proposal: use git submodules for storing imgui dependencies

[gucio321]

Hi there!
there is a technology called git submodules that allows to put a git repository inside another one.
I think that instead Drop source code of imgui to cimgui/imgui you can just execute git submodule update --init --recursive
it has several adventages:

• don't need to search what imgui and implot exactly are
• clone them with one command
• exact conrol over version (submodule has specified the version that could be set somewhere - i can't remember where 😄 )

[AllenDang]

Thanks! The git action to build also need to change.

[eliasdaler]

The disadvantages I see here is that you'll need to generate cimgui outputs manually.

It's possible to add a GitHub action which will generate and commit outputs on submodule version update. Alternatively, we can add cimgui generation as a build step.

[gucio321]

sure, I can write some workflow

[gucio321]

here is how Am I going to update submodules in workflow ;-)

[AllenDang]

@gucio321 Check the ".github/workflows", run them via "Actions" for win/mac/linux, make sure they could be compiled successfully.

[gucio321]

yah, I'll do that as soon as I can make the current version working ;-)

[gucio321]

@AllenDang I've a question: do I need to regenerate the whole binding after updating dependencies?

[gucio321]

ok, it seems to work now
@AllenDang is this workflow ok?
it updates submodules and regenerates binding. if regeneration crashes it'll exit with error
The workflow runs every week on monday

[eliasdaler]

@gucio321, can you please manually run luajit ./generator.lua gcc "comments internal" glfw opengl3 -DIMGUI_DISABLE_OBSOLETE_FUNCTIONS -DIMGUI_USE_WCHAR32 for cimgui generation instead of generator.sh?

Will be useful for #27

[gucio321]

@eliasdaler like this? 40084d5

Don't you think that reffering to sh script would be better than hard-codding a command in workflow?

[eliasdaler]

Looks fine overall, I'll test how well it works with my code a bit later today.

[eliasdaler]

@gucio321, I also think that justfile needs some adjustments. It looks like it's currently not possible to do "just gencode_cimgui" locally and build new *.go files
I think that ideally justfile needs to be changed to be able to generate cimgui/cimplot outputs by just running "just gencode_cimgui" and "just gencode_cimplot"

The generation should ideally generate output files to some place outside of cimgui/cimplot directories. These directories should also be added to this repo's .gitignore and not commited.

This will also make GitHub workflows easier as you'll be able to just run "just gencode_cimlot" and "just gencode_cimgui".

It would also be great to add ability to detect that user didn't clone submodules before running "just " by checking for some file's existence inside cimgui/cimplot dirs (e.g. README.md)

[eliasdaler]

@gucio321 any updates on this? It's almost ready, but needs to work locally :)

[gucio321]

oh, you're right, there is something wrong with justfile...

let me take a look

[gucio321]

oh, nvm, i had corrupted submodules 😄

@gucio321 any updates on this? It's almost ready, but needs to work locally :)

so @eliasdaler whot do you think, should be done here? IMO this is complete. it works locally for me

[eliasdaler]

I'll try it a bit later today. :)

[eliasdaler]

Okay, it works for me locally, that's good.
But I have two questions:

1. How exactly does that "auto update dependencies" task work? On which branches will it run? It only needs to run on "main" branch, imo. Plus, I think it can run once a month. Dear ImGui do a release every week. And if it does some hotfixes, we can manually do the update.
2. It looks like you can drop "sh generator.sh" in workflows because the both cimgui and cimplot already have bindings generated inside of them

[gucio321]

How exactly does that "auto update dependencies" task work? On which branches will it run? It only needs to run on "main" branch, imo. Plus, I think it can run once a month. Dear ImGui do a release every week. And if it does some hotfixes, we can manually do the update.

it, every week, updates cimgui/cimplot deps and regenerates framework, it will run only on master (main)

It looks like you can drop "sh generator.sh" in workflows because the both cimgui and cimplot already have bindings generated inside of them

it does instruction from readme tbh 😄
I can remove this step, but, imo, we can regenerate C binding to make sure everything is correct there

[eliasdaler]

If you don't want to remove C binding generation, you should make it so that C binding is generated outside of submodule director. Otherwise, you might run into problems if you change files inside submodule directories

[gucio321]

Otherwise, you might run into problems if you change files inside submodule directories

ok, fair enough, removing step responsible for regenerating c binding

[gucio321]

@eliasdaler done, now Update Dependencies only runs just

[AllenDang]

@gucio321 @eliasdaler Seems ready to merge?

[eliasdaler]

@AllenDang LGTM

[AllenDang]

@AllenDang LGTM

May I ask what LGTM stands for...

[eliasdaler]

@AllenDang LGTM

May I ask what LGTM stands for...

"Looks good to me" -> let's get this merged :D