[Wxlua-users] Re: wxLua as a 5.1 binary module

[thegeek <ok...@on...>]

John Labenski <jlabenski@...> writes:

> 
> On 3/11/06, thegeek <okrog@...> wrote:
> > Hi, I've been using lua in combination with litestep ( an alternative
> > shell for litestep ), litestep has a lslua module that allows themers to
> > use lua for scripting themes. Lslua uses lua 5.1 and has full support
> > for the new binary module spec.
> 
> I'm not sure what litestep is, an xterm replacement? litestep.net?
> Their web page is broken for mozilla (in linux) and you cannot
> navigate to any of the tabs.
> 
> > Is it currently possible to load wxlua as a lua "module"?
> 
> No, see #3 below.
> 
> > If not, how hard would it be to make it possible, what problems are there?
> > I'm not much of a programmer, but I've been looking at the latest
> > release, and it seems very nice, it would however be great if users
> > could use the normal lua 5.1 release to load wxlua, without having to
> > recompile the parent application.
> 
> I agree that 5.1 "modules" should be something that wxLua should
> support. There are some issues however.
> 
> 1) wxLua currently uses 5.0.2 so we'd have to upgrade to 5.1.
> Unfortunately this means that we have to rewrite some of our lua code
> since table.getn has disappeared.
> 
> 2) In order to track coroutines we had to modify the lua source code.
> What has been added is a function that gets called when a coroutine
> creates a new lua_State. wxLua must be able to find the wxLua
> variables associated with the lua_State, these are the windows,
> events, data, etc. I'm not sure if there is another way to do this?
> Using a vanilla lua executable means that you cannot run coroutines,
> which may or may not be a problem for people.
> 
> 3) Additionally for the "module" support we'd have to make it so that
> the wxWidgets event loop gets initialized. This should be possible and
> I believe that it was done before, but again figuring it all out will
> take some effort. I have not looked into what it takes to setup a
> module so I cannot make any promises.
> 
> Hopefully for the next release we'll get to both of these things, but
> I cannot give any definite timelines for it.
> 
> You can always run wxLua itself on the command line and it should work
> fine. For example
> $wxLua myluaprogram.lua
> merely runs your program if it contains wxlua code or just straight
> lua code. You can even run compat5.1.lua to load modules as was
> previous discussed in the luasocket thread.
> 
> Regards,
>     John Labenski
> 
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First of all thank you for your quick and very informative reply.
I doubt I could help much with the development, but if you do implement module 
functionality it would be great:)

Regarding litestep:
Sorry, I meant to say "(litestep is a shell replacement for windows)", it's a 
quite old shell, but because of it's modular design it has survived(and is 
still beeing developed) There are lots of plugins that let you do almost 
anything conceiveable.
There are a few websites you can visit for more information; lsdev.org , ls-
universe.info and litestep.com
Keeping with the modular design it would be a shame if wxLua would have to be 
compiled into/with lslua.
The primary reason I would like wxlua in litestep is to give themers a better 
interface for any gui needs they have beyond the theme itself, such as "control 
panels" or even widgets such as a color picker.
wxLua in combination with litestep and xlabel(a plugin for litestep) would give 
a _lot_ of freedom in designing your very own ui.

:)