Live Tools

End-user web apps — normal pages in a normal browser tab — that connect live to a running copy of the game. Distinct from a Lua library you build a mod on — Essentials (Ess), or anything under Frameworks: a library ships as a .lua file you drop into your own mod, while a Live Tool ships as a page you just open, with no Lua of your own to write.

The shared thread behind all three tools below: lua-bridge (repo Merc2-Mods-Exp, mod lua-bridge-DEV) added a hand-rolled WebSocket server in v0.4.1, riding the same 127.0.0.1:27050 socket its raw-TCP REPL already used — see WebSocket Transport for the wire protocol. That transport turns the bridge into something a browser can talk to directly, with no Python relay or native install in between. These three tools are its consumers: a live Lua IDE, a live player-position map, and a visual node-graph editor that compiles to Lua. All run entirely client-side — a single self-contained HTML file — and need nothing on top of the game itself and the bridge DLL to actually execute code, track a position, or run a compiled graph live.

• Lua Web IDE — a real, in-browser Lua editor: CodeMirror 6 with Ess.*-aware and native-engine-call autocomplete, a lint pass that catches beginner mistakes before they ever leave the page, a script library, an examples gallery, and a two-layer API reference, all baked into one shipped index.html. Hit Run and the code executes inside your actual running game over the WebSocket transport, with results and the live game log streamed straight back.
• Live Map — a Leaflet map of the game world that overlays any JSON file of world-space points as a toggleable layer (collectible toolboxes and teleport spots ship built in), and — optionally — opens the same WebSocket connection to track your live player position on the map in real time, with a working in-game teleport button once connected.
• Visual Editor — a node-graph editor (litegraph.js) for building an OnKey mod without writing Lua by hand: wire triggers to actions across 411 nodes (Ess.* calls, bare native calls, and flow control), hit Compile, and either download the generated .lua or send it straight into the running game over the same WebSocket transport. Status: draft / proof of concept, the repo’s own words — young and small on purpose, not feature-complete.

All three are dual-mode: everything that doesn’t need the game (browsing, editing, loading a layer, building a graph) works with no connection at all, and each is hosted on its own domain and downloadable/runnable as a single file with no build step.

Source: mercs2-lua-web-ide · mercs2-webmap · mercs2-ess-visual.