Yarn Projects

Learn about Yarn Projects, which group your scripts together for use in a Dialogue Runner.

A Yarn Project is a file that links multiple Yarn scripts together. Yarn projects are how Dialogue Runners work with your content.

The Yarn Project inspector. The configurable properties of the Yarn Project are visible at the top, and the information about the imported project is visible at the bottom.

Creating a New Yarn Project

To create a new Yarn Project, follow these steps:

• Open the Project menu, and choose Tools -> YarnSpinner -> Yarn Project.

• Godot will open a dialogue where you can choose the directory your Yarn Project will be saved, and its filename. Choose a name and directory, and press the Save button.

Creating a new Yarn project.

Adding Yarn scripts to a Yarn Project

On their own, a Yarn Project doesn't do anything. In order to be useful, you need to add Yarn scripts to it.

Yarn Projects include all Yarn Scripts that the project finds in the Source Files directory. By default, that means all Yarn Scripts in the same directory as the Yarn Project, and all of that directory's children.

When you add a Yarn Script to the same folder as a Yarn Project, it will automatically be included in the Yarn Project. When you make changes to the script, the Yarn Project will automatically be re-imported.

You can change the locations that a Yarn Project looks for Yarn Scripts by modifying the Source Files setting. Each entry in the Source Files setting is a search pattern.

Pattern	Description	Examples
*	any filename	"*.yarn" will find "One.yarn" and "Two.yarn".
**/*	any path, including subdirectories	"**/*.yarn" will find "One.yarn" and "Subfolder/Two.yarn".
..	the parent folder	"../*.yarn" will find "One.yarn" in the parent folder.

You can add as many entries to the Source Files field as you like. If a file is matched by multiple patterns, it will only be included once.

An example of a custom Source Files setting. In this example, the Yarn Project will use all .yarn files in the same folder and its sub-folders, as well as the file Common.yarn in the folder above it.

A Yarn script can be included in more than one Yarn Project.

Managing Localizations and Assets

When you write a Yarn script, you write it in a specific human language. This is referred to as the 'base' language of the script. It's called the base language because it's the one you start with, and the one you translate into other languages.

Unless you change it to something else, Yarn Spinner will set the base language to your computer's current locale.

You can set the base language of a Yarn Project in the Inspector by changing the Base Language setting.

Updating the base language of a Yarn Project

If you want to translate your scripts into another language, you add a new locale code to your Yarn Project. To learn about this process, see Adding Localizations.

Using Yarn Projects with Dialogue Runners

Yarn Projects are used by Dialogue Runners. When a Dialogue Runner is told to start running dialogue, it reads it from the Yarn Project it's been provided.

If you try to start a Dialogue Runner and it doesn't have a Yarn Project, or the Yarn Project doesn't have any Yarn scripts, or if any of the Yarn scripts contain an error, the Dialogue Runner won't be able to run.

Inspector

Property	Description
Re-Compile Scripts in Project	Manually trigger all of your .yarn scripts to be compiled.
Add Line Tags to Scripts	When you click this button, any line of dialogue in the Source Scripts list that doesn't have a #line: tag will have one added. See Adding Localizations for more information.
Update Localizations	When you click this button, all .csv strings files that are configured in the Localization CSVs list will be updated with any lines that have been added, modified or deleted since the strings file was created. See Adding Localizations for more information.
Source Scripts	The list of places that this Yarn Project looks for Yarn Scripts.
Base Language	The locale code for the language that the Yarn Scripts are written in.
Localization CSVs	A mapping of locale codes to CSV file paths, for storing localized content for your dialogue.
Export Strings and Metadata as CSV	When you click this button, all of the lines in the Yarn Scripts that this project uses will be written to a .csv file, which can be translated to other languages. A CSV file listing any metadata associated with each line will also be generated alongside the strings CSV file. See Adding Localizations for more information.