IDEs for LÖVE

[Naurgul]

I ended up with notepad++ with the love plugin for coding and an unregistered version of Decoda for debugging. Here's how the settings are supposed to look like:

Decoda project settings

decoda.png (27.46 KiB) Viewed 5770 times

Here's the detailed instructions (it's really easy):

1. Download Decoda and install it. (The trial version is good for 30 days)
2. Download a modified version of LOVE that includes this LuaJit thing.
3. Unzip your new love.exe somewhere (e.g. D:\Program Files (x86)\LOVE\love-luajit).
4. Start Decoda. Go to Project -> Settings. Fill the settings as follows:
   • Command: your new love.exe (e.g. D:\Program Files (x86)\LOVE\love-luajit\love.exe)
   • Arguments: your game folder (e.g. C:\Users\Nikolas\workspace\OCDGame)
   • Directory: . (a single dot)
   • Symbols: leave this one empty
5. Run with Ctrl+F5. Debug with F5. Breakpoint key is F9. For more details, watch this video tutorial.

[kclanc]

For comparison, here is a video of love studio. This demonstrates a fairly efficient workflow, doesn't it?

[middlerun]

I've had some success using Lua Development Tools with Love. It's a Lua-specific version of Eclipse which has some nice features, though debugging doesn't work for Love programs.

[kclanc]

Woah, LDT looks nice. Why doesn't the debugger work for love programs?

[middlerun]

Because LDT's debugger runs Lua scripts directly, but Love programs need to be run through the Love executable.

[Naurgul]

Yes, LDT is the first thing I tried. Couldn't make debugging to work. It doesn't seem like it's possible.

[kartben]

Hi guys,
I just gave Koneki's debugger a shot with LÖVE, and it seems to work just fine
Let me try to summarize what you need to do:

1. Create a new Lua project in Koneki (File > New > Lua Project), either from scratch or by referencing an existing folder. If starting from scratch, of course you'll want to create a main.lua!
2. Copy these two files next to your main.lua
3. At the beginning of main.lua, add

   Code: Select all

   require('debugger')()
   

4. Create a new Debug Configuration (e.g. from the menu Run > Debug Configurations...), default settings should be fine.
5. Launch the Debug Configuration
6. From the command line, make sure your working directory is the one where your sources are in (this seems to be important!), and launch the LÖVE emulator (for the record, this is how it looks like for me on a Mac: open -n -a /Applications/love.app/ .)
7. Enjoy! Any breakpoint that you have created should now work, and/or you can also pause the VM anytime you want...

Hope this helps! You guys can have a look at this screencast:

It was made for Corona but it is basically the same setup for LÖVE!

[kclanc]

I get a broken link for those two files.

[kartben]

I get a broken link for those two files.

Oops sorry about that! I just fixed it. Thanks for reporting it!

[kclanc]

I tried getting this to work on my windows 7 machine. Debug output is showing up, but I can't get breakpoints to work. I am using prepackaged LDT. I launch the game by going into the project directory and typing "love ."

Another complaint that I have is that it seems to slow the game down quite a bit. (Try debugging mari0.)

Overall, pretty nice.