Dynamic blueprint generation

[Foggy2]

Hi,

Just wanted to put this out there and generate some discussion around the idea. I realise if it is implemented it would be a big change to the current contribution workflows, but it might also make it easier to add controllers and make updates to the logic of all controllers going forwards.

It has occurred to me that all controller blueprints generally contain the same layout and logic as one another. With the controller specific variations being the different buttons and the associated event codes, etc.

With the hook blueprints, this is similar with each supported controller being included within the blueprint in a consistent and repeated way.

With this repeatability in mind I think it could be worthwhile to explore a dynamic blueprint generation system for building all blueprints instead of manually updating each controller and hook when changes are required.

Such a system could work by:

1. Defining the various buttons, actions, triggers, etc for each controller in a controller specific config file.
2. Defining YAML templates for all controller logic.
3. Defining the various actions, events, etc for each hook in a hook specific config file.
4. Defining YAML templates for each hook.
5. A script then loads all of these items and stitches together the various templates to generate the final blueprints.
6. The docs could also be updated as these also follow a consistent format.

Some of the possible benefits for this are:

• Simpler addition of new controllers as only the controller details need to be collected and recorded in a controller config file. Items like which buttons, actions, triggers, etc. The controller blueprint, hooks and docs can then be updated using those details.
• Higher level of consistency between blueprints, with less bugs and errors as all logic would come from a template instead of being manually edited.
• When a logic change is required, it can be made once in the template and then applied to all controllers/hooks dynamically saving much time and effort.

It would be a bit of work but I think this could be feasible to implement. I am willing to attempt building this out but wanted to raise it for discussion here first before putting any time into it.

What does everyone think?

[yarafie]

I think this is an excellent idea, so much so that I have a prototype of exactly what you mention.
Only thing is it is very crude and using just bash shell scripting.

The recent New Controllers that I have PR's for were mostly generated by my shell script including the docs for them and the suggested changes needed to be inserted in the hooks yaml's and mdx's