What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

Hi

I have just started to learn how to make plugins using SourcePawn. Currently I just write and compile plugins and upload them to one of my online servers, which somethimes have players. I don't feel like this is the most productive way of doing it. What is the common workflow when making plugins?

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

Sounds about right. You could run a local srcds instance to test locally if you wanted to.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

I use notepad++ with sourcepawn syntax highlighting and auto-completion.
Also debugging is fully automated on my local server. To do that, I use this notepad++ script to compile with keyboard shortcut and smx auto-reloader . Hope it helps.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

I write my plugins on my server itself with WinSCP's built in editor. Then I just use the addons/sourcemod/scripting/compile.sh script to compile it. And mv it over to the plugins dir.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

vim on laptop with
and a local server with bots :)

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

That depends. If it's a public plugin, the first thing I do is start a new GitHub repository for it.

Then I copy the plugin_template.sp from my sourcemod-snippets repository and start working on the new plugin in NotePad++.

I do testing primarily on my test server (mentioned in my signature) especially for game modes that are arena-based... said test server currently costs me around $10/month.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

That depends on the scale of the plugin.
Mostly I just start right ahead (or with a small outline on paper) as most plugins are relatively small.
Then if they are roughly finished but I see more potential in it which needs more experimentation I start a repository and use svn to keep track.
I use PawnStudio with a customized compile script which is a C# program which utilizes WinSCP to open up a small dialog after successful compilation which then lets me either select existing or create new remote upload targets.

Example:
Right now I am working on a L4D2 plugin which spawns self-evading gifts. I finished the rough outline pretty quickly but then realized that I could try and use A* for better pathfinding, although it is quite experimental and maybe performance-costly due to not having a grid to begin with and having to use tracehulls. So I created a svn repo and used what I have for the initial commit.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

I usually create a git repo for the plugin first, then create a jenkins project with an after build task of uploading the latest version to my test server and restarting it. Then I simply save + commit, I usually use a mixture of PawnStudio and Notepad++ for the actual editing.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

Save yourself countless headaches and avoid PawnStudio like the plague. I know at least 3 ways to make it crash outright, switching between tabs is sketchy, it gets bogged down on large source files, and hasn't been updated in years so there's little chance of anything getting fixed. Notepad++, vi, sublime are all superior alternatives.

Re: What is your workflow when developing plugins?
 

The only reason I still use PawnStudio at all is the autocomplete, with the way a lot of functions are written, especially in larger project, not having to reference docs/include files as frequently is a big help...especially when I don't develop for SourcePawn nearly as much as I used to.