RE: Best framework to LUA developing in Tablets? Is it possible?

Thank you for your answer, Steve.
I know now that Lua is used for serious things. I have seen many of the screens in 3D in petroleum surveying ande things like that.
I am impressed.

I have been all the afternoon reading information about MonoDroid and MonoTouch.

I knew about Mono, but I had no idea that it could be used for developing under iOS or Android.

I fact I thought you could not develop in C# in iOS, but I see I was under a mistake.

We have expertize developing in C# and .NET (windows framework), so it would be more familiar to us at first.
Anywaw Lua seems a good way to implement part of the code, and let the user program some routines or functions for getting the software do what it exactly wants.
But as long as I know LuaInterface seems to work only in the Windows world and CLR.

The problem with Mono seems to be that you have to develop the interface for each target platform.
There is the WinForms classes developed in C#, but they seem not to be ported to the Android or iOS world.
The same with GTk# or wxWidgets.

It seems you have to develop the UI entirely to the native UI classes, but you can reuse other parts of the code.

I know that you cannot just develop a tablet app interface as if it were a desktop computer.
But I would like to have the same UI controls like lists, buttons, etc, eve if the frame classes are different or the input methods.

But it would be easier to develop for different targets using classes with a similar philosophy.

I don't expect to have a sophiticated interface in the first version, just somthing that works.
That were my expectations: something that let me have working interface with several displays that later could be evolve into something more elaborated.

In Lua it seems the problem is similar: if you use the ports of lua for the different platforms, you need to elaborate radically differente interfaces for each system (may be similar in look but completly different programming).

The only thing that seems to have a common base is Corona.
But it seems its widgets collection is too scarce. It seems more oriented for painting in the display, image reproduction, but not really a interface framework.

Am I wrong?

thanks
Fernando

> Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 13:03:13 +0200
> From: steve.j.donovan@gmail.com
> To: lua-l@lists.lua.org
> Subject: Re: Best framework to LUA developing in Tablets? Is it possible?
>
> On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 12:48 PM, Fernando Ariznavarreta Fdez.
> <ariznaf@ingdes.org> wrote:
> > I am pretty new to LUA.
>
> It is called Lua, which is a word.
>
> > I had heard of it over a year or so, but thought it was just for game
> > development.
>
> Oh no, people do really serious things with Lua!
>
> It will be easier to pick a platform and work with that - e.g for iOS
> there are ways to bridge Lua with Cocoa, and for Android there are
> Java bindings like LuaJava.
>
> Also, Mono has been getting popular (although not free? [1]) as a
> portable platform, in which case there's LuaInterface.
>
> steve d.
>
> [1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7936066/mono-for-ios-android-open-or-closed-paid-or-free
>