One little question about updating

[Nexusgot]

First of all, happy new year to everyone!

Ok, I'm working on a project based on 0 A.D. and now I'm on the Alpha 11. I noticed that a new Alpha 12 is out, so I was wondering something: can I update the version with all the new features, keeping the work I'm doing? For now my work is all about modeling, texturing and animating, not programming at all. So is it possible? Or do I have to download the new version and replace a backup of all my new files? Thanks.

[leper]

I'm not sure what modifications you did, but if you just replaced existing files (instead of adding new ones) you will have to make this modifications again. (For text files (eg. actors) using diff could save you some hassle).

I think it would be best if you started to use SVN if you want to benefit from the development and also to keep the work you have to do on each new release to a minimum.

So some more information would be great to help you further.

[Nexusgot]

Thanks for answering.

Well I added some models, textures and anims. I created some new folders to divide my files from the original ones. I added some templates and actors, and i modified a couple of existing templates, but nothing hard to do again. I modified a couple of textures too but I can make a backup and replace them in 2 mins. So if I use SVN could I only update without losing the work I did? And in this case from where I should update using SVN?

[leper]

If you want to switch to SVN, the easiest way is to checkout the SVN version (if you're on Windows using TortoiseSVN (guide on our wiki)) and make your changes to this version.

You can then update and if there are some changes that conflict with your changes SVN asks you to merge these changes manually (resolve the conflicts).

[dvangennip]

I would advice to put your changes in a mod folder, separate from the public mod. Just start 0 A.D. from the command line with:

pyrogenesis.exe -mod=<name of my mod folder> (or ./pyrogenesis -mod=<my mod> on UNIX-like systems)

This way your changes remain separate from the regular stuff and won't be affected by changes to it. In principle, if the engine encounters a duplicate file it uses the one in the mod (if I am not mistaken). That is easier than overwriting stuff. Second benefit of SVN is that it is easy to look in the original files for guidance on how to do stuff. Downside of using SVN: more work to get it going at first, plus (at least on OS X) way more disk space is taken.

[Yves]

I strongly encourage you to use SVN or GIT.

GIT is just another version control system like SVN and we will probably change to GIT in the next months.

Maybe SVN is better for you at the moment because there are more people here who use it and can help if you have problems and I'm not sure if the GIT mirror will stay stable all the time in the next months because of the migration.

It's quite easy to use if you just use it to update the game and it does not necessarily require you to build the game from source (there are prebuilt binaries created regularly). You can get to whatever version you like whenever you want!

If you find a bug in the engine and someone fixes it, you'd have to wait up to 4 months until the next alpha release or you can get it nearly instantly using SVN/GIT.

[Nexusgot]

Ok thank you all guys I'll try using SVN on a test folder and see what i get. I think it's the fastest way to do that.