Custom Project Build Template

Cocos Creator supports custom build templates for each project. Add a build-templates folder to the project path, divide the sub-folder according to the platform name. Then all the files in this folder will be automatically copied to the build generated project according to the corresponding folder structure after the build. Currently, all platforms except the native platform support this function, the specific platform name can be referred to the following custom build template supported platform list.

Folder Structure:

project-folder
 |--assets
 |--build
 |--build-templates
      |--web-mobile
            // The file to be added, such as index.html
            |--index.html

If the current platform is Web-Mobile, then build-templates/web-mobile/index.html will be copied to build/web-mobile/index.html.

In addition, the file types currently supported by the build template include ejs type and json type. Please refer to the supported platform list below for details on the support for each platform.

ejs type

Since the content of the package is not guaranteed to be exactly the same in every version, when the build template within the editor is updated, the developer also needs to update the build template within their project. For example, if the MD5 Cache option is checked at build time, taking index.html on the web platform as an example, the css file referenced in it will have an MD5 Hash suffix, which may not match the one in the original template and may not work.
To optimize this problem, a new way is added to use the template. Click on Project -> Create Preview Template in the main menu, and an ejs template file will be generated for the corresponding platform.

Developers only need to customize the generated build template in the .ejs, the build will automatically synchronize the updates of the editor build template to the custom build template, and the frequently changed content will be synchronized to the sub-template (.ejs) referenced by the template, so that the custom build template can be updated manually without frequent updates.

Taking the creation of a Web Mobile build template as an example, the generated build template directory structure is as follows:

Note: the copy template occurs after the rendered template. For example, if both index.ejs and index.html exist in this directory, the final packaged package will be the index.html file instead of the index.ejs rendered file.

json Type

Many mini games have their own configuration JSON files, like game.json to WeChat Mini Games. Files in the build templates folder will just copy in default, but this configuration JSON will be merged instead of overwrite. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all JSON file will be merged, you can check it in the tables below.

Custom build template supported platform list

The supported file types for build templates by platform are as follows: