renconstruct 1.2.1

A utility script for automatically building Ren'Py applications for multiple platforms.

renConstruct

A utility script to automatically build Ren'Py applications for multiple platforms.

renConstruct can build distributions for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, including extra processing steps pre- and post-build. By default it supports notarization for macOS distributions, a memory limit increase for Windows distributions (using LARGEADDRESSAWARE) and cleanup of temporary build artifacts.

Custom pre- and post-build steps can easily be added.

Installation

renConstruct can be installed via pip:

$ pip install renconstruct

Please note that renConstruct requires Python 3 and will not provide backwards compatibility for Python 2 for the foreseeable future.

Usage

renConstruct operates based on the following process flow:

• Ensure dependencies are installed
• Validate configuration file
• Install specific version of Ren'Py if necessary
• Run the pre-build stage of all active tasks
• Build the Android distribution if enabled
• Build the macOS and Windows/Linux distributions if enabled
• Run the post-build stage of all active tasks

In the default configuration, the following tasks are executed at the respective build stage:

• pre-build:
  • None
• post-build:
  • set_extended_memory_limit
  • clean

Configuration

renConstruct requires a configuration file to be supplied containing the information required to complete the build process for the various platforms. An empty template is provided in this repository under the name config.empty.yml

It consists of the following sections:

tasks

• path: An optional path to a directory containing Python files with custom tasks
• set_extended_memory_limit: A value of true or false determining whether to run this task or not
• notarize: A value of true or false determining whether to run this task or not
• clean: A value of true or false determining whether to run this task or not

Custom Tasks

Custom tasks can easily be added using the path value. It should point to a directory containing Python files. Each file can contain one or more task, which will be picked up by renConstruct.

A task is an object that looks like this:

class DoSomethingTask():

    PRIORITY = -100

    def __init__(self, config):
        self.config = config

    def pre_build(self):
        pass

    def post_build(self):
        pass

The name of the class must end with Task for it to be picked up by renConstruct. Every custom task will automatically receive a setting in the config file based on the class name split on uppercase letters, converted to lowercase and joined by underscores. The example task above would receive the config variable do_something.

A task can have two methods pre_build and post_build (either or both is possible). They will be called with the validated config object at the specified build stage. At that point they can do whatever they want. As an example, a custom task could be built to automatically optimize image assets in the game directory before every build.

Each task also has a PRIORITY class attribute which has a default value of 0 and determines the order in which to run the tasks. A higher priority means that task will be executed earlier than others with a lower value. Both positive and negative values are possible.

As an example, the built-in clean task runs at PRIORITY = -1000 to ensure it's always the last task to be run.

build

• win: A value of true or false determining whether to build the Windows/Linux distribution or not
• mac: A value of true or false determining whether to build the macOS distribution or not
• android: A value of true or false determining whether to build the Android distribution or not

renutil

• version: The version of Ren'Py to use while building the distributions
• registry: A path where renutil data is stored. Mostly useful for CI environments

renotize

• apple_id: The e-Mail address belonging to the Apple ID you want to use for signing applications.
• password: An app-specific password generated through the management portal of your Apple ID.
• identity: The identity associated with your Developer Certificate which can be found in Keychain Access under the category "My Certificates". It starts with Developer ID Application:, however it suffices to provide the 10-character code in the title of the certificate.
• bundle: The internal name for your app. This is typically the reverse domain notation of your website plus your application name, i.e. com.example.mygame.
• altool_extra: An optional string that will be passed on to all altool runs in all commands. Useful for selecting an organization when your Apple ID belongs to multiple, for example. Typically you will not have to touch this and you can leave it empty.

Example

renconstruct -c config.yml -i path/to/my-game/ -o out/

Using renConstruct with Gitlab CI

A common use case for headless building of distributions is Continuous Integration. Find below an example of a GitLab CI configuration file which should work for most projects.

# Recent experience shows that using "python:latest" can cause issues
# because its definition may vary per runner. Always specify the exact
# version you intend to use to avoid issues.
image: python:3.8

variables:
    PIP_CACHE_DIR: "$CI_PROJECT_DIR/.cache/pip"

cache:
  paths:
    - .cache/pip
    - venv/

before_script:
  # Downloads renconstruct through pip
  - pip install renconstruct

run:
  script:
    # Runs renconstruct in the project directory, saving the build outputs to a new folder called "artifacts"
    # inside the project directory and utilises the file config.yml to specify reconstruct options.
    - renconstruct -d -i $CI_PROJECT_DIR -o $CI_PROJECT_DIR/artifacts -c $CI_PROJECT_DIR/config.yml

  artifacts:
    paths:
     # Saves the artifacts located in the "artifacts" folder to GitLab
      - $CI_PROJECT_DIR/artifacts/**.*

Command Line Interface

Usage: renconstruct.py [OPTIONS]

  A utility script to automatically build Ren'Py applications for multiple
  platforms.

Options:
  -i, --input TEXT   The path to the Ren'Py project to build  [required]
  -o, --output TEXT  The directory to output build artifacts to  [required]
  -c, --config TEXT  The configuration file for this run  [required]
  -d, --debug        If given, shows debug information if
  --help             Show this message and exit.

Disclaimer

renConstruct is a hobby project and not in any way affiliated with Ren'Py. This means that there is no way I can guarantee that it will work at all, or continue to work once it does.