[question] How to build abstreet without downoading additional files during the build?

[yurivict]

When the application is built from the port it starts like this:

and exits.

The instructions say:

Grab the minimal amount of data to get started: cargo run --bin updater -- download --minimal.

Can this data be packaged into a separate tarball so that there would be no need to run the "cargo" command?

The package builder can't run commands that download anything.

What if the user isn't even interested in Seattle? Why doesn't the application simply offer to download any city data instead of just exiting?

How to build/install abstreet without additional downloads during build, and such that it is functional when installed?

[Robinlovelace]

This may help: https://a-b-street.github.io/docs/user/new_city.html

You should be able to download data for new cities from the graphical user interface (GUI). Which part of the world would you like to import?

[yurivict]

Which part of the world would you like to import?

I don't understand why does a fresh installation expect Seattle data and why does it fail when Seattle data isn't found? Shouldn't it offer to download some data instead?

[Robinlovelace]

I don't understand why does a fresh installation expect Seattle data and why does it fail when Seattle data isn't found? Shouldn't it offer to download some data instead?

Possibly, I'm not 100% sure and will defer to Dustin and others on this.

[dabreegster]

Hi @yurivict, thanks for your continued efforts to try to package for FreeBSD. Unfortunately I don't yet have the time to make the necessary changes.

What if the user isn't even interested in Seattle? Why doesn't the application simply offer to download any city data instead of just exiting?

Seattle isn't important at all; that updater -- download --minimal command just downloads a few files. There's just an old assumption in many of the A/B Street apps that there's always some map loaded at all times. So when the app starts, we need some map, and for native releases, the hack has been to include some random small map.

Maybe we can programatically generate an empty / fake map, and then the user's first step will always be to just use the UI to download or import the city they care about. I need to test this in all of the apps, to make sure they don't break on totally empty maps -- there may be weird assumptions scattered around.

I'll try and find time to try this change, but ~solo developing+maintaining a project of this size has stretched me very thin.