I’ve watched Geoff’s video on libraries a couple of times, and I believe I’ve grasped how they’re intended to operate. My primary objective is to leverage these libraries across multiple projects, particularly to address the limitation of not being able to use classes in modules as external items.
Current Workflow Considerations:
Right now, my workflow involves a lot of editing of external items. This is straightforward in my current setup; I can open a project and modify these externals without any hassle but with the understanding that other projects may be affected. However, with libraries, I’m anticipating a change. If I integrate a library into a project, it appears the result when I build would be to output a plugin of just the library. This raises a question for my workflow: How do I manage both building the project and the library?
Proposed Solution:
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Library Project: This project will be dedicated to developing, debugging, and building the library into a plugin. Essentially, it’s where I’ll make all the necessary modifications to the library. The negative to this is that I cannot debug the library and the project I intend to use it in at the same time.
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Project with Plugin: Here, I’ll use the plugin that was built from the library. This setup allows me to focus on my project’s development while keeping the library stable and separate.
Alternative Solution:
Another idea I had is to open my main project and copy/paste the library into it while disabling the plugin. This should allow me to debug the library and the project at the same time. When done, I would build, which would spit out the library. Then copy/paste the library back into another project for safekeeping and add the plugin that was just created to my main project.
I’m aiming for efficiency in my workflow before the beta version of libraries is released. I’m hopeful we’ll see a beta this year.
Is there a better way to work with libraries, or do these ideas seem like a viable strategy (based on our current understanding) for an efficient workflow?