Homebrew Help with making text editor

[boot2490]

I want to make a SIMPLE (like tutorial you find on making a text editor simple) text editor for ds because everything else either doesn't work on certian things (scds2) or doesn't save .txt files. I was thinking about porting one from a c tutorial, because I heard devkitpro can compile c to nds.
PLEASE DO NOT YELL AT ME IF I AM WRONG.
PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME I CANNOT DO THIS BECAUSE I AM A NOOB OR SOMETHING TO A SIMILAR EFFECT. I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING.
I EXPECT BETTER THAN THE TYPICAL NOOB TREATMENT AS I AM NOT NEW TO FORUMS IN GENERAL.
Thank you.

 

[twiztidsinz]

I EXPECT BETTER THAN THE TYPICAL NOOB TREATMENT AS I AM NOT NEW TO FORUMS IN GENERAL.

Rule 1 of just about any sort of etiquette is to not use all caps...
Also not cool to instantly assume everyone is going to treat you like shit, kinda makes you come off as an asshole (pardon the language, I just state things as I see them).


While it might be possible for you to port C to the NDS, I think the first obstacle is going to be input. You'll need to make an onscreen keyboard for the DS.
Second obstacle will be the 4MB RAM limit of the DS, so don't expect anything too fancy.

You might also want to read this topic for some ideas and maybe get into contact with Argentum Vir for a possible collaboration.

I would also suggest making the project opensource in some fashion not for anything like 'zomg open source iz bettar!!', but because of the frequency that projects get dropped/abandoned for the DS. If you make it opensource and keep it up to date, if you ever drop it then someone can pick up where you left off or at least use yours as a reference.

 

[boot2490]

While it might be possible for you to port C to the NDS, I think the first obstacle is going to be input. You'll need to make an onscreen keyboard for the DS.
That is what I was planning to do.
QUOTE(twiztidsinz @ Mar 16 2011, 05:44 PM) Second obstacle will be the 4MB RAM limit of the DS, so don't expect anything too fancy.

As I said, I expect something NOT fancy!
Thanks for the amazingly fast reply. Sorry for the spiny attitude.

Do not excpect me to know C, C++, or any coding heavier than TI 83+ B.A.S.I.C.

 

[boot2490]

All of my programs will be open source if I am not selling them.
If I will sell them, free versions may be open source.
I hate dropped projects too.

 

[DanTheManMS]

Erm, a text editor might not be the best thing to start on if you don't have any knowledge of C to begin with. Learning C/C++ is itself somewhat difficult, much MUCH moreso on the DS because you have way fewer debugging options. You've also got the hardware-specific graphics modes to worry about, getting your tiles into the right places in memory, etc.

Just a fair warning.

 

[boot2490]

I'm aware of what I am up against. I am actually looking for a colab.

 

[relminator]

LibNds has a built-in keyboard. See the example files.

Unless you limit your font sizes there are, 2 good ways to render fonts:

1. Software (LCD mode). That's what GBA games have done to write their dialog boxes. Slow but very flexible.

2. Use the 3d engine in Orthographic mode. Limits you to about 1500 fonts per screen. ~3000 fonts if you are going to blit to both screens at 30 FPS.

Considering that an 8x8 font would fill the whole screen with 768 chars, 1500 should be enough. Then you can have like translucency on a per char basis, smooth scrolling, etc.