What I think is missing.

Interesting to read the comments here. I’ve used Codea since the first iPad and really adore it. I made what I think was the first IDE for ios (paragraf) where you only could edit glsl-code and modify the camera input with it, since Apple wouldn’t allow any other programming language runtime. So I was pleased when Codea showed up as an IDE similar to Processing for prototyping.

Sure, it’s been a bit annoying with some crashes and bugs with the editor from time to time, but overall its a great product.

Currently I mostly use it on an iPhone at small spare times, since my kids steals the iPads and my time :). And thats feat to make a usable IDE for an iPhone.

Maybe the newly released Godot editor for Android would be more on par with the thread starters request for what the app should look like. I’ve compiled a godot app where you can write gdscript on the phone, but to port the entire Godot IDE I leave for the Godot developers :slight_smile:

I hope you will keep Codea simple with the possibility of addons. I have for example mostly ignored Craft :slight_smile:

I concur with the point that the single most unquestionably direly absolutely necessary addition is project file/folder/tab management. Tab counts get out of hand FAST.

My #2 request is a save/load UI for projects to use.

I think Codea’s abilities might grow exponentially with a good API for presenting save/load UI to a user.

For example if you search the forums there have been lots and lots of drawing projects made, But few if any got used by other people, because there was no easy way to save what you drew.

As for myself, I made a simple app for a story game that presented you with two choices on every screen, and when I was done I was like, hey, this code could probably pretty easily be converted into a kit for making these kinds of games. I had all the code I needed to make the story structure, I just needed three other things: a way to draw, save, and load background images, and a way to save and load game files. I knew the forums had drawing code I could use, so that part wasn’t daunting. But eventually I gave up on the whole idea when I thought about how difficult the save/load UI would be.

Similarly, a while ago someone posted a 3D demo of a tile-based game, with a little ball that rolled around a maze (and all this before Craft!). I took it and added a rudimentary map editor to it, so you could make your own little mazes to roll around in. There was a lot more that could have been done with it, but without an easy way to save and load maps, I didn’t see much point in going further.

And so, you know, how much other code around here could be used to expand Codea’s core abilities? How many game editors are we missing out on but for a convenient save/load UI? The answer is at the very least non-zero.

Codea itself can make things, but it can also make things that make things. I think if there were a built-in save/load UI, more people would make things that make things, and then more people would use those things that make things to make other things.

:slight_smile:

Hey guys,

I’ve seen a fair few requests for better tab management. Some good news is the new editor does have proper support for folders and uses a more friendly file-list layout (similar to Atom). The screenshot is from a game I’m working on for dog-fooding purposes (using your own tools)

It’s not exactly possible to work out sub-folder dependencies perfectly so tabs are now loaded using require internally, allowing you to require things in nested subfolders so that all the dependencies work out correctly (they still get required but you can force the order that you want loading to happen)

My plan is to have the ability to register projects as editors so when you select a particular file type it loads that project and displays it where the code would normally go. You would also be able to add multiple editors for a given file type and switch between them on the fly. Custom file types would be supported as well as regular ones with a consistent API for saving and loading stuff.

so looking forward to this!

You would also be able to add multiple editors for a given file type and switch between them on the fly

does that mean we can also do side by side screens for the same project? i would love to be able to have split view, i think Steppers was also complaining about this, having to frequently switch back and forth to remember what i named a key, property, or function

also i know you’ve heard this so many times but Code Folding! we really want to be about to collaspse blocks of code

@John - looks like you’ve added collapsing functions too. Itching to see it in my pad. Thanks for the updates.

@Bri_G @skar It might look like that but its just the function marks and not collapsing. We are looking into what we can do to improve editor stability / functionality though

@John The new folder structure looks great! Code folding/collapsing would be amazing.

Is that c3, or c4, @John ?