Scenes/Views/Activities question [Answered]

[MightyPancake]

Hello LÖVE users, I have a question, because I wasn't able to find an answer myself. The question is, does LÖVE provide any kind of scene/view/activity manager? In other words, can I switch between different .lua files, or am I stuck with the main.lua (which is fine, but I would still love [heh, get it ] to know it anyway). I hope I'll learn something new!

[keharriso]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by being "stuck with main.lua", or exactly what a "scene/view/activity manager" looks like to you. If you're looking for a way to swap out your love.update/love.draw/etc. functions, there's no magic here. Just make a table of the functions you want to swap out and change the table to change game states.

Code: Select all

local state

-- Swap states on mouse press
local stateA = {update = ..., draw = ..., mousepressed = function () state = stateB end}
local stateB = {update = ..., draw = ..., mousepressed = function () state = stateA end}

local state

function love.load()
	state = stateA
end

function love.update(dt)
	state:update(dt)
end

function love.draw()
	state:draw()
end

function love.mousepressed()
	state:mousepressed()
end

Let me know if I misunderstood your question.

[steVeRoll]

Different files do not necessarily mean different states. You can use different files for whatever you want, which in this case is different states. You can use the example keharriso wrote above for what you want.

[MightyPancake]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by being "stuck with main.lua", or exactly what a "scene/view/activity manager" looks like to you. If you're looking for a way to swap out your love.update/love.draw/etc. functions, there's no magic here. Just make a table of the functions you want to swap out and change the table to change game states.

Code: Select all

local state

-- Swap states on mouse press
local stateA = {update = ..., draw = ..., mousepressed = function () state = stateB end}
local stateB = {update = ..., draw = ..., mousepressed = function () state = stateA end}

local state

function love.load()
	state = stateA
end

function love.update(dt)
	state:update(dt)
end

function love.draw()
	state:draw()
end

function love.mousepressed()
	state:mousepressed()
end

Let me know if I misunderstood your question.

That's exactly what I was asking, but the thing is... I already know this way, it's straight forward BUT it uses a lot of space in editor, is inconvenient and most importantly, it's not ergonomic, the code will run slower etc. What I'm looking for is a way to navigate LÖVE to take code from other file instead of main.lua
Let me give You an example. Imagine creating a game that has a menu. The menu looks of course different then the game itself. So, You create two separate .lua files to manage both menu and game itself. Like Corona's composer, Android Views etc.
So, the point is, how to make LÖVE engine take on other .lua files.
You kind of got the point of what it's used for, however, not the whole idea

[keharriso]

OK, how's this:

Code: Select all

-- state.lua
local state = nil
local states = {}

local State = {
	set = function (name) state = states[name] end,
	get = function () return state end
}

local function register(name, state)
	states[name] = state(State)
end

register("stateA", require "stateA")
register("stateB", require "stateB")

return State

Code: Select all

-- stateA.lua
return function (state)
	return {
		update = function (dt) ... end,
		draw = function () ... end,
		mousepressed = function () state.set "stateB" end
	}
end

Code: Select all

-- stateB.lua
return function (state)
	return {
		update = function (dt) ... end,
		draw = function () ... end,
		mousepressed = function () state.set "stateA" end
	}
end

Code: Select all

-- main.lua
state = require "state"

function love.load()
	state.set "stateA"
end

function love.update(dt)
	state.get():update(dt)
end

function love.draw()
	state.get():draw()
end

function love.mousepressed()
	state.get():mousepressed()
end

EDIT: fixed bugs in the example code

[MightyPancake]

OK, how's this:

Code: Select all

-- state.lua
local state = nil
local states = {}

local function register(name, state)
	states[name] = state
end

register("stateA", require "stateA")
register("stateB", require "stateB")

return {
	set = function (name) state = states[name] end,
	get = function () return state end
}

Code: Select all

-- stateA.lua
return {
	update = function (dt) ... end,
	draw = function () ... end,
	mousepressed = function () state.set "stateB" end
}

Code: Select all

-- stateB.lua
return {
	update = function (dt) ... end,
	draw = function () ... end,
	mousepressed = function () state.set "stateA" end
}

Code: Select all

-- main.lua
local state = require "state"

function love.load()
	state.set "stateA"
end

function love.update(dt)
	state.get():update(dt)
end

function love.draw()
	state.get():draw()
end

function love.mousepressed()
	state.get():mousepressed()
end

Exactly! Thanks a lot C; That's exactly what I asked for. Have a great night/day!

[tentus]

There's also an excellent library that might be exactly what you want called gamestate, in the hump libraries.

https://hump.readthedocs.io/en/latest/gamestate.html

[zorg]

That's exactly what I was asking, but the thing is... I already know this way, it's straight forward BUT it uses a lot of space in editor,

Can't debate this since i'm, for one, not using an IDE.

is inconvenient

Subjective, which, again is totally a fair point; if you find another solution to be more convenient (with or without any trade-offs), then by all means, use that.

and most importantly, it's not ergonomic, the code will run slower etc.

Ergonomic in what sense though? If you mean convenience, you already tackled it with "inconvenient";

But this last one, the speed of the code being slower... without benchmarks, that you didn't really provide, it's not really a valid point in and of itself.

[pgimeno]

I think he was talking about having all states in one single file. And I agree it uses a lot of space in an editor and is inconvenient and not ergonomic. The speed point is indeed questionable.

[MightyPancake]

That's exactly what I was asking, but the thing is... I already know this way, it's straight forward BUT it uses a lot of space in editor,

Can't debate this since i'm, for one, not using an IDE.

is inconvenient

Subjective, which, again is totally a fair point; if you find another solution to be more convenient (with or without any trade-offs), then by all means, use that.

and most importantly, it's not ergonomic, the code will run slower etc.

Ergonomic in what sense though? If you mean convenience, you already tackled it with "inconvenient";

But this last one, the speed of the code being slower... without benchmarks, that you didn't really provide, it's not really a valid point in and of itself.

I'm not here to debate with You, I've written this post to get my question answered. Also, I don't give a quack about benchmarks, it's inconvenient as hell and if You code for sometime, it should be pretty obvious for ya.
Again, ergonomic means I don't want to work with huge files that contain all the data, while I could work with small ones. It's just hard to work with huge files using text editors

The thing that I really, really don't understand about Your "reply" is it's point. As I said, I already have found answer and Your reply didn't help me in any way
Just please, avoid sending replies that have no intellectual value, specially if thread has an answer


Edit: Sorry, zorg, I didn't mean to be rude. Don't feel offended by any way! I hope we're good
If You feel somehow attacked, sorry again!