All-in-one Packages

[ModernMAK]

Why i thought it was a good idea

All in one packages (Relic-Tool, SGA, Chunky) only exist to allow us to do something like

pip install relic-tool

Why it still kind-of is

Which makes sense for our plugin container packages

E.G.
pip install relic-tool-sga[all]
pip install relic-tool-sga[v2]

pip install relic-tool-chunky[all]
pip install relic-tool-chunky[v1]

Why it kind-of isn't

Relic tool can't leverage that level of depth
BUT, it can leverage GAME level packages, so maybe something like
pip install relic-tool[core]
pip install relic-tool[dow1]
pip install relic-tool[dow2]
pip install relic-tool[dow3]
And maybe some of the non-container plugins like UCS?

[vojcermak]

Hi.
From the perspective of someone who found these repos during his cracking of sga files. I would like to see something like
pip install relic-tool-sga to install a library, which can pack and unpack any version of sga. For unpacking you, probably don't know the version beforehand. For packing, I would imagine something like pack(.arciv, files, version). For other types of files, I would do it similarly.

How would it work:
pip install relic-tool - install the whole library with support for all file types.
pip install relic-tool-sga - install only support for sga.
pip install relic-tool-chunky - install only support for chunky.
...

I think that the current setup is too low-level. The implementation is scattered across too many separate repos. One other thing I don't understand is why the cli tool is integrated into the library itself. I would expect that the library is just to work with the files from Python code and the cli tool is separate, but built using this library. It would be a nice example of how to use the library.

PS: I am willing to help, but I don't know where I should start.

[ModernMAK]

Where to start

If your exclusively looking at SGA files; what games are you looking at?

Dawn of War / Impossible Creatures (SGA-V2) should be 'solved' I don't think there's any portion of it I haven't cracked

V5, V7, V9, V10 are all old, crusty, outdated and unmaintained

I stopped working on them because of scope creep, if you want to implement any of them, be my guest

My Current Path for the major packages

I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to get optional dependencies to work in SGA

The short answer was that I couldn't get it to work, and so I'm going the Monolith-Package route for the foreseeable future
A container plugin installs all relevant plugins, so it would work just as you described

pip install relic-tool - install the whole library with support for all file types.
pip install relic-tool-sga - install only support for sga.
pip install relic-tool-chunky - install only support for chunky.

Plus if PEP 774 passed, relic-tool[all] and relic-tool could be synonymous

Why is the CLI Builtin?

What are you suggesting it be otherwise?

Like a Monorepo?

Something like (in a new Relic-CLI package)

try:
   import relic.sga.v2
   plugin_installed = True
except:
   plugin_installed = False

def pack():
  if not plugin_installed:
    print("V2 Plugin not installed [...install instructions]")
  else:
   ....   

I'll admit that the biggest reason I did not do this, is that I hadn't considered it

That being said, I don't want to do this, as long as I'm doing a plugin architecture, plugin pinning means the CLI would have to be updated separately to match latest plugin changes

Like an optional dependency?

Something like (in SGA-V2)

try:
   import relic.cli
   plugin_installed = True
except:
   plugin_installed = False

def pack():
  if not plugin_installed:
    print("CLI not installed [...install instructions]")
  else:
   ....   

Not doing the above, only because it doesn't make sense to me with the current plugin architecture.

If I wanted optional CLI, I'd have a few routes I'd consider

1. new repo & package relic.cli which only defines the CLI script, relic.core would still define the CliPluginProtocol

• Probably the only solution I like, but...
• CLI logic is in relic.core, not relic.cli, confusingly
• relic.cli is only adding a script to the python environment, kindof like relic-tool-sga and relic-tool

2. new repo & package relic.cli.core which defines CLI, all plugins define ANOTHER package for CLI

• More Repos

CLI builtin is here to stay

The main reason I made multiple repositories/packages was so I could version pin parts of it, adding optional CLI just complicates this further.

Unless i refactor the code base again, it just makes sense with how i've structured the code to keep the CLI and the Library in the same package. I don't see a good reason to split them up.

Weak argument, I'm just unable to explain myself properly right now.

Make a separate issue if you want (or a discussion if I have that enabled) to continue this,

It's off topic so I don't want to continue it here

[ModernMAK]

I might consider backtracking on keepin CLI Builtin IF I move to typer

Primarily thinking of an install in blender, for WHM file support

Typer has it's own dependency tree which I can see bloating installs and making version pinning for somebody else's tool more difficult

That being said current CLI is all argparse, which is shipped with python, so aside from polluting scripts with a single top-lvel 'relic', shouldn't be an issue yet

Link to issue (for myself) #55