Automatically add file exclusion for C# template scripts

[Go-Ba]

Describe the project you are working on

A C# project where I would like project-specific script templates

Using Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2022 (64-bit) - Current
Version 17.7.4

Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project

The templates are .cs files which create build errors.

Within visual studio, doing right click > remove from project does not fix build errors as would be expected, except in the case that your template has the class encapsulated in a namespace (not sure why this is the case)

The Godot docs page suggests this docs page for help in excluding build files, but for some reason it suggests the Exclude keyword when the keyword that works for me is Remove and also the suggested methods were still not sufficient even when using the Remove keyword instead.

I eventually found that putting

  <ItemGroup>
	<CSFile Remove="ScriptTemplates\*.cs"/>
	<Compile Remove="ScriptTemplates\**" />
	<EmbeddedResource Remove="ScriptTemplates\**" />
  </ItemGroup>

into my .csproj file seems to fix all build errors whilst also providing full template functionality. (ScriptTemplates is the name of my template search path which I have set in the Godot project settings)

This exact solution is something I could not find reference to anywhere else and would be inconvenient for other C# users to have to discover.

Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation

My suggestion is to have godot automatically add this to the .csproj file depending on what the user has set as their Script Template Search Path within Godot's project settings.

Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams

When the chosen Script Template Search Path in Godot's project settings is changed, search for the exact phrase:

  <ItemGroup>
	<CSFile Remove="[Script Template Search Path]\*.cs"/>
	<Compile Remove="[Script Template Search Path]\**" />
	<EmbeddedResource Remove="[Script Template Search Path]\**" />
  </ItemGroup>

(with [Script Template Search Path] being the existing search path) and then replace the old path with the new one. Alternatively, add this to the .csproj file if it is not already there.

If this enhancement will not be used often, can it be worked around with a few lines of script?

It could be worked around, though I think there should at least be more accessible information about how to do this in the docs as I had some trouble figuring it out and it would be an inconvenience for any C# developer wanting to use templates.

Is there a reason why this should be core and not an add-on in the asset library?

I think this would pretty clearly be core behaviour if it were to be implemented as this is dealing with a project setting file path

[donovani]

The templates are .cs files which create build errors.

Elaborating on this issue, since I was part of the initial discussion:
I've encountered the issue described - that the generated project file does not account for template files. For example:

// This is an example C# node template
public partial class _CLASS_ : FoobarNode
{
  public void Foobar()
  {
    // TODO: Implement method
  }
}

Once you have more than one class named _CLASS_ the project produces errors, & will fail building in Godot. This is even more apparent if you're using partial classes. You can somewhat work around this by wrapping the whole template in a namespace unique to the template. Then remove the namespace afterward.

namespace FoobarNodeNamespace // TODO: Remove namespace later
{
  public partial class _CLASS_ : FoobarNode
  {
    public void Foobar()
    {
      // TODO: Implement method
    }
  }
}

However this effectively means you'd be defining namespaces for every single template. 99% of the time you will not want the new generated file to actually use this namespace though - it makes more sense for it to be in a namespace related to it's domain.
I think Godot should be updating the project file/build system to exclude files within the templates folder (which is defined in project settings).

[Rustywolf]

At the very least I cant think of a reason to not include a snippet in the documents instead of just linking to a page that doesnt help to resolve the issue that is already being acknowledged.

[Calinou]

Please open an issue about this on the godot-docs repository: https://github.com/godotengine/godot-docs

Or, even better, open a pull request to improve the documentation 🙂