Yep, me up on a soap box again. Once again, yes, requesting features.

But now that I've had a good long 2-years to work in this language, I think my requests are a little bit closer to home. Some are even bugs I've come across. Hopefully ZEP will see this.

• [1]
  If you press CTRL+F to search for something in the IDE, if it's in a TAB that you are not in, it cannot be found. Example:

pico-8 cartridge // http://www.pico-8.com
version 16
__lua__
function main()
cls()
star("hello")
end
-->8
function star(t)
  print("** "..t.." **")
end
main()

save this as a .P8. Load it up. Notice that the function star is in a 2nd tab. Now, if you were in the first tab and searched for "N STAR" which would be the "FUNCTION STAR()" it will not be found. This could be a problem when someone loads a game written by another and they want to track the functions that make it work.

• [2]
  NEW GRAPHIC MODE

I have seen several PICO programmers write their cart using 64x64 pixels (usable with poke(24364,3)
) instead of 128x128. Suggestion. Create a new video mode that is 64x64 pixels with 64-colors. This will take no more space than 8192-bytes, the same as 128x128x16. If you can't think of a 64-color palette, here's a nice one designed by ADIGUN:

• [3]
  Pretty sure someone mentioned, it would be nice to be able to change the keyboard repeat speed, not just for the IDE but the runtime of their game. Change time it takes to repeat, and speed of that repeat.

• [4]
  I saw this done on the Sinclair 1000 and T.R.S. 80 computer years ago. It was expanded upon years later by B4GL. That is the ability of converting a string to a value. I.E.:

a=calculate("(2+3)*4")

The resulting string would be: 20

B4GL took it a step further and allowed this:

a$="print 'hello world'"
command a$

Where the "command" would take the string and actually run it in interpretive mode as a command, with error message being possible. All kinds of interesting programming ideas can be done with this one.

• [5]
  For myself, I would like a FLIP(60) option instead of the usual FLIP() forcing 30fps. And there may also be some programmers out there who do not use the standard _INIT(), _UPDATE(), and _DRAW(). Certainly would be good for the TWEET JAMS.

• [6]
  Long desired is the ability to cut and paste SOUNDS and MUSIC. If you check, you'll see that if you use CTRL-C to COPY and try to bring it to paste it with CTRL-V NOTEPAD or a different PICO running, it will not work.

• [7]
  This is an error as I know years ago it worked properly.
  CSTORE() and RELOAD(). These commands will not work if you post your game Online, if you run it from SPLORE, if you export it to a HTML/.JS (run locally or online), and those 2-commands also do not work if you compile your application to an external .EXE.

When it worked, it was possible to load and save 8192-bytes of persistent data. Tasty indeed.

Instead we are forced to use CARTDATA(), DGET(), and DSET(), with a technical option of POKE/PEEK. This would let you access the default 256-byte persistent values manually.

• [8]
  This is a personal request, to be able to get more tiles at the cost of the map space entirely. An option to flip YES/NO. Many professional games written by others do in fact not use the mapper at all and create their gaming fields solely through coding.

• [9]
  The ability to play a SOUND or MUSIC at a different pitch. This shouldn't be that difficult to do.

• [10]
  I've only seen this phenomenon in the latest version of PICO. If you press ESC while your program is running, sometimes, not all the time, it brings up the MENU stating CONTINUE and RESET CART.

If ESC is going to bring up the menu while you are working on your own program, that's a bit confusing. Perhaps only allow the menu to come up, when you are working on your own code by letter "P" as you have when trying out a CART from Lexaloffle.

• [11]
  Really a feature request. While looking at tweets, I was impressed to see that when you ran one cart, it immediately shut down any others that were active. Suggest the cart that is run be FOCUSED. That is the HTML page is automatically scrolled to vertically center the active cart in the browser instead of requiring the user to manually scroll using arrow keys or scrollbar.

Also if this is done, you could immediately focus the cart too so arrow keys will not actually work but be checked for in the cart that's running, instead of having to click in it now as it is. Maybe hitting [ESC] as a way to unfocus the cart instead of requiring clicking outside the active cart area.

ZEP, this is your ride and your programming language. I don't think any of these suggestions will break any existing carts, in fact I'm counting on them not to.

That's all the suggestions I can think of for now.

. . .

With that out of the way, here is a list of previous posts, some asking for features that would be difficult to create, some asking questions that weren't answered, and some I think were useful or cordial.

HELLO
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=4129

PICO NOTES
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27665

MORE PICO NOTES
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27756

ALL TOGETHER NOW - online shared data
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27823

PICO MAGAZINE - totally worth the purchase
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27824

WILL I NEED SOME CHEESE - problems with mouse
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27866

I SAW THE SIGN - strange SGN() behavior
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27891

AN EFFERVESCENT SPRITE
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=27952

SRAM SMASHER
https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=31632

Anyone else, if you have queries, comments, or kerosene 🔥 leave them in the space below, thanks !