SpaceWarp Template for .NET

This project serves as a SpaceWarp mod project template for the .NET CLI and Visual Studio.

Requirements

• .NET SDK - .NET 7+ is required for all the features of the templates to be supported

Optional

• Visual Studio 2022 - Visual Studio 2022 is the required version if you want to use the template with VS
• JetBrains Rider - The template can also be used with JetBrains Rider (tested with version 2023.3)
• Unity 2022.3.5f1 - Needed to build projects based on the General mod project with UI template

Installation

For .NET 7+ SDK, you can use the commands as they are written below.

You can see the SDK version currently in use and all SDK versions installed by running dotnet --info.

A. create-project.bat script

The easiest way to install the template is to use the create-project.bat script. You can download the latest version from GitHub releases.

When you run the script, it will check whether the template is installed and if not, it will install it for you. Similarly, it will also check for template updates and offer to install the update if a new version is available.

B. NuGet.org

1. Run the following command in cmd or powershell to install all templates:

   dotnet new install SpaceWarp.Template

   To install a specific version, you can add the version specifier to the command:

   dotnet new install SpaceWarp.Template::<version>

C. Manual

1. Download the .nupkg file from GitHub releases
2. Run the following command in cmd or powershell in the directory with the downloaded file after replacing <version> with the version number you downloaded:

   dotnet new install SpaceWarp.Template.<version>.nupkg

Versioning

The template versions follow this convention: x.y.z.version, where x.y.z is the corresponding SpaceWarp version and version is the template version for that specific SpaceWarp release. For example, 0.4.0.1 is the first version of the template which supports SpaceWarp 0.4.0.

Updating

If you are using the create-project.bat script, it will automatically check for updates and offer to install them when a new version is available. This feature is available since version 1.8.0.1 of the script.

To update the template to the latest version manually, run the following command:

dotnet new install SpaceWarp.Template

Available templates

The template contains various different types of projects:

General mod project

This template creates a general mod project for SpaceWarp. It contains some example code (such as creating a window using the IMGUI library, registering app bar buttons and setting up BepInEx configuration) to get you started.

This is the recommended template for beginners who want to get familiar with KSP 2 modding.

The template is available under the name spacewarpmod.

General mod project with UI

This template creates a general mod project for SpaceWarp. It contains some example code (such as creating a window using the UITK for KSP2 library, registering app bar buttons and setting up BepInEx configuration) to get you started.

It also includes a Unity project set up with everything needed to create UIs in the UI Toolkit Builder.

This is the recommended template for beginners who want to get familiar with KSP 2 modding.

The template is available under the name spacewarpmod-ui.

Empty mod project

This template creates an empty mod project for SpaceWarp. It contains no example code and is meant to be used by more experienced modders who want to start from scratch.

This is the recommended template for more experienced modders who want to create a project which does not contain any unnecessary example code.

The template is available under the name spacewarpmod-empty.

Library mod project

This template creates a library mod project for SpaceWarp. It is pre-configured to automatically generate a NuGet package for your mod, which can be used by other mods. It contains an additional module project and a preload patcher project, with all the necessary setup.

This is the recommended template for modders who want to create a library mod which can be used by other mods.

The template is available under the name spacewarpmod-library.

Creating a project

There are multiple options how to generate a project using this template:

A. Project generator (strongly recommended)

1. Download the latest version of create-project.bat from GitHub releases
2. Place the file in the folder in which you want your project folders to be created
3. Run the file and follow the instructions

B. Visual Studio 2022

1. Open Visual Studio
2. Click on Create a new project
3. Search for "SpaceWarp" in the search bar at the top, then select one of the available project types and click Next
   
4. Fill out your project name and click Next
   
5. Fill out the fields on the following page. You can find more information about the parameters by hovering over the corresponding "i" icons, or in the Project parameters section.
   Make sure that "Place solution and project in the same directory" is checked.
6. Open the project directory, go to the scripts folder and run setup.bat. This will guide you through the process of finishing the project setup.
7. Rebuild the solution for all references to be resolved
   

C. Manually with .NET CLI

1. Open cmd or powershell in the folder where you want your project created

2. Replace the information in the following command with your own and run it:

   dotnet new <project-type> -n MyAwesomeModName -A "munix" -M "My Awesome Mod Name" -D "This is the description of my awesome mod." -S "https://github.com/munix/MyAwesomeModName" -V "1.0.0" -C "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/munix/MyAwesomeModName/main/plugin_template/swinfo.json"

   Typing dotnet new <project-type> --help will show you the possible parameters. You can find more information about all project parameters in the Project parameters section.

   Replace <project-type> with one of the project types listed in the Template types section.

3. Open the project directory, go to the scripts folder and run setup.bat. This will guide you through the process of finishing the project setup.

Building a project

Four build configurations are defined: Debug, Release, Deploy and DeployAndRun. Building any of them will create a folder with the name of the configuration in the project root. This will create the complete folder structure for you, i.e. BepInEx/plugins/YourMod/..., and all the folders and files necessary to distribute your mod (such as LICENSE, assets/, swinfo.json...) will be built and copied here.

When building any other target than Release, the file YourMod.pdb is also copied next to YourMod.dll, so that you can easily start debugging your mod. To quickly get started with breakpoint debugging your KSP 2 mods, see Debugging and profiling KSP plugins by Gotmachine.

In the Deploy and DeployAndRun configurations, your mod is built as if using the Debug configuration, and then it gets automatically deployed into your game folder specified either in the KSP2DIR environment variable or in your .csproj file's <KSP2DIR> property.

If you are using the DeployAndRun configuration, the game will be started automatically after the deployment.

For Windows users, batch scripts are included in the scripts folder to provide an easy way to build the project by simply double-clicking one of the configurations: build-release.bat, build-debug.bat, build-deploy.bat and build-run.bat. Otherwise you can use your IDE or the .NET CLI to build the project.

Building the UI project

The General mod project with UI template includes a Unity project, which you can find in YourMod/src/YourMod.Unity/YourMod.Unity.

To build the asset bundle needed to display the UI, open the project with Unity, make any desired changes to the UI in the Assets/UI folder, and then go to the top menu and click on Assets->Build AssetBundles. This will build all asset bundles into the Assets/AssetBundles folder, and should automatically copy all bundles to the folder YourMod/plugin_template/assets/bundles. Now the C# project can be built as explained above.

Note: You will need to repeat this process everytime you make changes to the UI files in Unity.

Adding a new project to the solution

When you add a new project to the solution, make sure to reference it from the main plugin project so that it gets included into the build.

GitHub Actions

The template includes GitHub Actions workflow files. They are located in the .github/workflows folder, and include the following:

• verify.yml - Checks whether your swinfo.json file is valid and whether the version_check property leads to a valid online swinfo.json file.

  This workflow is triggered on every push to the main branch.

• build.yml - Builds your mod and uploads artifacts with the results. This includes the built mod zip file, and the built NuGet package if you are using the Library mod project template.

  This workflow is triggered on every push to the every branch.

• release.yml - Builds your mod in the Release configuration and uploads the resulting zip file to the release that triggered the workflow. That means that you only need to create an "empty" release on GitHub, and the workflow will automatically build your mod and upload the zip as part of the release.

  This workflow is triggered whenever you create and publish a new release.

SpaceDock integration

Included in the release.yml workflow is also a step which automatically uploads the new version of your mod to SpaceDock, but it requires some additional setup:

1. You mod needs to already have at least one release on SpaceDock.

2. Open the release.yml file and uncomment the Add Mask and Update mod on SpaceDock steps.

3. At the top of the release.yml file, update the SPACEDOCK_MOD_ID variable to the ID of your mod on SpaceDock. You can find it in the URL of your mod, for example, if your mod's URL is https://spacedock.info/mod/1234/MyMod, then the ID is 1234.

4. Go to your repository on GitHub, open the Settings tab, and under Security, open Secrets and variables -> Actions. There, create two new repository secrets with the following names and values:

   • SPACEDOCK_USER - your SpaceDock username
   • SPACEDOCK_PASSWORD - your SpaceDock password

   This step is necessary so that your SpaceDock credentials can be used to upload the mod without being publicly visible in your repository.

If you do not want to use any of these workflows, you can simply delete the corresponding files.

swinfo.json

The properties in your .csproj file are automatically read from the swinfo.json file in your project's plugin_info folder. This file is used by SpaceWarp mod to display information about your mod and check for updates of your mod.

This also applies to version information - you only need to update the version number of your mod in the swinfo.json file, and it will be automatically parsed from there for all uses.

Here is a list of properties in the swinfo.json file and their corresponding .csproj properties:

swinfo.json property	.csproj property
mod_id	<ModId>
author	<Authors>
name	<Product>
description	<Description>
source	<RepositoryUrl>
version	<Version>
version_check	None
ksp2_version.min	None
ksp2_version.max	None

Project parameters

When creating your project in either the console or Visual Studio, you are provided a number of parameters. They apply to all project types and you can find an overview of all of them and their meanings here:

Parameter	Console argument	Short argument	Description	Default value
Project name	--name	-n	The name of your project in PascalCase	<current directory name>
ModName	--ModName	-M	The name of your mod	"" (empty)
Author	--Author	-A	The name(s) of the mod's author(s)	"" (empty)
Description	--Description	-D	A short description of your mod	"" (empty)
Source	--Source	-S	The repository or download location of the mod's source code (for example: https://github.com/author/mod)	"" (empty)
Version	--Version	-V	The mod's initial version	1.0.0
Check Version	--CheckVersion	-C	URL to the raw swinfo.json file in your main branch to check for updates (for example: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YourUsername/YourRepo/main/plugin_info/swinfo.json)	"" (empty)
License URL*	--LicenseUrl	-L	URL to the license file of your mod (for example: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/YourUsername/YourRepo/main/LICENSE)	"" (empty)

*The License URL parameter only applies to the spacewarpmod-library project type.

None of the parameters other than Project name are required. If you don't provide any, the template will generate a project with the listed default values and you'll be able to fill them in later in your .csproj file.