Welcome!
This is the community forum for my apps Pythonista and Editorial.
For individual support questions, you can also send an email. If you have a very short question or just want to say hello — I'm @olemoritz on Twitter.
Support Lua code language?
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Just because Codea has fancy graphics features and such doesn't mean that you can't write normal Lua. When you run a normal Lua script the input and output happens in a small "console" area in the lower left corner (though it is quite small to be honest).
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@CodeLearning191 said:
I have used Codea. It is the best app to go with if you want to use Lua on the iPad, because projects can be exported to Xcode for release on the app store. As mentioned you can use it to learn the basics without the features. There is also Codea scratchpad, which is Codea but without all of the extra stuff.
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I wanted something with not that much features so I can learn it.
Codea has a marginally easier entry - but to do anything more complex than a simple demo, you will need to get deeper into the language than you might think, and Python is (IMHO) no harder than lua. Pythonista itself is a bit harder to use to make a graphical demo, but not much harder, and there are things you can do in Pythonista that are not exposed or possible in Codea.
So - if your goal is to make fun things on the ipad, either will work. If you want to learn, you will find the concepts in Pythonista carry on out to other environments, but much of what you learn in Codea is the Codea libraries, not lua, and is not easy to take out of there. (The closest analog outside of the ipad is probably love2d, you can google for it)
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@dgelessus said:
@ccc That's not a real app, is it? There is Codea, which is kind of like Pythonista for Lua. They also have a free version called Codea Scratchpad with limited functionality.
Actually, Scratchpad is currently 5 bucks. So, since you can't "try-before-you-buy," it makes more sense to me to just by the full $15 app. I don't see any usefulness for Scratchpad now that it is no longer free.
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That's an odd choice. I don't see why one would buy that version then. Also if the full Codea costs $15, you're better off with Pythonista, which costed $10 last I checked. Not to mention that Python is more usable as a stand-alone language than Lua, which is meant to be lightweight and embeddable. There's just so much more you can do with Python's standard library alone than with Lua's.
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Wait, the full Codea costs $15 now? I think I'll have to adjust my prices. ;)
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@dgelessus @disorientedp @omz Yeah, I think usually the price barrier for people is usually free or not free. There's not much in the range of $10 that would make or break a sale.
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@Webmaster4o Originally, Scratchpad was created to be a way for Codea owners to share their creations with their friends without those friends having to buy the app. I don't know what happened.
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@disorientedp I think I would have mixed feelings about something like that for Pythonista. Pythonista is a super high quality product, a bare-bones version might get poor reviews and reduce people's opinion of Pythonista in general, but it would also be cool to share with friends.
I guess that's what the Xcode template is for, but you kind of need a developer license. You can't even sideload without a valid developer license.
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@omz said:
Wait, the full Codea costs $15 now? I think I'll have to adjust my price
The other trend would be a cheaper stripped down version (to compete with those other python apps) with in-app purchases to unlock the extra modules. Really, you should offer a $30 pandas IAP so we can stop getting the "please pandas" posts :)
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I think one thing that is missing from any discussion concerning prices is perspective. Apps like either Codea or Pythonista would cost much more before the mobile boom.
To not distract from the topic any further, I have been toying with the Pythonista scene module and I think it is very capable. It is more like Codea with "not that much features."
So stick with Pythonista.
One thing to note also is that Codea was built with game development in mind, so certain features were added for that reason.