Power 8

Pico 8 lua compiler and merger tool

This tool is meant for 2 specific use cases:

1. Pico 8 developers that want to code in external editors, using múltiple lua files.
2. Pico 8 dev teams that need to work on the same game at the same time.

Having said that, Power 8:

• Compiles all .lua files in the specified folder into the .p8 output file
  • Replaces 4 spaces tabs with 2 spaces tab
  • Adds a configurable comment at the top, usually with dev info or licence
• Allows taking graphics, audio, code and map data all from different .p8 files
• Allows saving and loading Power-8 configurations
• If a field is not specified, it's content will be taken from the output .p8 file (if there's any)

Disclaimer

You need a copy of Pico 8 for this tool to make sense.
Theoretically the app should work on Mac OS but I have no way to test it :\
You need Java 1.8 to run it (all versions of the app need that)

Future plans

• A standalone cli app will be added for scripting purposes. It will accept cli flags or a .pow file generated with the save feature of Power 8.    Done in v1.0.1!
• Drag and drop files into path fields
• "Export and run on Pico 8" button
• Any suggestion? ;)

CLI

To use the CLI app you need to generate a .pow configuration file with the GUI app first by using the File->Save menu.
Then you simply call the Power8-cli.jar with the .pow file as first argument. For example:
        java -jar Power8-cli.jar config.pow
The CLI tool is great for configuring a hot key on your favourite text editor, so you are a couple of shortcuts away from testing your changes!

LUA Preprocessor

At the moment the only preprocessor flag that is implemented is

• -- {strip_comments} this entry makes Power8 ignore all comments on that .lua file.

Bugs

If you encounter any bugs please create a topic here on itch.io and I'll try my best to fix it/assit you.