introduction to using git for factorio mods

[tall cedar]

Allright so in this thread im helping him with trying to get an understanding of git and using it for factorio mods.
It will not the "most ideal" setup but rather the bare minimum to get a basic understanding on how to use it.

Others are free to lurk and share additional tips & tricks, and hopefully this thread gets found in the future and also help other aspiring modders to get their git game off the ground, so yes without further adue, lets get started:

Whilst "git" is compatible with many online git platforms, for the purpose of this tutorial we'll stick with github

so step one is making sure you either register or login: https://github.com/signup

[sand moss]

great

i already have an account

[tall cedar]

allright, ontop step 2, a git gui

whilst prominent git users prefer using the commandline we'll be sticking to applications that offer a gui in which you can quickly see new/modified files, many such applications exist and will function in a similar fashion, but for this example we'll use github desktop: https://desktop.github.com/download/

[sand moss]

its downloading

alrigyht installing

[tall cedar]

once installed it should prompt you to login to github via the browser

and if not, find the settings page which contains a login button

[sand moss]

ok im in

[tall cedar]

now there are two paths to take: creating a new github repository on the website, or initializing a git repo within your local modding folder, though you have an existing mod for the purpose of avoiding "git init" for this simple tutorial we'll start with a new repository

go to https://github.com/new and set the repository name (next to your profile picture) to the name of your mod's folder

do not include the version number

so something like:

[sand moss]

ok then?

[tall cedar]

the rest of the settings on the page can be left as their default, though you might want to pick a licence so the repository is not completely empty

[sand moss]

mhm

done

[tall cedar]

after creating the repo you should have landed on it's new page

now in the github desktop app you should be able to search for the repo

do not click anything else yet, just confirm it is in the list

[sand moss]

found

[tall cedar]

head into your factorio mods directory

we'll rename the mining drill mod's folder and add _old or _tmp after the name

we'll be "cloning" the git repository directly into the mods folder during this tutorial and names cannot collide, afterwards we'll merge the folders again

[sand moss]

problem

the mining drill mod
is just age of production

this is an update

[tall cedar]

what is the problem?

[sand moss]

idk im confused now

[tall cedar]

what did you name your git repository?

[sand moss]

just test for now because after this i would've made the actual age of production repo

[tall cedar]

it'll be easier if you just made the age-of-production repository now

[sand moss]

ill do that then

do i follow the same process or do i have to do something different

[tall cedar]

the same way will be fine

[sand moss]

alright

done

[tall cedar]

oh hang on looks like your mod's name on the portal is with uppercases

[sand moss]

im aware

thats why i named it Age-of-Production

[tall cedar]

does your git repo have uppercase too?

excelent

[sand moss]

like the folder its in

i already dealt with this

me and my love for uppercase smh

[tall cedar]

so the next step, rename your current Age-of-Production mod's folder to Age-of-Production-old

[sand moss]

done

[tall cedar]

now in the github desktop application search for the repo and press clone

set the "local path" to your factorio mods folder

[sand moss]

alright

clone?=

[tall cedar]

yes

[sand moss]

alright

got it

[tall cedar]

do you now have both a Age-of-Production and a Age-of-Production-old folder?

[sand moss]

mhm

[tall cedar]

allright, now drag all the contents of the old folder into the new one

[sand moss]

mhm

[tall cedar]

now in the github desktop app you should see a whole list of changed files

there should be a checkbox to select all of them

[sand moss]

yeah

[tall cedar]

now we should come up with a nice message, customary the first one is called "Initial commit" but since you've created a licence during repository creation that message is already taken,
so perhaps an "Upload mod to git" / "Added mod to git" / "Initial commit 2: electric boogaloo"

[sand moss]

what

[tall cedar]

enter "any text" in the Summary (required) field

[sand moss]

ok then?

[tall cedar]

commit to main

and afterwards near the top there should be a "push origin" button with a number beside it

[sand moss]

ok and?

because i accidentally clicked it

[tall cedar]

that'd be a good thing

could you send me a screenshot of the application? i feel like something didn't quite work

[tall cedar]

ah i see, its simply so big that the initial push is taking several minutes

[sand moss]

the pushing finished

[sand moss]

and my wifi sucks currently
well actually- no im going offtopic its not important

anyhow

whats next

[tall cedar]

a pat on the back for having uploaded your mod to git 🎉
https://github.com/AndreusAxolotl/Age-of-Production

-# sorry for everyone else following along now or in the future, its not exactly a clear tutorial

[sand moss]

why are there 2

😭

[tall cedar]

because you named your licence LICENCE.txt

the convention is to have it without the extention

[sand moss]

ok i deleted it

gone

[tall cedar]

now in the summary field type "Deleted duplicate licence", commit & push

or if you deleted it from the github site, then press pull

[sand moss]

i just commited the change like github automatically named it

from the site

its done

what now

[tall cedar]

pull

[sand moss]

?

[tall cedar]

at the top under repository, there should be a pull button

[sand moss]

on the site or on the desktop?

[tall cedar]

desktop

[sand moss]

ok done

[tall cedar]

now that your mod is safely within git, this will be your workflow:

• make any amount of changes to your mod
• when done and wanting to stash/mark your work, select all the modified files and write in the summary field what you did, like "added new entity" / "fixed bug x" / etc
• commit
  -push

and when you get a pull request from someone (e.g. me) you'll want to:

• push
• merge the pull request
• pull
  (not pushing first will lead to having to make a merge, which can be a can of worms initially)

[sand moss]

alright

guess we'll try that now

do i delete the -old folder?

[tall cedar]

the old folder should be empty now anyways, so yes

[sand moss]

and also
i head there was a thing to directly upload stuff from the repository on the factorio site
yk how to do that?

[tall cedar]

that would be the fmtk vscode extention

[sand moss]

do you know how to set it up?

and stuff?

[tall cedar]

i haven't really played around with it yet, i wrote my own upload script

[sand moss]

i should already have it

just havent got to using it

[sand moss]

oh

@tall cedar so about the surface limit?

[tall cedar]

now that you've added the project to git i can start writing some code for it

[sand moss]

yeah

[sand moss]

will it take long?

[tall cedar]

i'll get back to you later today

[sand moss]

gotcha

thanks btw

[languid reef]

It's also possible with Github Actions. Fgardt has made a whole git repo template that has this implemented which you can clone and give it your Mod portal API key and it works automagically.

It does require you to work in separate branches as not to upload a new version of your mod every time you push to main.

[tawdry jay]

there's also https://github.com/Penguin-Spy/factorio-mod-portal-publish/ which only activates whenever a new version tag is pushed (and doesnt auto generate changelogs)

[sand moss]

how does this work