Löve IDE *BETA* [not written in löve, but for it!]

[Luiji]

I'm sorry to repeat what I've already said, but it just seems illogical to make a LOVE game IDE in GameMaker. It's like asking users to support two game engines (although I do know that we don't have to because GameMaker is not a dependency).

It's like writing a C++ IDE in Pascal or writing documentation for German software in English, it's unnatural and scary. It's like Mother 3, metal and wood don't go together.

[vrld]

I'll start with constructive criticism:

Yes, all functions get automatically closed. If you were to place an "end" at the start of it (and define another function) it will change it to that new function.

That's not good, because it is confusing. Also, what does initiate script stand for? Isn't love.load() supposed to do that? Remove the button and add function stubs to the main editor window. Imagine you put an end too much to an if clause. The error will be really hard to track down using your IDE.

Would it be good if I had when you choose an event from the event button, it actually adds that to the editor?

No. I am quicker with the keyboard than with the mouse. Writing "function love.load()" is faster then moving my hand to the mouse (trackball, actually, those things are awesome), move mouse cursor to button, click button, move cursor to function name, click function name. But maybe that is just me

How is the completion not usable?

Because it requires me to use the mouse. See above. Using tab or even the arrow keys (or both) to cycle through the options and enter (or tab) to complete an option results in a much faster workflow. Emacs does this especially well.

You can't edit multiple files, because... well... I haven't made it do that. don't worry though, I will add this ability in the next version.

Do this. Even a medium sized project will benefit from splitting the sourcecode into different files. Get rid of the event thing but use your codebase to support multiple files.
While you are at it, do online syntax check (you can use luac -p for that) and add a debugger. Not having a decent debugger for love really bugs (haha, get it?) me.



As for not so constructive criticism:
I doubt your project will be used by many people. Not because the IDE lacks functionality - that is only natural at this point - but because there are already a number of IDEs and good editors you can use for löving. Each new tool requires a learning phase and people who already learned a powerful editor (vim, emacs, textmate and stuff), won't be easily convinced to use your IDE that will lack features their tools already have - I will not use Love Dev.


Nonetheless, writing an IDE is an interesting and fruitful challenge. You will learn a lot about user interface and application design. Beware, however, that this is a really, really complex topic, and there may be pitfalls which you don't see yet, but will bite you in the ass, because of choices you did earlier in the design process.


Edit:Yay, I became a citizen!

[Jasoco]

It's like Mother 3, metal and wood don't go together.

You better not be talking bad about Mother 3.

[Luiji]

I'm referring to the base concept of Mother 3, that metal and wood don't go together. The author of the game specifically said that's why he made that logo. "Wood and metal together are so different that they cause an eeriness that befits the game." - Paraphrasing of <forgot his name>

[Zenku]

Hey, I think doing a Löve IDE is a good idea... Why don't we make a team for developing this? (Not in Game Maker, obviously haha... but may be in Delphi or Visual C++)

EDIT: or may be we could do some kind of plugin for existing lua IDEs... Now thinking about this, it's kind of easy haha... may be I could do it alone

[Robin]

If you are going through with this, please note there have been three earlier community IDEs, all of them dead now:

• new Love IDE
• DEVötion IDE
• Döve

[Geti]

DEVötion IDE

Oh, the irony!

[Luiji]

You mean that no one was devoted to it? Just checking my ability to get what people are saying.