SNESAsm IDE

[Ferris]

Here goes, a simple yet robust IDE for SNES development with an emphasis on games and demos in assembly.



The project is not even close to be ready for testing yet - I have most of the GUI finished but most of the buttons etc don't do anything ...it's being written in Dev-C++ and will *possibly* be open-source.

Current "to-do" list includes:
- Project file format (".snesproj" or ".snp" probably)
- Tabbed rich text editor for multiple files
- Includes WLA as an assembler and ZSnes as an emulator (can link to other emulators by simply browsing and selecting another program, as long as the new emulator supports loading .smc programs from the command line)
- Automatic .link file generation for WLA's linker

"Maybe" list includes:
- .png/.bmp/.pcx (undecided so far) -> SNES format (.inc) converter
- Debugger (very unlikely but it's being considered)

Hopefully the SNES dev community will take this well and I'll get tests up as soon as possible for the public

Thanks, and wish me luck

[rain_storm]

Excellent stuff Ferris. Hope this IDE takes off. This is a big project and I think the most important thing at the moment is to keep it simple. Will this IDE use an already existing assembler as a back end? I have no idea of what api calls are required to capture output from a child process but I reackon its a lot easier than writing your own assembler.

[Ferris]

Yes it will use an already-made assembler (that's what WLA is), so keeping it simple is exactly what I'm doing .

Thanks for the support!

[Ferris]

Small update: Just got official permission to include WLA

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Very cool! It would be interesting to play with mode7 a bit.

[Ferris]

Pixel_outlaw: Yeah, me too As far as I know though it's just an infinite tilemap that can be translated/rotated...and with HDMA some neat effects could be achieved.

[Ferris]

(HDMA is Horizontal blank Direct Memory Access...basically changing data in an interrupt called at the end of each scanline, such as changing the horizontal scroll register to make layers wave and things like that.)

[Pixel_Outlaw]

It would be really cool to get one of those empty carts and play a game on the real system. This stuff is probably a bit advanced for me but this is very cool.

[Ferris]

Here's the first "test" of the tool

It's hardly anything so far. Only menu items that work so far are new source file, exit, and about

Just posting to show the general look of the tool.

So much left to be done!! And the code is still under 200 lines which is definitely an achievement for me

For now though I'll do some work on my magnification entry

[Shockwave]

It's looking good so far Jake, the layout of the menus seems fine so as far as general look is concerned it is fine. It will be cool to be able to play with the editor when you get it coded.

[Ferris]

Thanks It might be some time before it's finished, but it will definitely be done by September (I'm keeping a to-do list handy this summer )

Update: we've now reached February and still no IDE