How to manage mods in development?

[HomShaBom]

I was just curious how other people manage their in progress mods.

I used to just create a new folder in my Don't Starve Together/mods directory and work on it there. This made testing the mods effortless. The files already existed where they needed to whenever I wanted to test. All I had to do was save a change, run the game, and test it out. But the problem was when I got a new hard drive, had to reformat my machine, got a new computer, whatever, the point is I have lost mods that I've made or was in the process of making that I can never get back now.

 

Then I started using Google Drive so that my mods would exist both on my hard drive and in my Google account. But the problem with that was I had to either create the mod in the game's mods directory and remember to copy them to the google drive directory, or create them in google drive and have to deploy them to the mods directory whenever I wanted to test. I would inevitably become lazy and say oh i just forgot a negative sign or a parenthesis and make that change real quick the mods directory instead of google drive, and my folders would become out of sync and it was a disaster.

 

Now, I have a new idea. In my Google Drive I created a DST folder and inside of that I created a mods folder. Inside of that I create a folder for each mod. For example: C:\Users\<username>\Google Drive\DST\Mods\QuickActions. Then I used the mklink command to link a virtual directory at Steam\steamapps\common\Don't Starve Together\mods\QuickActions. This solves all of my problems. The files always physically exist in my Google Drive folder so every single change I make is sync'd to my Google Account so I'll never lose them, and DST treats the virtual direct as a regular directory so it picks up the mod files.

[Hero Complex]

I have 3 versions for the Starving Floor Revamped. Two are on the workshop (the release version and the testing version), and then I have my folder that I actually edit stuff in. The non-workshop version allows me to test things before I publish it to the testing version, which then allows me to see how it works for clients, and then if that's all good, I update the release version. Having the two versions on the workshop means that my files are safe if anything happens to my computer, and I have two chances to revert to an old version if I need to.

[Lumina]

2 hours ago, Hero Complex said:

which then allows me to see how it works for clients

Using a dedicated server is great for testing things client side. They are easier to set up now, but a world with both surface and caves should, now, also works like a dedicated server, code-wise.

Depending of your preferences, it could be easier for testing.

 

About the main topic, i'm not really organised. Time to time i copy my mod on an external hard drive, but it's all.

[HomShaBom]

On 6/19/2018 at 4:06 PM, Lumina said:

About the main topic, i'm not really organised. Time to time i copy my mod on an external hard drive, but it's all.

I think my new method would work wonderfully for someone like you. The mod files automatically sync to Google Drive with zero effort on your part after installing it and making the linked directory.

[Lumina]

I will probably look at this solution, yes, it seems to be a good option.

[K1NGT1GER609]

Usually I keep my mods in flash drives (one for current use, another for backup) for the most part as the flash drives has all my tools in there so I can edit my mods from nearly anywhere. Even though one time I had a fatal error that made safe mode even fail I still was able to extract my mod through sheer luck (there's lots of things I do that I forgot how to do in order to bypass the obstacles windows throws at me). I also have my mods posted here, on the steam workshop, and even dropbox at times so plenty of copies to fall back on. Otherwise I can hardly feel lazy when the work on my mods takes months at a time vs moving the mod around the file directory.

Edited June 25, 2018 by K1NGT1GER609

[Joachim]

I use git to sync my code. It's simple and effective. However, I did have to mount my folder (so I have a separate folder with the git folder and the mod data) to prevent the git files from being uploaded with the rest of the mod. 

I would never use Google drive for code, but that's just me. I like to keep all my code on git repositories. 

Edited July 1, 2018 by Joachim