05 PM, Juan Linietsky [email protected] wrote:

The problem is that there is a lot of things you want to download that:
1) Are not addons
2) Include scenes/assets, which will not like it if you move directory
3) Include settings of engine.cfg that you might want to merge or not.

So the limitation of README.md files being polluted is unavoidable, and
trying to work around this will make the whole system a lot more complex.
If you really hate this, we could make an option to rename those files with
the name of the asset upon install, like README.assetname.md

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 1:44 PM, Rémi Verschelde [email protected]
wrote:

As mentioned initially, I think there's no better solution than to unzip
each asset in its own folder, and let the users manage their filesystem
themselves. There's nothing I dislike more than self-extracting archives
that pollute my project trees.

I'd be for installing all assets to res://assetlib// and let
people do what they want with the content they download there. Some might
want to keep it there for traceability, others might prefer to move the
files individually to wherever they would be most sensible in their project
(moving art assets to an art/ folder, or to player/john_doe/hat.png,
etc.).

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[reduz]

That won't work because assets use absolute paths, and you won't be able to
lift the asset from github if you needed to export to relative for this.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Bojidar Marinov [email protected]
wrote:

I'd be for letting the user choosing his own target folder, with probably
some per-asset default.

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[eon-s]

What about a "res://assetlib" directory created with the project and set as default assetlib install location? (or add an option to set the default location when creating a project)
If a tool need a specific path, that should be on the readme and can be fixed by the user after installing it.

ps: Also, give the option to create a folder (or two) when installing, I would like to put my downloaded tools in assetlib/tools, scripts on assetlib/scripts, etc., if possible.

[reduz]

nope, Godot uses absolute paths so it's simply not possible to unzip into a
different location than res://

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 10:39 PM, eon-s [email protected] wrote:

What about a "res://assetlib" directory created with the project and set
as default assetlib install location? (or add an option to set the default
location when creating a project)
If a tool need a specific path, that should be on the readme and can be
fixed by the user after installing it.

ps: Also, give the option to create a folder (or two) when installing, I
would like to put my downloaded tools in assetlib/tools, scripts on
assetlib/scripts, etc., if possible.

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[reduz]

You can do this in Unity because files are referenced by a metadata ID, but
we decided not to do this in Godot for the sake of simplicity.
As a result, assets go to res:// and nowhere else.

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 10:52 PM, Juan Linietsky [email protected] wrote:

nope, Godot uses absolute paths so it's simply not possible to unzip into
a different location than res://

On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 10:39 PM, eon-s [email protected] wrote:

What about a "res://assetlib" directory created with the project and set
as default assetlib install location? (or add an option to set the default
location when creating a project)
If a tool need a specific path, that should be on the readme and can be
fixed by the user after installing it.

ps: Also, give the option to create a folder (or two) when installing, I
would like to put my downloaded tools in assetlib/tools, scripts on
assetlib/scripts, etc., if possible.

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[bojidar-bg]

@reduz What about doing dependency fixation after/while the unzip happens?

[eon-s]

@reduz I can't argue against simplicity.
So, assetlib content creators may need to follow some (informal) protocol like using reverse domain name notation for the main project directories and detailed readme, license.

[reduz]

Yeah, I prefer we fix this with docs than code

On Aug 4, 2016 3:28 PM, "eon-s" [email protected] wrote:

@reduz https://github.com/reduz I can't argue against simplicity.
So, assetlib content creators may need to follow some (informal) protocol
like using reverse domain name notation for the main project directories
and detailed readme, license.

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[Zylann]

So for example, my terrain plugin would be installed at:
res://assetlib/zylann/terrain/plugin.cfg ?
Which is res://<non_user_created_folder>/<maintainer_name>/<plugin_name>/.

By the way, this issue is about filesystem namespace, but there will be a similar issue with types created by plugins (we don't have any namespace system). What if two plugins have a node name conflict? (but I guess it will become a separate issue in the future)

[eon-s]

@Zylann I think it will be just:
res://<maintainer_project>

As it is now, the asset creator has to create the all the folders and files as she/he wants it to appear in the user project.

So if you want it:
res://assetlib/zylann/terrain/
You need to make a project :
/assetlib/zylann/terrain/

For plugin problems, maybe that should be managed by the plugin enabler, showing a message if there is a conflict with an active plugin (I don't know if that is possible or already exists).

[bojidar-bg]

Here is another option, though it is pretty hard to implement properly -- have each addon have its own res:// scope, unrelated to other addons. The only way to reference non-scope resources then would be by exporting them.

Though that would take a week to implement properly, I'm listing it for completeness :smile:

[Zylann]

@eon-s the reason why I used assetlib (or whatever) as root is to make it more official that "this part of the tree is third-party". It's a bit of a personal preference, but at least it won't pollute the root folder namespace with folders from a different origin/meaning.

@bojidar-bg I kinda like the idea but the fact other addons are inaccessible might be problematic if your addon can extend/communicate another. What do you mean by "exporting them"?

[reduz]

I still think you guys are worrying too much about something that is not
really a problem. We should simply define some sort of standard naming
convention for projects and that's it

On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 7:21 AM, Bojidar Marinov [email protected]
wrote:

Here is another option, though it is pretty hard to implement properly --
have each addon have its own res:// scope, unrelated to other addons. The
only way to reference non-scope resources then would be by exporting them.

Though that would take a week to implement properly, I'm listing it for
completeness 😄

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[bojidar-bg]

@reduz I agree, I was just listing it as a yet another solution

[vnen]

Currently plugins are looked into addons/plugin right? So maybe it's simpler to just make the plugin folder have some namespacing convention like addons/vnen.myplugin.

[reduz]

I wonder if we have more chances of the plugin name colliding than the
username colliding :P

On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 7:10 PM, George Marques [email protected]
wrote:

Currently plugins are looked into addons/plugin right? So maybe it's
simpler to just make the plugin folder have some namespacing convention
like addons/vnen.myplugin.

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[Zylann]

Godot 2.1 is out, but my plugin doesn't works because my .cfg is in addons/zylann/terrain/plugin.cfg, and Godot doesn't looks that far. I can hack engine.cfg to it looks to zylann/terrain instead of terrain, but it doesn't makes the plugin visible in the settings. Should I make it so pluging.cfg is one folder above so Godot finds it? Or will plugin.cfg files be found recursively in a next release?

[bojidar-bg]

@Zylann Can you do addons/zylann.terrain? Like @vnen suggested.

[Zylann]

@bojidar-bg I don't like prefixing very much, given that it could be as simple as a folder in the filesystem. I can do that in the meantime but I'd like to know if it's going to stay that way?

[bojidar-bg]

@Zylann That's sole at @reduz's descision I think.

[Zylann]

IMO the editor should be able to spot plugins that are a bit deeper. Actually, it already works, you can write enabled = ["zylann/terrain"] in engine.cfg. But for some reason the editor won't show it :/

[BastiaanOlij]

I haven't read everyones comments however one thing that is important is that not all things in the asset library are actually add ons. Also changing paths can break the add on because many paths are set in the scene files.

I would suggest adding a path to the meta data in the asset library itself so the person releasing the asset still has control. So in the asset library I have defined to install my add on in 'addons/myaddon' and that is where Godot downloads the repository files too.

Note that depending on the type of asset you're registering in the asset library the asset library could suggest what that folder name should be. So for a demo asset, it will just be the root (empty), while for an addon it will suggest 'addons/myaddon'

[Calinou]

Closing in favor of https://github.com/godotengine/godot-proposals/issues/554, as feature proposals are now tracked in the Godot proposals repository.