[Feature Proposal] Rolling release Launcher/installer

[jurassicjordan]

Proposal for an idea on how blazium can be fully rolling release, using a launcher that automatically clones and builds the current state of the dev branch (or selected branch in launcher) and automatically build for user.

What if instead of making a big release, blazium was a rolling release engine. What you could release is a “launcher” that manages versions of blazium, and clones and builds it on the spot when you click install from a list of versions of blazium. Essentially a GitHub GUI but just for blazium that also builds and launches the engine

heres how I envision it:

• launcher, when freshly installed will give the user options set install, build and project directories
• launcher will have a 4 tabs
  • Tab for projects
  • Tab for Installed Blazium branches
  • Tab for Blazium branches available to clone and build
  • Tab for Asset lib
  • (bonus tab for asset lib assets that have been favorited/cached? (see https://discord.com/channels/1294004245489782896/1301651616478269541 for info on that idea. I should make an issue for that as well)
• I imagine you eventually plan on making a blazium 3.6 branch or something like that, but in the mean time the only option would be to just install 4.3
• install options would allow you to configure your build, select operating system (default would be current operating system launcher is running on for obvious reasons.
• install options would then let you choose if you want to choose a location for the binary or to just install to the launcher list (which would be default option)
• installing to launcher list would clone the selected branch repository to the build folder you selected when setting up the launcher first time. launcher will then preform the scons commands behind the GUI and build blazium, then move the binary to the installs folder, where the launcher will depict it in the installed tab as well
• from installed branches tab, you can choose to update your installed branches if PRs have been merged, by recloning and rebuilding.

I'm not a programmer, but I know that the main issue with this idea would be dependencies. thats something I haven't thought of yet.
perhapse the launcher can automatically install dependancies, but that would be tough for other devices like android, or even linux, being that every distribution has its own package manager. what are your thoughts on the idea?

[Captain-Wet-Beard]

Imo the problem this is meant to solve is mostly solved by using another OS. Most operating systems have a software manager to make managing software versions and handling all your dependencies very easy. Windows doesn't really have that, but that's just an inherent problem with Windows specifically.

I use an OS that's based around rolling software releases, so I can often install the fresh git versions of things through my software manager, but I still tend to prefer downloading precompiled binary releases because compiling software is more time consuming for the end user than just downloading the most recent binary release.

[heavymetalmixer]

Tbh I don't like this idea, unless it's completely optional.

Something common for game devs when choosing an engine, it's to grab a certain version and never change it until the game project is complete. If the engine were to update automatically (not asking to the user) it could create many issues for the projects.

Also, some of us prefere to stick to stable versions only.

[Bioblaze]

Imo the problem this is meant to solve is mostly solved by using another OS. Most operating systems have a software manager to make managing software versions and handling all your dependencies very easy. Windows doesn't really have that, but that's just an inherent problem with Windows specifically.

I use an OS that's based around rolling software releases, so I can often install the fresh git versions of things through my software manager, but I still tend to prefer downloading precompiled binary releases because compiling software is more time consuming for the end user than just downloading the most recent binary release.

I use windows, so I understand why the OP wants to have a launcher/installer which I believe more or less is what me and dragos already have planned.