blender-asset-manager/docs/source/manual/index.rst

User manual
###########

Using BAM is easy and fun! Provided that:

- you know how to use the command line of your system.
- have some experience of how versioning systems work

Actually, this is not true, and in this guide we will explain to use BAM client from scratch.

.. hint::

   Do not try to follow this page as a step-by-step tutorial, since its content might 
   be not completely coherent. The purpose of this manual is simply to explain the bam 
   workflow from the artist point of view.


Project Initialization
======================

In order to start working, we need to initialize a *project folder*. This operation should
be done only once. To create a project folder we need to open our terminal, and go to the
location where we want to store the project folder. Then we can type:

.. code-block:: sh

    bam init http://bam:5000/gooseberry

This command creates a ``gooseberry`` folder, containing information about the project. If
we enter the folder and use the ``ls`` comand command, we notice that it is empty, but if
we use the ``bam ls`` command we see a directory listing. This listing is provided by the
project server on the fly and it allows us to browse its content without having a local copy
on our machine.

The project folder can be moved anywhere, at any time. The exact ``bam init`` syntax is
available in the reference section.


Session creation
================

Once the project has been initialized and we are able to browse it remotely, we can proceed
checking out a file from it. For example we can type:

.. code-block:: sh

   bam checkout libs/envs/jungle/jungle_opening.blend

This creates a ``jungle_opening`` folder inside of our ``gooseberry`` project folder, which
will contain the ``jungle_opening.blend``, along with all its dependencies (library files,
textures, etc.) organized as follows. ::

    jungle_opening.blend
    relative/maps/path/map.png
    _absolute/maps/path/map.png

As we can see, folders starting with the ``_`` character map to an absolute path on the server,
while the other folders are relative to the file that was used to create the session.


Editing
=======

At this point we can edit any file in the session, and the system will keep track of our changes.
Currently we can:

- add new files to the session
- delete files
- edit files

We can not:

- rename files

In order to check what is the status of our edits, we can use ``bam status``, which will print a list
of edited, added and deleted files.

.. note::

   Sessions are meant to create a contained and controlled working environment. We should
   never, ever refer to content that is outside of a session folder.