Rojo Hot-Reloading

[LPGhatguy]

Today, some Rojo users connect the Rojo studio plugin from running playtest DataModels. For some projects, this works out of the box, and in conjunction with a hot reloading library, delivers an unrivaled edit-debug loop.

However, if an instance that is fully managed by Rojo is also mutated at runtime, this can cause funny side effects.

We should support a couple features that will make hot reloading in Rojo much better:

• A "live" mode for the plugin that basically sets $ignoreUnknownInstances on every instance
• A new project setting to disable updating instances in a playtest DataModel
• Support for automatically connecting the plugin from a playtest DataModel (#468)

[MayGo]

I think I need this also. Trying to implement some kind of hot reloading using rojo and roblox-ts. I am using @rbxts/net for events and if I run game (Play Solo) and connect to rojo. Those events will be removed as those files are generated runtime in the filesystem.

@LPGhatguy Perhaps you know any "hack" to cope with such problems?

[LPGhatguy]

You can connect to a running DataModel with Rojo. That's the best way to do hot reloading today.

[MayGo]

thanks, doing that. Just confirming what steps I am doing:

• I am connected to Rojo while developing in Roblox Studio
• Run the game. ("Play" from Roblox Studio)
• And then @rbxts/net generates networking files into ReplicatedStorage/rbxts_include/node_modules/net/out/_NetManaged/toggleCampaignStartButton
• Switch to Server mode
• Connect to Rojo using rojo plugin
• All the files are synced again
• Folder ReplicatedStorage/rbxts_include/node_modules/net/out/_NetManaged gets removed by sync because it is not actually in rojo DataModel.

Do you know if there Is a way to prevent last step?

In rojo config I have:

       "ReplicatedStorage": {
            "$className": "ReplicatedStorage",
            "rbxts_include": {
                "$path": "../../include",
                "node_modules": {
                    "$path": "../../node_modules/@rbxts"
                }
            }
            ...
      }
      ...

Would ignoreUnknownInstances help?

[LPGhatguy]

Right, ignoreUnknownInstances can help here.

When talking about instances, I recommend using Roblox's naming convention, ie ReplicatedStorage.rbxts_include.node_modules, to distinguish instances from file paths. @rbxts/net isn't generating files, it's making instances at runtime. That is definitely a case where the current hot reloading approach with Rojo is not great.

[MayGo]

Thanks. Do you know if there is a Roblox-TS and Rojo open-source project that has working hot reloading? I have hot reloading, but It works only one time. I think I need to watch entire ReplicatedStorage and ServerScriptService and do stuff by name instead. But if there already is some working sources, then don't need to debug that needlessly.