Hi Guido,

I should clarify that the notebook GUI tools are simply buttons that call WL functions, and you can alternatively directly use the programmatic (textual) interface that the buttons are using if that's what you'd prefer.

For example, you could create a Wolfram .wls script via:

Aside: .wls scripts are plain text files, so you don't have to use the GUI button shown above to create one; the button is just convenient for generating the first line of boilerplate in the script.

and save it to the root directory of your paclet folder, and add logic like:

#!/usr/bin/env wolframscript

Needs["PacletTools`"];

(* Adjust as needed based on where your script file is located relative to your paclet. *)
pacletRootDir = ParentDirectory[$InputFileName];

result = PacletBuild[pacletRootDir];

Print["Build result: ", result];

Then, when you wanted to run the script to build the paclet and its documentation, you could either click the "Run All Code" button at the top of the notebook:

or run the script from the command-line by executing:

$ ./build_my_paclet.wls

(Note that for this second option, you'll need to have wolframscript installed on your PATH.

Because the .wls script is just a plain text file, it should play nicely with being stored/diffed by Git in all the ways you expect.

Using .wls script files is how I manage build steps in many of my WL projects, see e.g. scripts/BuildPaclet.wls in one of my GitHub projects.

Let me know if this sounds like a useful approach to you, or if you have further questions.

Connor

Hi Connor,

Thank you for pointing me at those resources and indeed I often find myself drawn to the convenience of GUI tools.

The main issue with regard to how I like developing code seems to be the fact that notebooks are "binaries" with regard to Git—and I can't see myself do anything without it. There is a reason to still stick to good old fashioned text input for programming as it does not "hide" anything and is nicely diff-able.

While I certainly will give the "new" way of building Paclets a try, what would you advise with regard to Git?

Thanks, Guido

Hi Guido,

You are correct that, unfortunately, the Workbench has not been updated to support the modern PacletObject[<| ... |>] syntax for paclets. Our development efforts have instead been focused on improving the capabilities available in Wolfram Language itself for creating and developing paclets.

For example, the DocumentationTools and PacletTools packages have undergone significant development over the last few WL versions, adding support for creating paclets and authoring and building documentation that previously was exclusively available in the Workbench. While the Workbench does have a few remaining capabilities that don't have a direct analog in WL, our work has focused on bringing WL up to par with and surpassing the Workbench.

For example, as part of the recently released Wolfram Paclet Repository (https://paclets.com), we created a new Paclet Resource Definition Notebook tool that includes a GUI toolbar (see screenshot) for building documentation and privately or publicly sharing a paclet in the Wolfram Cloud, that additionally performs nice quality-of-life checks like linting for possible mistakes in your WL source code.

If you're interested in these tools, you might also be interested in this ad hoc collection of links I've put together that points to some of the useful documentation and presentations we've done describing our work in this area:

https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/connorg/Published/Paclet_Development_Resources.nb

I apologize for the issues you've had using the Workbench, but I hope that these new tools serve as a powerful and easy to use alternative. Work to improve and expand them is ongoing, so I would welcome any feedback you may have — please don't hesitate to reach out.

Connor