pdnew - CLI tool for creating new projects for Playdate

Tired of creating new projects for Playdate by copying other template projects and modifying them? pdnew is what you need. Just type

pdnew MyGame -l lua -a "Author Name" -b com.example.myGame to create a new Lua project or

pdnew MyGame -l c -a "Author Name" -b com.example.myGame to create a new pure C project.

This tool creates a defeault folder structure, pdxinfo file, CMakeLists.txt (for pure C projects not Lua), sample title images.

Available options:

• -l|--language - programming language of the project. Available values: c and lua. This option is required. c option creates CMake based project. lua option creates simple Lua project.
• -d|--directory - parent folder where project folder has to be located. Optional. If you omit this option $PWD is used instead. Please note that pdnew creates a new folder named project-name where project-name is the second argument located right after pdnew. If CLI call ran with no errors parent folder will contain a folder named just like the second command line argument. It means that parent folder is expected to exist if you decide to specify it explicitly. But project folder doesn't have to exist - it will be created by pdnew. E.g. parent folder is ~/Desktop/PlaydateProjects and project name is MyFancyGame.
• -b|--bundleId - bundle ID of the project. Every Playdate project has its own unique bundle ID (just like any iOS and Android project as well) formatted as reverse DNS name (e.g. com.example.myFancyGame). You may specify bundle ID explicitly using this option or you can omit it. If you omit it you will be asked to input it. You may press enter to input empty field. In that case default value will be used. Default value is com.example.project-name where project-name is the second argument of CLI arguments.
• -a|--author - game author. This field is only required to be put in pdxinfo file. Just put your personal name or your team name. If you skip this option you will be promted to type it before generating.

Tips

Once the project is generated you can work with it using your favourite IDE. Pure C project requires project generating using cmake utility first. To generate cd to your project directory after pdnew call, then run

• mkdir build - to create build folder where cmake is going to generate your project. This folder is added to .gitignore automatically by pdnew so don't need to worry this folder is going to corrupt your git index.
• cd build - to go to fresh folder.
• cmake .. - to generate a make project. This step can be modified is you want to use let's say Xcode or Visual Studio: cmake -G Xcode .. will generate Xcode project instead of raw make project. If you are intrested in this topic and want to know more - google/gpt 'cmake generators'.
• cmake --build . - to compile the project. Or just make. This command prouces pdx file in the project root directory. *.pdx is also added to .gitignore automatically by pdnew.

Compiling pdnew from source

If you like pdnew and want to have it compiled just clone this repo

• git clone [email protected]:fnc12/pdnew.git.
• cd pdnew - to go to cloned folder.
• mkdir build - to create a folder for cmake generated project.
• cd build - to go to freshly created folder.
• cmake .. - to generate pdnew project.
• make - to compile pdnew project right on you operating system.
• make install - to install freshly compiled pdnew project system-wide. Now you can use pdnew in your command line anywhere