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Consider axo.dev for shipping binaries

Open BD103 opened this issue 1 year ago • 10 comments
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As stated in the Design Constraints:

  • The editor should be distributed as an executable, either directly from the Bevy website or via Steam.
    • This makes it easier for non-technical users to install.

I highly recommend using the tools offered by https://axo.dev to do so. Not only are they maintained by highly reputable members of the Rust community, but they're open-source, active, and used by countless other big names.

For starters, I recommend:

  • cargo-dist: automatically builds and publishes programs (it even supports installers, such as Windows's MSI)
  • axoupdater: automatic, configurable updates

BD103 avatar Sep 23 '24 01:09 BD103

Awesome; I'm fine with that to build our binaries. I'd still very much like to ship on Steam, both for distribution and dogfooding though.

alice-i-cecile avatar Sep 23 '24 02:09 alice-i-cecile

Since we now have milestones corresponding to the roadmap, I took the liberty of assigning a milestone to this PR. Feel free to change the assigned milestone, as "I have no power here"

rewin123 avatar Sep 23 '24 16:09 rewin123

Have we fully decided on weather or not the distributed binaries will be a "launcher" type to handle recompiling the editor when necessary? or will we not worry about that till later iterations?

Atlas16A avatar Sep 25 '24 21:09 Atlas16A

Later iterations. We need to see what our technical limitations are.

alice-i-cecile avatar Sep 26 '24 00:09 alice-i-cecile

I'd support using cargo-dist, however I'm unsure if we should have automatic updates? Reason being most people will want to use the same version of the engine through out their development to avoid breaking changes between versions.

On the other hand for alpha/beta stages autoupdates can make sense, since it'd be more for feature testing, ensuring things work etc.

Atlas16A avatar Sep 26 '24 12:09 Atlas16A

I'd support using cargo-dist, however I'm unsure if we should have automatic updates? Reason being most people will want to use the same version of the engine through out their development to avoid breaking changes between versions.

On the other hand for alpha/beta stages autoupdates can make sense, since it'd be more for feature testing, ensuring things work etc.

i think it would make sense to have in app updates as oppose to auto updates. so a popup with a notification is show that there is a new version on launch. and if you click no you can go to setting and click update

n1ght-hunter avatar Oct 01 '24 08:10 n1ght-hunter

i think it would make sense to have in app updates as oppose to auto updates.

These were my thoughts as well. When I refer to "automatic updates", I mean as opposed to re-downloading the executable from Github.

BD103 avatar Oct 01 '24 11:10 BD103

Depending on how many breaking changes we make from one version to the other, auto update is a bad idea. It breaks the user flow when stuff stops working and can be a real pain to get back.

I would limit to a process that checks if there is a newer version available and possibly a link to download it

naomijub avatar Oct 03 '24 13:10 naomijub

Yes! Just to clarify: When I say automatic updates, what I mean is in-program updates. The program can update itself without the user re-downloading it. I don't think it should automatically do these updates without user confirmation though.

BD103 avatar Oct 03 '24 13:10 BD103

Yes! Just to clarify: When I say automatic updates, what I mean is in-program updates. The program can update itself without the user re-downloading it. I don't think it should automatically do these updates without user confirmation though.

Yes I understood that, but to you new point. I would be extra careful with just letting the user approve and self replace. It might have a change that breaks something that the user does. If we could preserve both binaries for an extra approval to self replace would be interesting

naomijub avatar Oct 03 '24 13:10 naomijub

https://axo.dev

It seems that axo.dev has been taken over by scammers. Not sure if it's just temporary or if axo has moved onto a new domain.

Freyja-moth avatar Oct 10 '25 17:10 Freyja-moth

Ah, I forgot to update the issue. I believe axo.dev lost funding / the company shut down, although it looks like cargo-dist is still somewhat active. Either way, I don't know how reliable they are at this point.

BD103 avatar Oct 11 '25 01:10 BD103