sys.startApp(path, args) tears the runtime down and starts over from a
file, and keeps nothing else: no history, no title, no app identity. All
of that can ride in the arguments, so it does, and sdcard/.lua/lib/nav.lua
is the single writer of that table.
nav owns the back stack, the bar's title and /.lua/data/<AppId>, which
means the launcher, what "back" reaches and how deep a route nests are
editable on the card rather than in a reflash. Apps call nav.launch,
nav.replace and nav.back; sys.startApp has one caller.
Boot passes no arguments at all, which is how main.lua tells a cold start
from a navigation and opens its own launcher, replacing the home field the
runtime used to read. Arguments cross as JSON, so history is a list of
tables rather than a packed string, and an app passing something JSON
cannot carry sees the error at its own nav call.
Follows lib/esp32-lua-api: gui -> screen, node -> tree, settings and input
split into screen/sys/touch/buttons. Settings is one provider lighter, with
timezone on Sys and rotation and theme on Gui, which now applies and persists a
rotation in one call. The calibration screen stashes the rotation it borrows
rather than relying on a transient setter.
The firmware knew where apps, data and modules lived, called four globals,
and painted a status bar into a strip it clipped every app out of. None of
that was its business, and the viewport made the bar something an app could
neither compose with nor replace.
It now loads one file. main.lua mounts the route inside its own node tree,
so the bar is a sibling of the app rather than chrome painted over it: one
layout, one hit test, no inset arithmetic and no invalidation flags on the
C++ side. Apps and main.lua are tables -- they share a lua_State, so globals
would collide -- and a screen changes by rebuilding from node().
clang-format had no config here, so adopting the submodule's puts both repos
on the same pointer alignment. .editorconfig is what lua-language-server reads
on save, which is why the Lua tree had drifted between tabs and two widths.
The app name now uses the UI font like a card title, with its own baseline so
the larger text stays centred. The back button loses its border, since the
fill already carries the pressed state, and the firmware reports that state so
it can repaint. An offline radio draws faded bars behind a cross rather than
vanishing.
Apps live under /.lua/apps with data in /.lua/data, matching the runtime's
paths. ui.lua and hints.lua ship from the submodule through `make sdcard`
rather than a copy that drifts, so theme.lua and the firmware's own ui.lua
are gone.
App-visible changes: text takes a font role rather than a text size, the
theme palette names roles (color/background) instead of fg/bg, ticks are
timer.every, on_press is on_click, and centring is layout alignment now
that textAlign left the node contract.
Remove OpenFontRender, embedded Meslo assets, custom-font APIs, and their runtime allocation overhead. Keep the taller status layout and compact card grid, with used RAM, aligned faded WiFi bars, and tighter telemetry rows.
Embed a Latin-1 Meslo LG S default and use OpenFontRender for anti-aliased text with an explicit pixel size on each draw and measurement call. Apps may replace the one retained face with an SD-backed TTF and restore Meslo with nil. Refresh UI sizing, status telemetry, Settings typography, tests, documentation, and font license notices.
Use a two-row 44px status bar with a full-height back button, centered app name, WiFi beside the clock, and free/total RAM below. Expand grids to three portrait and four landscape columns with consistent card text and left-to-right partial rows.
sys.launch(path, arg) carries a string to the next app's init(arg), nil when there is
none. States share no memory, so one string is the whole handoff; anything structured
travels as a Lua literal the receiver loads. This is what a screen split across apps
needs to say "collect a password for this network".
sys.setAppName() retitles the status bar, defaulting to the directory name as before. A
setter rather than a declared constant, so one app can retitle per screen. The bar needs
no new invalidation path for it -- the name joins rotation and theme in the cache key --
and clips a name wide enough to reach the memory slot.
The bar repainted itself whole every second. It now compares each field against what
it last painted, adds seconds and a memory percentage, and keys the cache on
gui.getRotation() and ui.themeName so rotation and theme changes still repaint it.
Invalidation lives entirely in Lua; the firmware's push flag and gfx/statusbar.h are gone.
Bindings follow getName/setName/isName, persisted preferences move from sys to a settings
table, and gui.setRotation takes degrees like settings does. A bar that dies mid-run now
keeps its rows reserved rather than silently resizing the running app.
evan