Vacation Over

My vacation ends today. My boys and I have been chillin' at Myrtle Beach, SC. So, I'll be back on the code Sunday evening.

I've got to push myself to get back in the saddle. I admit I've slacked some, and real work has also impacted me. I should be finished by now, but such is life.

I'm really going to push to be done before the December holidays.

M.I.A.

Yes, I have been "missing in action." Real world/Real Job caught up with me. We have been in a few weeks of design meetings, and new code architecture. We've just begun the last 2 weeks to begin the implementation of our new design.

So, now that things have settled in my brain on that, I should have some spare brain cycles to get back to my part-time job. :)

Stay tuned...

Crosstown Traffic

Youre just like crosstown traffic
So hard to get through to you
Crosstown traffic
I dont need to run over you
Crosstown traffic
All you do is slow me down
And Im tryin to get on the other side of town
-Jimi Hendrix (The Master)

Actually, I'm no longer slowed down. I just got the cross-project building working. Hold on, here it comes...WHOOOHOOOO! Okay, it was pretty simple, and actually better than how I've done it on the PC/Visual Studio.

The cross project settings in XCode make it so that you can build static library projects, and link them to your main App project. The great thing is that you don't have to worry about the flavor of the build, i.e., iPhone debug/release Simulator, iPhone debug/release Device, iPhone debug/release 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, etc... You don't have to worry about getting the proper build libraries building with the proper App build settings.

The cross project settings handle it all for you. I read through the XCode Build Management documentation like I said I would, and it wasn't very clear, but I did find this tutorial that got me setup and running, so instead of regurgitating what I read, here's the link I followed...

http://blog.csdn.net/dotphoenix/archive/2009/05/16/4191455.aspx

However, in my journey of reading the docs I did run across a feature of XCode, "snapshotting," that works like a mini repository backup. So, if you don't have a SCM (source control manager) setup, or TimeMachine running, you should probably take a look at "snapshots."

Now, to the LuaBind build steps I promised in my last posting. Some asked, "how did you do it?" Now, without further ado, the steps...

1) Download Luabind 0.8.1 from here: http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/Luabind-Download-52705.html

2) Download Lua 5.1.2 from www.lua.org (LuaBind 0.8.1 currently only works with Lua 5.1.2).

3) Download Boost 1.39.0 from www.boost.org

4) Extract the above downloads to your desktop or some other area.

5) Create a Mac OS static library XCode project named "Lua...the following is from an earlier posting of mine that detailed how to build Lua. I will italicize so that the step numbers do not become confusing.

a) Get lua-5.1.2(Xcode).zip


b) Unzip it


c) It will unzip to the folder lua-5.1.2


d) Open it and double click on the lua.xcodeproj


e) Build the project (just to make sure it builds) ...it will generate a library file.


6) Now, create a Mac OS static library XCode project named "LuaBindLib."

7) From the extracted LuaBind download folder copy the LuaBind folder to the project's folder.

8) From the extracted LuaBind download folder copy the Src folder to the project's folder.

9) From the extracted Boost download folder copy the Boost folder to the project's folder.

10) In the LuaBindLib project folder create a folder name "Lua."

11) In the just created Lua folder, create a folder name, "Include."

12) From your earlier built Lua project find the following header files,

luaxlib.h
lau.h
lauconf.h
lualib.h

Copy them to the LuaBind\Lua\Include folder.

13) Your LuaBindLib folder should look like this...

LuaBindLib\
\LuaBind
\Src
\Boost
\Lua\Include

14) Add the Src folder to the project.

15) Bring up the "info," project window and go to the "Search Paths," section. On the "Header Search Paths," set the paths to the LuaBind, Boost, and Lua\Include folders.

16) Build and good luck. Leave a comment if you have any problems and would like some help.

To wrap up. Now, that I have the cross project library stuff working, I can get on with building my components as static libraries now. One more time...WHOOOHOOOO!!

Missed It

I was to attend the local iPhone/Android Meetup this evening, but had to miss it. The artist working with me on the game was in town this weekend, and leaving (ahhh...now this morning) today. We missed hooking up over the weekend so had to meet Monday night, thus I couldn't attend.

I was asked by more than one person to detail how I got LuaBind to work on the Mac/iPhone since there *are* some problems building for the Mac. So, in my next posting, not now, I'm tired, I will put down the steps that got LuaBind to work for me as a static library.

Until the next posting, happy coding. :)

Errata and What I'm Doing Now

In an earlier post I showed how to add to your $PATH. I actually typed it incorrectly, here is the correct way...

PATH=$PATH:/your path here
export PATH

Tonight/Today is one of those days where I take a step back, in hopes of being able to work smarter and faster in the long wrong. I have started reading the XCode documentation so that I can learn how to do "cross-reference project." Since I am a relative stranger in the Mac/XCode environment, the things that come to me rote on the PC/Visual Studio, have me fumbling around on the Mac.

On the PC if I want to have separate projects that build libraries that other projects use, it is simple, all I have to do is set the build environment to build the library and output the library to some common folder. Then, in the other project, just link against the library(s). I don't like adding the libraries to the project settings since I want to be able to easily move from one build setup to another, so I do in the source file...

#pragma comment(lib, "some lib")

So far, I haven't been able to do so in XCode. Ignorance is the common force behind prejudice so, I'm taking the time to know XCode. I already love most things about it, and once I become more familiar I am sure there will be more love. Besides, "some of my best friends are XCode.," "XCode you aren't like the others, you are special," "XCode you don't smell like *they* said you did," etc....

I want to be able to build my core components as static libraries, tie them into a project and have the changes updated.

Back to reading...

Fade In

Int. Home Office Evening

Middle age, man, sits hunched over computer keyboard, pecking away.

MAN (muttering whisper)
Guess I'll blog about Lua Script integration success.

We zoom into his blog...

Whoooohooo! The Lua scripting is tied in. I downloaded, and built LuaBind as a static library and tied the scripting into my engine. I wrote up some little test scripts and was able to bind C/C++ to Lua, and Lua to C/C++. LuaBind is great, it frees you up to do what you want to do and that is script. Not sit around writing LuaGlue functions so that you can script. I've said it before, I'm lazy and want my tools to be easy to use, and this one surely is.

I also went back to my messaging scheme and enhanced to do derivable messages. Now, I can derive base objects, and have the derive object class register for the messages it wishes to have, and let the base class handle any messages I want the base implementation of, or ignore entirely.

So, after a night of being pretty tired and my mind not working, I arose after a solid 4 hours of sleep and things came to my mind more clearly.

Tonight I will relax on the coding and read some things I want to read on design and continue designing my engine.

Fade out.

I Smell Another Journey Coming On

Rolling my own bindings for Lua isn't going to cut it. So, I'm going to use LuaBind or LuaPlus. My hunch is that they just don't have a package that I can easily install. :)

We'll see...as Slick Rick sang, "wish me luck, 'cause I'm scared and I'm nervous" (The Ruler Is Back...that's old school hip hop).