skip init questions

[dfabulich]

1. What's the difference between --id and appid?

  --id <id>               Application identifier (default: net.example.MyApp)
  --appid <bundleID>      Embed the library as an app with the given bundle id

2. I don't understand the "Creating a Multi-Module App" section of the documentation.

skip init --appid=bundle.id.HelloSkip multi-project HelloSkip HelloModel HelloCore

This command will create a SwiftPM project with three modules: HelloSkip, HelloModel, and HelloCore. The heuristics of such module creation is that the modules will all be dependent on their subsequent peer module, with the first module (HelloSkip) having an initial dependency on SkipUI, the second module depending on SkipModel, and the final module in the chain depending on SkipFoundation.

Huh? What's a "subsequent peer module"?

I think maybe this is saying:

• The first module on the list will depend on SkipUI. (If there's an --appid, then it will be an "app" module, otherwise it will be a "framework" module, but either way the first module will depend on SkipUI.)
• The second module on the list will depend on SkipModel, just because it's the second one on the list. (Naming it "HelloModel" has nothing to do with it.)
• All other modules on the list will depend on SkipFoundation only.

Is that right? (If so, it seems like really strange interface.)

3. When there are multiple modules, how does skip decide which ones are native and which ones are transpiled?

https://skip.tools/docs/gettingstarted/ says:

If you include the --native-model flag and add a model module name to the end of the command, you instead get a multi-module project with a compiled model module and a transpiled UI module:

skip init --native-model --appid=bundle.id.HelloSkip hello-skip HelloSkip HelloSkipModel

I think it's something like, when there's an --appid, the first module will be an "app" module. Since this example said --native-model but not --native-app, the HelloSkip module will be transpiled, and HelloSkipModel will be compiled natively.

Does that mean it's impossible to init an app with one "app" module, one native module, and one transpiled module?

4. In https://github.com/orgs/skiptools/discussions/382 you give an example like this:

skip init --native --appid=xyz.skip.Demo demo-app-native DemoApp DemoModule:ukushu/[email protected]/Ifrit:skip-foundation/SkipFoundation:skip-fuse/SkipFuse

I don't see anything about this syntax in https://skip.tools/docs/gettingstarted/ or https://skip.tools/docs/skip-cli/. skip help init just says:

USAGE: skip init [<options>] <project-name> [<module-names> ...]

There's no documented examples of adding colons to the modules to declare their dependencies. How does this work? (Are there other undocumented options like this?)

[marcprux]

What's the difference between --id and appid?

--id is vestigial and unused. We've removed it from the docs, and the next version of the skip tool will not include it.

Huh? What's a "subsequent peer module"?

It just means that if you create skip init project-name LibA LibB LibC, then LibA will depend on LibB and LibB will depend on LibC. This is usually what you want, but can be controlled by the --chain/--no-chain parameter. And, of course, you can just modify the Package.swift to change the dependency setup.

Does that mean it's impossible to init an app with one "app" module, one native module, and one transpiled module?

There's no skip init parameter that controls the nativeness of the modules at that fine-grained level. But again, all it is doing is pre-configuring the skip.yml files, so you can always adjust which modules are native and bridged after the project is initialized.

There's no documented examples of adding colons to the modules to declare their dependencies. How does this work? (Are there other undocumented options like this?)

We will be documenting this is the next version of the Skip tool.