I am building a CLI themed launcher that allows you to create lua based widgets and I need your help.
Hi all,
I want to preface this by saying thank you in advance for your opinions and ideas.
I am knee-deep in building, or more honestly re-building, an older Android launcher and slowly starting to make it my own. The launcher is terminal/TUI-inspired, and one feature I am exploring is a Lua-based scripting surface for user-made widgets.
The rough idea is:
Users can create small Lua scripts inside the launcher, save them locally, and expose them as launcher widgets/modules. These scripts would support a limited Re:TUI-owned API rather than full Android or Java access.
For example:
-- name = "Battery"
-- type = "widget"
-- permissions = "active-tick"
function on_resume()
local battery = system:battery_info()
ui:set_title("Battery")
ui:show_text("Battery: " .. battery.percent .. "%")
ui:show_buttons({"Refresh"})
end
function on_click(index)
on_resume()
end
The launcher would provide APIs like:
ui:show_text(...)
ui:show_buttons(...)
prefs:get(...)
prefs:set(...)
files:read(...)
files:write(...)
system:battery_info()
system:network_state()
http:get(...)
The goal is not to expose raw Android internals, arbitrary Java, shell execution, or full filesystem access. Lua would be sandboxed, with permission metadata for sensitive APIs like network, clipboard, vibration, local files, and active ticking.
Users could paste shared scripts from Reddit/GitHub/etc. into the built-in editor, review the permissions, approve them, and run them as widgets.
My questions for Lua folks:
- Does Lua feel like a good fit for this kind of small reactive widget scripting?
- What API design mistakes should I avoid early?
- What would make this pleasant or unpleasant for regular users editing small scripts on a phone?
- Are there Lua sandboxing/runtime pitfalls I should be especially careful about?
- If you were writing scripts for a launcher, what helpers would you expect?
I am not trying to copy another project wholesale, but AIO Launcher’s Lua scripting gave me the initial nudge to explore this. I would love feedback from people who know Lua better than I do before I commit too hard to the shape of the API.
Thanks again.
