assets dump

dave1707 · February 20

Here’s something I thru together trying to get used to using the new assets format. I don’t know if this will be useful or not to anyone. I didn’t set out to write this, I just ended up with it as I was playing with the different assets formats and commands. This is best viewed when run in portrait orientation. If this is useful to anyone, I can probably make it easier to use by eliminating some of the text input fields. The instructions will explain how to use it when you run it.

I put this in the beta category for now since this will only work with the beta code.

displayMode(STANDARD)

function setup()
    dy=0
    xx={}
    fill(255)
    textMode(CORNER)
    parameter.action("show builtin files",showBuiltin)
    parameter.text("builtin ext")
    parameter.action("list mtl",showMtl)
    parameter.action("list obj",showObj)
    parameter.text("folder")
    parameter.text("name")
    print("slide print area down if name isnt showing")
    print("mtl and obj text dump will show in this print area")
end

function draw()
    background(0)
    inst()
    cnt=0
    h=""
    if #xx>0 then
        for a,b in pairs(xx) do
            cnt=cnt+1
            s=string.find(b,".....",1,true)
            s1=string.sub(b,1,s-1)
            if s1~=h then
                cnt=cnt+2
            end
            text(b,10,HEIGHT-cnt*25+dy)
            h=s1
        end
    end
end

function touched(t)
    if t.state==MOVING then
        dy=dy+t.deltaY
        if dy<0 then
            dy=0
        end
    end
end

function showMtl()
    output.clear()
    if folder=="" or name=="" then
        print("folder or name error")
        return
    end
    tab=assets.builtin[folder].all
    for c,d in pairs(tab) do
        if string.find(c,name) and string.find(c,"mtl") then
            str=readText(d)
            print(name.."    ============")
            print(str)
        end            
    end
end

function showObj()
    output.clear()
    if folder=="" or name=="" then
        print("folder or name error")
        return
    end
    tab1=assets.builtin.all
    for a,b in pairs(tab1) do
        s=string.find(a,".",1,true)
        n=string.sub(a,1,s-1)
        n=string.gsub(n," ","_")
        tab=assets.builtin[n].all
        for c,d in pairs(tab) do
            if string.find(c,name) and string.find(c,"obj") then
                str=readText(d)
                print(name.."   ============")
                print(str)
            end            
        end
    end
end

function showBuiltin()
    shown=true
    dy=0
    output.clear()
    print("Creating list")
    xx={}
    tab1=assets.builtin.all
    for a,b in pairs(tab1) do
        s=string.find(a,".",1,true)
        n=string.sub(a,1,s-1)
        n=string.gsub(n," ","_")
        tab=assets.builtin[n].all
        for c,d in pairs(tab) do
            if builtin_ext=="" then
                table.insert(xx,a.."............"..c)
            elseif string.find(c,"."..builtin_ext) then
                table.insert(xx,a.."............"..c)
            end
        end
        table.sort(xx)
    end
end

function inst()
    if not shown then
        text("Instructions",50,HEIGHT-50)
        text("show builtin files:    shows a list of files",100,HEIGHT-100)
        text("builtin_ext:    can be one of",100,HEIGHT-125)
        text("mtl, obj, png, shader, plist",150,HEIGHT-150)
        text("if blank, shows all extensions",150,HEIGHT-175)
        text("list mtl:    shows contents of a mtl file",100,HEIGHT-250)
        text("list obj:    shows contents of an obj file",100,HEIGHT-275)        
        text("folder:    name of folder, can be one of",100,HEIGHT-300)
        text("   Basic, Blocks, Blocky Characters, etc.. ",150,HEIGHT-325)
        text("   if blank, prints folder or name error",150,HEIGHT-350)
        text("name:    name of file",100,HEIGHT-375)
        text("   if blank, prints folder or name error",150,HEIGHT-400)
        text("To start, just press      show builtin files",100,HEIGHT-450)
        text("    then scroll the list up/down",100,HEIGHT-475)        
        text("Run in portrait orientation for more room",100,HEIGHT-550)
    end
end

Simeon · February 20

Nice! How are you finding the new asset API compared to how we used to do things (assetList)?

dave1707 · February 20

@Simeon I’m finding the new assets harder to use than the older one. If I do something like sprite() or others where I can select between the (), then it’s no problem. But when I have to create my own string for things like for readText or saveText or createProject, then it take some trial and error before I get it to work. The new assets allows me to see more of the Codea files like I show in the above code, but I don’t have much use for that. I guess it’ll get easier the more I use them. I just don’t have them all in my memory yet, so I have to refer to code where I already used them to get the right syntax.

Simeon · February 20

Thanks for the feedback. I can see how the old syntax was simpler for both reading and saving

I had thought about making documents and builtin global names, along with project

So that it would be:

project.MyFile (instead of "Project:MyFile")
documents.MyFile (instead of "Documents:MyFile")
builtin.Pack.MyFile (instead of "Pack:MyFile")

But ultimately I wanted to encourage people to store assets in the project folder, so kept only the assets name out in the open. Not sure if I made the right choice. (Also thought about using the name asset instead, e.g., asset.MyFile)

dave1707 · February 20

@Simeon We'll see how it goes with the new assets. It might be just getting used to using it. Sometimes you use a period between the names, other time you skip the period and use [ ]. The hard part was going thru 600+ projects and seeing if I needed to change sprites or other thing that used the assets. That was on one iPad. Now I have to do the same with my other iPad because I have different projects on it.

RonJeffries · February 20

are we looking at an incompatible change for this new stuff? or just a useful new way?

Simeon · February 20

@RonJeffries old code will still work, but it will print a warning to the output pane to bug you to change

dave1707 · February 20

@RonJeffries I would say incompatible on some things. That’s what I’m running into now trying to make changes to some of my projects. The sprites and things like that are easy changes, but lists of projects or files isn’t the same.

Simeon · February 21

@dave1707 did you run into issues where your old projects stopped working if you didn't touch them? I was hoping the new assets API would be opt-in (e.g., just start using it for new projects, old ones continue to run as-is)

dave1707 · February 21

@Simeon I didn’t run into any issues other than all the warnings that popped up. I thought that you would eventually eliminate the old stuff so I converted my projects to use the new assets. That’s where I started to run into issues with things that didn’t seem compatible with what I was doing.

Question: Are you changing anything else with the assets. So if I don’t get a warning on something then it’s OK to keep using it. For instance, listProjects doesn’t give a warning but I was trying to use assets.documents.all . listProjects just returned a table of projects, whereas assets.documents.all returned a keyed table of a whole lot of things. That’s where I was running into problems and had to code around it.

Simeon · February 21

I'd eventually like to deprecate those functions too (though they will stick around for a long time), so I am glad that you tried to use them and found the pain points

After reading about the issues people face I was thinking to add some extra APIs

Namely, .type, .ext on asset folders as well. Because at the moment we only have these APIs for asset keys

That way getting the Codea projects would be

for _,v in pairs(assets.documents.all) do
    if v.type == PROJECT then
        -- do something
    end

    -- same functionality
    if v.ext == "codea" then
        -- do something
    end
end

I think having native filtering for tables would work nicely, but I need to find a good functional API for Lua. That way you could do something like

local projects = filter(assets.documents.all, function (v) 
    return v.type == PROJECTS
end)

Or we build this into the API and make .all a function that can accept parameters instead of a property

local allFiles = assets.documents.all()

local projects = assets.documents.all(PROJECTS)

Also considering renaming assets to asset before the beta is done. Having three ss in a keyword is bothering me

dave1707 · February 21

@Simeon I guess it’s going to take awhile to get this all straightened out. But I’m still going to try and get all the warnings eliminated.

Simeon · February 21

@dave1707 that's OK, just wondering if you had a preference in the API design for more convenience methods to access different subsets of folders

dave1707 · February 21

@Simeon I’m still playing with the asset stuff, but maybe something like what’s below or however you want to do it.

    --tab=assets.documents.all    -- create current keyed table of all files
    --tab=assets.documents.all("codea")   -- create table of just project names
    --tab=assets.documents.all("png")   -- create table of just image names
    --tab=assets.documents.all(" ")   -- create table of just folder names

Or maybe (“codea”,”png”) to combine things

    --tab=assets.documents.Craft.all()   -- same as above
    --tab=assets.documents.Dropbox.all()   -- same as above

    --tab=assets.builtins.all()   -- same as above

I think that a way to create regular tables of individual names would be very helpful. The keyed tables aren’t very useful. Right now I create a second table from the first keyed table, stripping off the extension names. Maybe a way to have a table of just names or another way to have names with extensions. I’m not sure if/when extension names are needed.

Also another thing I’m running into are spaces in the names. I have to replace the spaces with _ to get them to work. Maybe I need to use [ ], but I’m not sure, still experimenting.

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