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I wish more developers used proper versioning for their projects on the itch.io client

A topic by surashu created Jul 10, 2017 Views: 892 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(2 edits)

Most of the time, when I download a game via the itch.io app, the versioning looks like this

Which isn't really that informative but whatever, I guess that's how itch does it. But when I tried pushing my own project using butler, I realized you can actually specify it properly like this.

Which is a lot more pleasing to look at imo. Basically, I just wish more developers configure their projects this way instead of relying on the cryptic sets of numbers that gets auto generated.

Admin(+1)

The version number is an optional flag from butler. If someone doesn't provide it then we just show our database's unique ID for that build or file. For non-butler uploads it's just the file ID, otherwise the build ID.

I agree the number isn't helpful, one potential idea is to show the auto-incrementing number so it's not a very large number. We would only have this available for butler uploads though.

For regular file uploads, we currently don't let people provide a custom version, so we should make that available. 

(2 edits)

I was going to reply on my phone but itch.io's comment editor started spazzing out and singing He-Man on me when I tried to backspace.

And yeah I agree it needs to be on the front-end too as some creators are averse to using command line utilities.

Averse to the command line? What kind of developer is that?

I specifically avoided the term developer and used "creator" instead because not all games are made by hardcore developers and there are a lot of game engines nowadays that let you get away with knowing just basic scripting which is ideal for artists who just want to get a simple game out. They don't necessarily need to interact with the terminal/command prompt most of the time when using these engines.

oops, My fault! Should have seen that deviation in language there.

For one of my games I'm using the git shorthash for the version number, because it makes it easier for me to check my git log for what I did since the previous devlog while writing a new one, and I haven't yet started tagging my versions for formal releases. When I get further along with my game I'll probably start doing tags and releases that way.

Coming up with the way to version a thing is kind of annoying and as an end user it doesn't really matter to me, personally, aside from the aesthetics.