Hello,
It’s been a while since I’ve been on the Codea forums because I’ve been off doing things with web development. I recently started playing with Codea again, and noticed that the API is very similar to the Canvas API. Then I started thinking: What if if created an HTML5 Codea engine? That’s why I came to ask you guys if you were interested. An HTML5 engine would allow you to use PhoneGap to publish to platforms other than iOS like Android or Windows. If lots of you express interest, I will probably start an HTML5 Codea engine. If a few people are interested, I’ll probably post a series of tutorials about converting your app to HTML5.
Thanks!
P.S. Please note: Certain things like pulling up a keyboard will not be possible in HTML5, so please expect incomplete support.
Hello Zoyt. Having a library pulling up a keyboard is probably feasible. But having the performance provided with mesh access is probably not feasible in HTML5? that is the major pitfall i see in your project. Most games we can make with Codea are nice as long as they do not lag. If they become 10x slower in HTML, does that make sense?
That being said, your proposal is very attractive. Coding in HTML5+javascript is much more difficult than coding with Codea, so a ‘hands off’ trancoder would be a nice and useful tool.
In my opinion an HTML5 runtime engine would be great. Codea started as a fantastic and unique prototyping envoirement, its a shame that all this potential can´t be exported directly to other mobile plataforms and devices. The only issue could be (I’m guessing) some lack of performance of a “native” codea app when converted to a html5 web app. But for sure a HTML5 engine would be a great extension to Codea. 
@Jmv38 - Thanks for the reply. You have a good point. Even though the engine will probably not support meshes, it would still be really fast, to your surprise. The application probably would perform a little slow than Codea, but not as much as you think. Thanks to WebGL, I could probably support the upcoming shaders feature (I probably won’t out of the gates).
I hope to make this engine so you can publish your games to the web and other platforms. At minimum, I want to make this engine (if I make it) support ChipBots, proving you can make real games with it.
I think I’ll start with tutorials, and possibly build an engine if I have the time.
Would this allow for Codea projects to be run on a website? Check my thread here (http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/2041/is-it-possible-to-share-projects-on-the-webs). If so, I am very interested!
@jonathanhirz - I saw your thread. I don’t believe I will do the engine, but instead, post tutorials in converting Lua apps to web apps.
Cool, can’t wait to read them =D>
@jonathanhirs - Thanks!
Hello @Zoyt. You are teasing me! That would be really great to have a lua-codea web interpreter with good graphics speed. I cant wait to read your tutos! And for making the engine, how much work load would you expect? 3 man-month?
@Zoyt One alternative to Phonegap, could be also AppMobi/DirectCanvas (http://dev.appmobi.com/?q=node/167) They mentioned that has a better performance than Phonegap implementation, but I don’t have any experience on this field.
To be able to publish Codea projects on the web would be really nice. Maybe the easiest way would be to use the lua interpreters build with emscripten and then use webgl and make use of the opengl shaders from the current runtime that renders the graphics.
http://syntensity.com/static/lua.html
But well, you would need to have some free time for it.
To make it run on Android I think using Moai might be a good way, unless there is easy to add the lua runtime yourself. I made an small proof-of-concept of it, just supporting sprites and some touch events.
https://github.com/tnlogy/codea-samples/tree/master/Codea%20Moai%20Runtime
@pcarras - Thanks for the extra links. Trust me, I’ve explored all the possible methods of packaging HTML5 apps into iOS apps. PhoneGap is, in my opinion, the best and has the most support, so that’s why I mentioned it.
@tnlogy - Thanks for another links to an HTML5 Lua interpeter. I’d explored various possibilities, but didn’t see that.
I’ll start with tutorials, then this summer, I will attempt an HTML5 Codea interpeter.
Thanks!
I hope to post the first lesson tomorrow. I’m finishing up the website.
Hi @Zoyt,
Great thread, been out of touch for a while as I have been working on website bits. Have noticed the similarities between HTML 5 canvas, Processing and Codea Lua - had some fun transferring bits and like HTML 5.
Will follow this thread with interest.
Bri_G
I’ve posted the first lesson. Go here:
http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/2051/codea-to-html5%3A-lesson-1%3A-introduction-to-html5-and-the-file-structure#Item_1
Enjoy!