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Entry posted by Josh ·
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In my last development blog, I wrote about some design problems I faced, and why I wasn't sure how to proceed. I've resolved these issues by building the debugger and game output display close to where they will be most likely to be used, the Script Editor.
I was pleased to find that my Lua debugger code I wrote about a year ago works perfectly. This allows breakpoints, code stepping, and the display of variable values in your game. It works with any Leadwerks3D executable, so you can even examine and debug the Lua state in your C++ executables. (This does not debug C++ code or other languages, as there are already appropriate tools for that.) I like to combine the callstack and variable display into one tree view, so you can quickly navigate the program.
I decided it made sense to build the game output and debugger into the script editor, because that is where you are most likely to use it. Even if you are debugging Lua in a C++ application, you still want to be able to double-click on the call stack and display a script in the editor. The only situation where this design doesn't really make sense is if you launch a C++ application and just want to look at the program's output. In that situation, it is a little strange to need to open the script editor to do that.
The actual executable to be launched will be controlled in the project settings. The default for a Lua program will be a copy of the interpreter executable that gets added the project folder. You can specify the script in a command line field, like this:
+script $scriptfile
Where "$scriptfile" gets replaced with the file name of the currently selected script file in the script editor. For a C++ application, the project will simply be set to call the executable the C++ template sets up a project for. If any of that sounded confusing, take a look at how maps are launched in 3D World Studio (or even Valve's Hammer Editor, for that matter). The bottom line is it's set up automatically when a project is created, and you probably will never need to change it, but the capability is there if you need to.
Previously I wrote that it's better to name a thing with a specific name that describes most of what it does, rather than to broaden the description to become fully encompassing but vague. The same holds true for program and workflow design. The debugger and game output display are built into the script editor, where they will be the most useful overall. It's not "correct" in a hyper-analytical way, but it makes sense and is convenient.
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