Merge pull request #2 from vcmi/readme

Added readme including all potential todo's

Author: IvanSavenko

README.md

@@ -1 +1,60 @@
-# vcmi-dependencies
+# VCMI Dependencies
+
+This repository contains prebuilt Conan dependencies for vcmi. These dependencies are primary used by Github CI and can be used to avoid building dependencies locally by developers.
+
+Current flow to update dependencies:
+- push new version of conanfile and/or CI settings to vcmi/vcmi repository, to branch 'update_prebuilts'
+- run CI in this repository to generate new packages
+- create new release from generated artifacts
+- open PR in vcmi/vcmi with changes to conanfile, CI, new URL to dependencies package and whatever changes need to be done to source code to use newer package (if any)
+
+# TODO List
+
+- Find a way to set up an artifactory on our server or find somebody willing to host it for us and deprecate this repository. Potential options:
+  - Artifactory Community Edition (requires more high-spec server than our current one)
+  - https://docs.conan.io/2/reference/conan_server.html (not recommended by Conan)
+  - https://jfrog.com/
+
+- Switch to conan 2. Incomplete (and potentially outdated) PR can be found here: https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi/pull/1603 Will also require changing how we create final package - instead of archiving `~/.conan/data` we'll need to use `conan cache` command
+
+- Use Conan for msvc builds. Currently blocked by several issues, namely:
+  - Conan 1 does not works with latest Visual Studio 2022. We need to either use msvc 2019 or upgrade to conan 2.
+  - ffmpeg fails to find its dependencies when building with conan 1 + msvc 2019. Might be fixed in conan 2.
+  - Qt fails to build due to broken string escaping in a path (conan 1 + msvc 2019)
+
+- Switch Android CI to use Linux runners instead of macOS runners (both for prebuilts and for vcmi itself)
+
+- Upgrade ubuntu runner to ubuntu-24.04 and rebuild packages using newer mingw
+
+- Rebuild boost and disable boost_url which we don't use
+
+- Rebuild SDL (including SDL_mixer and SDL_image). 
+  - Consider updating packages.
+  - Enable support for opus and flac.
+  - Remove unnecessary image formats such as gif and pcx
+  - Ensure that vcmi can load ogg/opus and flac as 'sounds' and not only as music
+
+- Rebuild ffmpeg with libdav1d and av1 support enabled. Needs investigation as to why dav1d fails to build on mingw and on android.
+
+- Rebuild all binaries in prebuilts package to ensure that everything is configured correctly and to replace any locally-built binaries with binaries from CI
+
+- Rebuild entire package from scratch using latest recipes from conan, to test current version of recipes
+
+- Run CI with full package rebuild on schedule (weekly? monthly?) to detect any regressions or breaking changes in CI or in used recipes
+
+- Automatically generate Github release with updated packages as part of CI. Should probably be done only for changes in main branch and/or for manually triggered workflows
+
+# Proposed better flow for updating dependencies
+
+- Move conanfile and conan profiles (or even entire CI directory) to this repository
+- Add this repository as a submodule to vcmi/vcmi repository
+
+With this approach we will be able to use following flow for new dependencies:
+- change conan/CI settings in this repository as needed
+- run CI in this repository to generate new packages and new release
+- update URL to dependencies in CI/update_conan_dependencies.sh to point to new release
+- open PR in vcmi/vcmi repository that bumps submodule to newest revision of this repository and whatever changes need to be done to source code to use newer package (if any)
+
+After merging PR in vcmi/vcmi repository vcmi will use new dependencies.
+
+If vcmi/vcmi PR is discarded for one reason or another, changes in this repository will have to be discarded as well