LUA scripting language

[Jan Rysavy]

After reading http://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?t=2661 I would like to ask you: do you know/use LUA language?

Advanced options in Salamander will never be sufficient to satisfy needs of advanced users. I see two solutions here: plugins or scripting language. So far building of custom plugins seems to be ignored by Salamander user base so what about some scripting language?

In the mentioned case it would be possible to extend Advanced Options (Find, Copy, Move operations) with a new combobox where you will be able to select from available scripts. Each file and directory would be passed into the chosen script and could be approved or rejected there.

We would probably find other commands where the scripting language would be useful. For example Batch Renamer, Make File List, Change Case, Select/Unselect, or User Menu commands.

Recent versions of our favorite text editor SciTE does support LUA scripting, see http://scintilla.sourceforge.net/SciTELua.html

Please share your thoughts

[Ether]

+1

I've come across Lua several times, mostly in games and in SciTE. I don't really know anything about the syntax or such, but I think it wouldn't be difficult to learn.

[SvA]

This is a good idea. I probably would make use of it, though not extensively.

I have heared about Lua, though never had a closer look at it.

When you consider adding scripting support, why not have a look at ActiveScripting (Windows Scripting Host). This would open up scripting for a whole wealth of scripting languages, so everyone could use his favorite one, among which are wellknown names like VBScript, JScript, Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua, Tcl.

Beeing able to use an already known scripting language would help a lot to actually make use of the feature, most likely not only for me.

[mazy]

That would be very nice! I've been using LUA for example in older version of Foobar 2000 music player - very useful.

I would love to use LUA in AS in many areas Jan suggested - like Change Case (= "intelligent" script to distinguish abbreviation, roman numerals etc.).

Scripting in AS = big win for me.

[Textor]

After reading http://forum.altap.cz/viewtopic.php?t=2661 I would like to ask you: do you know/use LUA language? ... Please share your thoughts

That sounds like a very good idea.
Personally, I have read about Lua, and already downloaded the tiny interpreter and the documentation, in case there ever was a task that could not be solved with Autohotkey, or 4NT's extended batch language.

Lua is small, easy on resources, and already being used as a scripting language in many well-known games and applications, both commercial and open-source.

If you want to integrate it with Altap Salamander as a further enhancement , by all means go for it!