Rojo
Rojo is a flexible multi-tool designed for creating robust Roblox projects. It's in early development, but is still useful for many projects.
It's designed for power users who want to use the **best tools available** for building games, libraries, and plugins.
## Features
Rojo has a number of desirable features *right now*:
* Work on scripts from the filesystem, in your favorite editor
* Version your place, library, or plugin using Git or another VCS
Soon, Rojo will be able to:
* Sync Roblox objects (including models) bi-directionally between the filesystem and Roblox Studio
* Create installation scripts for libraries to be used in standalone places
* Similar to [rbxpacker](https://github.com/LPGhatguy/rbxpacker), another one of my projects
* Add strongly-versioned dependencies to your project
## Installation
Rojo has two components:
* The command line tool, written in Rust
* The [Roblox Studio plugin](https://www.roblox.com/library/1211549683/Rojo-v0-0-0), written in Lua
To install the command line tool, there are two options:
* Cargo, if you have Rust installed
* Use `cargo install rojo` -- Rojo will be available with the `rojo` command
* Download a pre-built Windows binary from [the GitHub releases page](https://github.com/LPGhatguy/rojo/releases)
## Usage
For more help, use `rojo help`.
### New Project
Just create a new folder and tell Rojo to initialize it!
```sh
mkdir my-new-project
cd my-new-project
rojo init
```
Rojo will create an empty project in the directory.
The default project looks like this:
```json
{
"name": "my-new-project",
"servePort": 8000,
"partitions": {}
}
```
### Start Dev Server
To create a server that allows the Rojo Dev Plugin to access your project, use:
```sh
rojo serve
```
The tool will tell you whether it found an existing project. You should then be able to connect and use the project from within Roblox Studio!
### Migrating an Existing Roblox Project
**Coming soon!**
### Syncing into Roblox
In order to sync code into Roblox, you'll need to add one or more "partitions" to your configuration. A partition tells Rojo how to map directories to Roblox objects.
Each entry in the partitions table has a unique name, a filesystem path, and the full name of the Roblox object to sync into.
For example, if you want to map your `src` directory to an object named `My Cool Game` in `ReplicatedStorage`, you could use this configuration:
```json
{
"name": "rojo",
"servePort": 8000,
"partitions": {
"game": {
"path": "src",
"target": "ReplicatedStorage.My Cool Game"
}
}
}
```
The `path` parameter is relative to the project file.
The `target` starts at `game` and crawls down the tree. If any objects don't exist along the way, they'll be created as `Folder` instances.
Run `rojo serve` in the directory containing this project, then press the "Sync In" or "Toggle Polling" buttons in the Roblox Studio plugin to move code into your game.
### Sync Details
The structure of files and folders on the filesystem are preserved when syncing into game.
Creation of Roblox instances follows a simple set of rules. The first rule that matches the file name is chosen:
| File Name | Instance Type | Notes |
| -------------- | -------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| `*.server.lua` | `Script` | `Source` will contain the file's contents |
| `*.client.lua` | `LocalScript` | `Source` will contain the file's contents |
| `*.lua` | `ModuleScript` | `Source` will contain the file's contents |
| `*` | `StringValue` | `Value` will contain the file's contents |
Any folders on the filesystem will turn into `Folder` objects unless they contain a file named `init.lua`, `init.server.lua`, or `init.client.lua`. Following the convention of Lua, those objects will instead be whatever the `init` file would turn into.
For example, this file tree:
* my-game
* init.client.lua
* foo.lua
Will turn into this tree in Roblox:
* `my-game` (`LocalScript` with source from `my-game/init.client.lua`)
* `foo` (`ModuleScript` with source from `my-game/foo.lua`)
## Inspiration
There are lots of other tools that sync scripts into Roblox, or otherwise work to improve the development flow outside of Roblox Studio.
Here are a few, if you're looking for alternatives or supplements to Rojo:
* [Studio Bridge by Vocksel](https://github.com/vocksel/studio-bridge)
* [RbxRefresh by Osyris](https://github.com/osyrisrblx/RbxRefresh)
* [RbxSync by evaera](https://github.com/evaera/RbxSync)
* [CodeSync](https://github.com/MemoryPenguin/CodeSync) and [rbx-exteditor](https://github.com/MemoryPenguin/rbx-exteditor) by [MemoryPenguin](https://github.com/MemoryPenguin)
* [rbxmk by Anaminus](https://github.com/anaminus/rbxmk)
I also have a couple tools that Rojo intends to replace:
* [rbxfs](https://github.com/LPGhatguy/rbxfs), which has been deprecated by Rojo
* [rbxpacker](https://github.com/LPGhatguy/rbxpacker), which is still useful
## License
Rojo is available under the terms of the MIT license. See [LICENSE.md](LICENSE.md) for details.