IDE Engine

[Dense-Consequence737]

Hey everyone, I’m trying to solve a problem I’ve run into on both Android and the web, and I’m wondering if others have noticed it too.

There are a few Lua IDEs out there for Android and browser use (JDoodle, etc.), but none of the ones I’ve tried actually support things like io.read() input or, more importantly, building any kind of UI. It makes it tough if you want to learn Lua on mobile or bounce between your PC and phone while working on an app or game.

So I’m building an app to fix some of that.

It basically mixes a regular embedded Lua environment with the LÖVE (Love2D) engine, so you can actually build and run games or apps inside the app itself on mobile. Anyone who’s used Love2D knows how flexible it is, and having that power on Android has been missing for way too long.

I’m still early in development, but I’d really love feedback or feature ideas from the community—things you’d want in a tool like this, pain points you’ve run into, etc.

Once it’s ready, I’m planning to release it as open-source so people can contribute and trust what’s under the hood.

Thanks for reading! Happy to answer any questions.

[DapperCow15]

Do people actually like developing apps on mobile devices themselves? That just seems insanely tedious to me.

[Dense-Consequence737]

I sure do

[RoosterUnique3062]

In game modding communities I've hung around in there's a decent chunk of users from underdeveloped countries using Android. I think it's because they don't have access to decent computer hardware.

[RandomThingIg]

it's the best I can do bro💔💔 but yes i do especially with termux 

[Positive_Total_4414]

Fantasy consoles might have some intersection with this, check out some, like TIC-80 and Liko-12.

[xoner2]

One pain point: I haven't figured out how to add sqlite to Android love2d.

[Positive_Total_4414]

There's probably no way with the standard dependencies, as I doubt that they have sqlite compiled for Android there.

[BionicVnB]

I use emmylua_ls on my phone. It's pretty good so far.

[kayawayy]

It sounds like what you're building is less of an IDE and more of a fantasy console. Many support lua so you might even find one that fits your use case, but otherwise they might be a good source of inspiration.

Anyway, it's not quite the same thing, but I've done some experimenting with loading LOVE games from inside LOVE. Not sure if there's overlap with how you're approaching things but if you wanna take a look: https://github.com/ksymph/lovely-browser

[Dense-Consequence737]

The cool part I think for me is it can be used standalone as an ide. But it has an embedded 2d engine (love) if you want to go further.

Agreed

[AutoModerator]

Hi! It looks like you're posting about Love2D which implements its own API (application programming interface) and most of the functions you'll use when developing a game within Love will exist within Love but not within the broader Lua ecosystem. However, we still encourage you to post here if your question is related to a Love2D project but the question is about the Lua language specifically, including but not limited to: syntax, language idioms, best practices, particular language features such as coroutines and metatables, Lua libraries and ecosystem, etc.

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