microStudio is now open source!
microStudio is now open source, distributed under the MIT License!
https://github.com/pmgl/microstudio
Why it matters:
- You don't have to rely on one person anymore. Your projects were at risk until now. What if I am hit by a bus? What if I get bored and decide to unplug microStudio? You are now guaranteed to continue your project even if microStudio completely disappears from the net overnight.
- You can work locally, in your own private space. Some of you may be concerned to develop their next hit game in some "cloud" owned by a stranger. You can now work on your stuff very privately, alone on your computer or in a team strictly within your local network.
- If you need a specific feature for your game and I am not delivering, you can always fork the project and add it for yourself.
- You can help me fixing bugs, improving microStudio and creating new features
- If you think you can make a new, different and better microStudio, you can fork the whole project and start making your own engine out of it. I will be delighted to use it!
A few things you should be aware of
- I am a noob at git and github ; I commit everything to
master, knowing that's not the best practice. I will try to get better, please forgive me. - microStudio is written primarily in CoffeeScript. My code editor is set up to automatically compile to JavaScript when I save and place the JavaScript file in the same folder along the CoffeeScript file. Maybe not the best practice either, however that's how I do it. If you think that's awful, help me change to a better workflow :-)
- There is now a crucial need for export / import features (export your project from microstudio.dev to import it on your local install, or the other way round). I will add this very soon. It will also be a good way to backup projects, even if you are not using a local install of microStudio.
- Working 100% offline is almost possible, not completely yet though because tutorials are still downloaded from microstudio.dev. This is something I can fix quickly.
- microStudio has a built-in translation app which stores translated texts into the local database. Because of this, the translations are not part of the source code of microStudio yet. Some work is needed so that I can export the translations from microstudio.dev, add them to the official code base and make a specific loader to ensure embedded translations are loaded when running the project locally after cloning the project from Github.
- A few features are missing compared to the online version:
- sending mails: if you want your own install of microStudio to send mails (email validation, forgot password and the like), you will have to plug your own mail service. This is quite easy to do, there is a plugin system for it, I will try to document it when I can. In the meantime, if you need help with setting up e-mails, contact me!
- builders: Windows, macOS, Linux and Android builders live as separate projects interacting with the main microStudio server. Thus they can't really be part of this distribution. While setting up general builders as on microstudio.dev can be difficult, building an individual project for different targets isn't that complicated. I will try to provide some documentation about this in the future. In the meantime if you need to build locally for Windows / Mac / Linux, look into Electron and electron-quick-start, this is what I am using. If you need to build for Android / iOS, look into Cordova. There are many good tutorials out there!
