Updating experiment directly on Pavlovia—can I just update the .psyexp file?

Online experiments
1

Long story short, I made a change to the .psyexp file of an experiment on my computer, but when I tried to sync it, it says that “None points to a remote that doesn’t exist…”.

Is there any reason I can’t just update the file on Pavlovia directly? I.e., go to the code for the psyexp file on gitlab, and update the line that needs changing.

And then, part two, will just changing the .psyexp file be enough? There are also .js and .py files, but my understanding is that those don’t get run for an online expeirment.

2

I’m afraid that your understanding is incorrect.

The psyexp file is used to create the py file for offline use and the .js files for online use.

I STRONGLY recommend that you sort out the syncing so you can update using the psyexp file instead of manually editing the jamovi files.

I sometimes in this situation delete the local files and resume from the Pavlovia repository as if you were forking a someone else’s study

1 Like
3

Oh wow, I’m glad I checked, thank you!!

If I wanted to just start fresh, could I delete the Pavlovia study and all local files except the psyexp file (I’m programming in the GUI) and start again from there?

4

Sometimes I delete the study on Pavlovia and the local .git folder and create a new project from there. Sometimes I delete the local folder and sync to a replacement from the existing Pavlovia repository. I tend to prefer the latter unless I’m deleting an html folder from the online repro.

5

In the latest version (2022.1.2) you can do it like this:

  • Make a new folder
  • Using the search :pavlovia_search: window, find the Pavlovia project
  • Change the local root of the project to this new folder
  • Sync the project (this will pull down the files from Pavlovia to this new folder)
  • From the original folder, copy over everything but the .git folder, opting to replace files if prompted
  • Sync again (if there was a difference between your original local files and the online project, this will push those changes to Pavlovia)
6

To be fair, you can do this in easier versions too. If I accidentally make edits to a Builder file when I haven’t synced other changes first I follow those steps (but usually only copy over the psyexp file from the original folder).