The Admin Tool - emanzione/PATCH GitHub Wiki
Before you can start updating your game, you have to perform some initialization tasks.
Initialization
Go on Window > PATCH > Admin Tool
or press Alt + Shift + P
: this will initialize the workspace. If you now click on Window > PATCH > Go to Workspace folder
or press Alt + Shift + O
the workspace will open and you will see some new folders: App
, Builds
, Patches
, Updater
.
Commandline equivalent
Run the command
.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe init
: this will initialize the workspace. You will find anApp
folder in the same folder. TheApp
folder will contains your game's current files.
Using the Admin CLI
If you want to use the Admin CLI, it can be found in the
Assets\MHLab\Patch\Admin\MHLab.Patch.Admin.Commandline.7z
archive (for Basic version) and inAssets\MHLab\Patch\MHLab.Patch.zip
(for Plus version). Extract the project somewhere and open it with your IDE. If you own the Basic version, you will need to add the two DLLs (MHLab.Patch.Core.Admin.dll
andMHLab.Patch.Core.dll
, contained in the archive) as dependencies of your project. Then you can build it, the output will be the .exe file you can use.
The first game version
Now you just need to build your game as I explained here. Once you done and built files are available, move all of them to the App
folder (or build directly inside it) inside the PATCH's workspace.
Go to Admin Tool > Builds
and hit Initial build
button.
Commandline equivalent
Run the command
.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build
After the computation, you will notice new files and folder spawned in your Builds
folder:
0.1.0
folder, it contains your game's files with some metadata about the version numberbuilds_index.json
file, it contains metadata about all versionsbuild_0.1.0.json
file, it contains metadata about the specific version
Upload the first build
It's a good time to upload files! Upload the Builds
folder (containing 0.1.0
folder, builds_index.json
and build_0.1.0.json
files) to the /Builds
folder on your web server.
Hint
To test if your files are reachable by the Launcher, just navigate over them with a normal web browser. Assuming we uploaded files at
http://localhost/patch/
, we will navigate onhttp://localhost/patch/Builds/builds_index.json
(note the/Builds
folder in the URL, which is the correct location where the Launcher will look for that file). The browser now should show a JSON string. You can also use theTest Remote URL
button in LauncherData component to do the same!
The second version
When you made enough changes to your game and you want to deploy a new version, just build your game again and put it in App
folder. Go to Admin Tool > Builds
again. This time you can notice that more options exist.
Before proceeding, you should take a look at Release type
. It regulates how the version number is increased and contains three options:
Patch release
: with a previous version number of 2.3.6, a patch release will change the version number to 2.3.7. It is used for very little changes, hotfixes and similar stuff.Minor release
: with a previous version number of 2.3.6, a minor release will change the version number to 2.4.0. It is used for minor changes or additions to the existing functionalities.Major release
: with a previous version number of 2.3.6, a major release will change the version number to 3.0.0. It is used for major changes/additions to the existing functionalities or for changes/additions that break the backward compatibility.
Commandline equivalent
You can set the Release Type in the commandline too:
.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build
for a Patch Release,.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build -r minor
for a Minor Release,.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build -r major
for a Major Release. You can even pass in an explicit version number, if needed, for example:.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build -b 0.1.2
Warning
The Release type
Patch release
has nothing in common with the ability to generate a patch between two game versions. It is just a way to regulate the version number!
Pick a release type accordingly to your needs and hit Build new version
button. Again, after some computation the process will complete and you will find in your Builds
folder a new version.
Commandline equivalent
You can use the command
.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build
or.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build -r minor
or.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe build -r major
Hint
You can avoid to upload all versions you built. Patches are enough to update your clients' game. Why would you want to upload a build, then? Because of the repair functionality. Patches can be applied only if the game files' state is correct. So if your client corrupts a file or tries to modify it, the patch cannot be applied. The repairer runs exactly for this reason: if a file is corrupted, the correct state is restored. The repairer also runs if the client's version is really old. Really old = the local version does not exist on the server and the smallest available version is bigger than the local version. Remember: when you want to upload a new build, you must upload always version-specific files and folders (
0.1.1
folder andbuild_0.1.1.json
, for example), but also the index file (builds_index.json
).
Generating the first patch
At this point you have two versions of your game. It's time to generate a patch between them: in this way updating from the old version to the new one will be a breeze.
Go to Admin Tool > Patches
. Set the version from / version to (it is automatically set on last two versions, for your convenience) and the compression level, then hit Build new patch
button.
Hint
The compression level can go from 1 to 9. It impacts how strong the compression for that patch will be: lower levels offer better compression time but worse compression ratio.
When the process completes, you will find new files in your Patches
folder (let's say your versions are 0.1.0 and 0.1.1):
- patches_index.json file: it tracks down all patches you built
- 0.1.0_0.1.1.json file: it contains metadata about the patch between version 0.1.0 and version 0.1.1
- 0.1.0_0.1.1.zip file: it is a compressed archive that contains actual files needed to apply this patch
Commandline equivalent
Run the command
.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe patch
. It will generate a patch between your latest two versions. Run the command.\MHLab.Patch.Admin.exe patch --from 0.1.0 --to 0.1.1
instead to specify which versions you want to target.
Upload the first patch
Upload 0.1.0_0.1.1.zip
, 0.1.0_0.1.1.json
and patches_index.json
files on your web server. Remember to always upload patches_index.json
everytime you upload a patch. So if your Remote URL is http:/localhost/patch
, you will upload your patch files at http:/localhost/patch/Patches/
.