makelove 0.0.2

A packaging tool for [löve](https://love2d.org) games

makelove

A packaging tool for löve games

Features

• Build fused win32 and win64 löve binaries (including handling of .exe metadata and icon, but only on Windows or with Wine!)
• Build AppImages using the AppImages from love-appimages (This is feature is only supported on Linux and WSL2. WSL does not support AppImages for a lack of FUSE support)
• Proper handling of shared libraries (both Lua modules and FFI)!
• Packaging of those binaries in archives, including extra files
• Versioned builds
• Control and customization along the way:
  • Configure which targets to build
  • Which files to include in the .love or the archive with a list of include/exclude patterns
  • Which löve binaries or AppImage to use as the base
  • Which artifacts to generate or keep
  • pre- and postbuild hooks that are able to change the configuration on the fly. For example you can decide dynamically which files to include in the .love (e.g. through parsing asset lists), inject build metadata or just to upload your build automatically afterwards (e.g. via butler to itch.io))

Planned

• Mac build support (help needed, since I do not have a Mac to test on)

Quickstart

To use makelove you need to install Python 3.7 or later and then execute (probably just pip on Windows):

pip3 install makelove

Then navigate to the directory containing the main.lua of your game (your game directory) and execute:

makelove --init

and enter the values you are prompted for. This will create a makelove.toml in your working directory.

It is also possible to execute makelove without any configuration file (makelove will try to guess every configuration parameter), but makelove --init does not take long to execute and will probably give you way better results.

If you want to do unversioned builds, it's simply enough to invoke makelove:

makelove

If you wish to version your builds, you should pass a version the first time you build:

makelove --version 0.1

For all subsequent builds the version number will simply be bumped unless you specify a version explicitely and an invocation of makelove without arguments is enough.

There are a number of arguments you can specify to customize the build (e.g. to specify a configuration file explicitely, disable hooks, produce more verbose output or check the config file), so make sure to have a look at the help text of makelove:

makelove --help

Configuration

All possible configuration values are shown and explained in makelove_full.toml (not a valid makelove configuration).

Hooks are capable of rewriting the config for a build. For more information on configuring hooks, see hooks.md (coming soon!)

If you wish to do some extravagant things, have a look at how_to_x.md, which may list what you are trying to do. If there is anything that you want to do, but can't please let me know and I will try to add whatever is needed, if the change is reasonable.