IDE designer / Codea API

I would like to create a library that has simple GUI controls, TextBox, button, checkbox, radio buttons, combo boxes, list boxes, ect.

This would be easy enough to do this in lua in codea.

I would then like to create a “form” or “page” designer to build a GUI with my tools.

Then… (hoping not wishful thinking) I would like my GUI builder to be able to create a new codea project, create lua classes to display my screen and maybe build some standard hooks for touch, etc.

So… Does a hook exist in codea to control things in codea, like create new projects and add new classes?

If so is it documented anywhere?

It’s possible to code your own tools and code generators within Codea, however you would have to handle project storage and retrieval using raw io — @Ruilov’s GitHub client does this (http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/1331/version-control-is-here-a-github-client-for-codea).

GUI controls are available in several libraries made available by forum members (@Andrew_Stacey and @Mark have some great code — I don’t have the links on hand, though)

I actually attempted something similar (as a fun experiment) a while back. Here were my results:

http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/Talk/discussion/660/codea-written-in-codea

I have a little IDE knocked up using some of my bits and pieces. I was hoping that somewhere down the line we’d get the ability to export text to the clipboard, which would make it very easy to pop up the IDE project, draw out a screen, then go back to the project in development, and paste in the results. Right now, I have to push the results out as a global string, then copy / paste in a routine to read that string in the target project. Meaning that the actual “code behind” the interface isn’t visible in the target project and is not easily made a part of the project. Less than ideal.

And if now you’re thinking “wait a sec, didn’t this idiot already get around this problem in Spritely?” the answer is… the idiot forgot. Until just now.

The work around is to slide the screen into STANDARD mode and display the text using a print statement. Also not ideal, but it can be copied to the clipboard.

OK, I’ll get the IDE thing together shortly.

I’d be glad to see it and build on it.

I wish the “GITHUB” component was just part of Codea.

I try to keep away from using iExplorer or other tools that require hooking up to my Mac. I believe soon we will have a Mac/Pc Free world where tablets rule! :slight_smile:

.@wrmichael we wish we could add GitHub integration. It would be amazing. It would also be against App Store policy, however, so we can’t. As soon as we’re allowed to, we’ll be working on something like that.