DevTools

This is a list of tools you may find useful in your development of MicroLua homebrews.

• Computer
  • Text editors
  • Image editors
  • Sound editor
  • Emulators
  • Versioning
  • File transfer
• Nintendo DS
  • Text editors
  • Image editors
  • Sound editors

Computer

Text editors

I am pretty sure I don't need to tell you which editor to use. Notepad++ is very good at doing this on Windows (you can even add MicroLua's API to its code highlighting). For Linux, any Gedit, Vim, Emacs etc. will do the job.

Image editors

Photofiltre, even in its free version can be quite efficient for this and produce low-res images that fit perfectly the Nintendo DS. I guess Gimp or Paint.NET will do the job too.

Sound editor

Audiocity is probably the best software you can use for this. It can export your sounds in a MOD format so its perfect for MicroLua. Look at the Sound tutorial to learn more, including how to make a sound database for MicroLua.

Emulators

If you are looking for a way of testing the code on computer, look at either DeSmuME or MicroLua Simulator. Maybe Dualis can help you too.

Versioning

We are currently using Git to version the sources of MicroLua, but you can also use SVN if you prefer.

There are many public repository services throughout the Internet, for instance GitHub which is especially designed for Git.

File transfer

For testing your scripts on the console without having to scratch your linker every time you need to update the files, try MicroFileServer which ease transfering MicroLua scripts between the computer and the console via Wifi connection.

Nintendo DS

Text editors

The best homebrew to make MicroLua scripts on your console is the Lua Editor reprise by geeker, known as LED RGB. It is about as effective as any computer editor and provides instant testing of course.

Image editors

There are a lot of them, all having cons.

• PocketPixie may be the best. It supports different sizes: 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 pixels in width and height and can save in '.png'. However, filenames are not customizable nor are file locations. The restricted number of images can be avoided by saving different images as frames, which are saved under different names in the same location. The last release date may say that the homebrew is not longer maintained, but the sources are free to use. DSOrganize may be used to move and rename files such as these images
• Colors!
• Phidia
• UAPaint

Sound editors

It is quite complicated to both create music and make it so MicroLua can play it. µLua actually needs your MOD and WAV files to be included in a BIN file which acts as a sound database. This conversion can only be made on the computer so you will have to put back your creations on your big machine anyway.