algine

Lua Support Roadmap

Why do we need Lua?

Lua is a simple, small, fast, easy to learn embeddable language. It can be very useful in projects such as Algine, since there are a lot of things that we can do much easier with language like Lua.

Firstly, we need Lua to get rid of awful, overcomplicated, inflexible, hard to maintain json configs that we are now using in Creators.

Secondly, we need Lua to simplify developer’s lives - not all projects need to be written in C++, so in this case easy to learn language like Lua would be a great solution.

And finally, we need Lua to create Editor, since it will be much easier to create it using language like Lua.

Status

Lua support is provided by the solgen library.

An approximate list of classes that need lua support to be implemented:

Creators:

Core:

Widgets:

Std:

Glm:

Tulz:

In reality this list will be much bigger

TODOs

Redefine Lua’s require to load Algine types (base, widgets, core (base+widgets), std, glm, tulz), e.g. require('algine:core')
Redefine Lua’s tostring for tables
Redefine Lua’s print to add ability to print tables

Useful pages

Sol documentation: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Sol - C++ in Lua - basic class binding example: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial/cxx-in-lua.html
Sol - property: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/property.html
Sol - usertype: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/usertype.html
Sol - ownership: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/tutorial/ownership.html
Sol - environment: https://sol2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/environment.html
Programming in Lua: https://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html
Lua OOP: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/lua/lua_object_oriented.htm
How to pass table as vector to a c++ function: https://github.com/ThePhD/sol2/issues/1054
Virtual inheritance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_inheritance

Hints

To create binding to overloaded function use static_cast<return_type (T::*)(args)>(&T::function_name)
To create binding to overloaded static function use static_cast<return_type (*)(args)>(&T::function_name)
If you bind class member function to lambda, then the 1st argument will be self: usertype["function"] = [](const sol::object &self, ...) { self.as<T>().function(...); };
Lua::new_enum allows you to create an enum and then make it as a class member
Lua::new_property creates property and additionally makes getter and setter
If you inherit Scriptable, then you also need to define static void registerLuaUsertype(Lua *lua)

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