Noob Alert!!

[Eric C]

Totally new to the Solarus Engine. I downloaded it yesterday because I'm a rabid Zelda fan (and stayed up all night playing Mystery of Solarus)...

I'm really stoked about being able to create my own Zelda game, but I know next to nothing about Lua scripting (haven't tried programming anything since the days of DOS 5).

Any pointers or assistance the forum can throw at me would be greatly appreciated.

[the bread]

Well... I'd recommend taking some time to learn Lua at first (as always, there are tutorials all over the internet).
Specifically about Solarus, there's a series of video tutorials (both about scripting and mapping) by Christopho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9mEFmRVlBQ&index=1&list=PLzJ4jb-Y0ufwPrBfO5AQMRfe2kLABQsF0
A more detailed (it's older, though) version of this tutorial exists in French, even if you can't understand French it might still be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMN54k8-DjM&list=PLzJ4jb-Y0ufySXw9_E-hJzmzSh-PYCyG2&index=1
Then, there's the documentation: http://www.solarus-games.org/doc/1.5/index.html. It's always helpful to look up something but taking some hours to read all the overviews of each section is really worth it (didn't do that myself, so I know the troubles I could have saved myself).
Finally, you can find the source codes of games made with Solarus here: http://www.solarus-games.org/development/source-code/. Those often come in helpful because they contain the source codes for all basic stuff of a Zelda game. Something that isn't listed there for some reason is the source code for the Solarus remake of ROTH: https://github.com/christopho/zelda_roth_se. This is the newest one, therefore it contains the source code most up to date.
If you can't find the information you need within any of those sources, you can still ask the forum. Also, it can be useful to read through old forum posts - there are quite some useful programs, graphics, audio and pieces of code shared.

For mapping, this beautiful tileset by ffomega exists: http://forum.solarus-games.org/index.php/topic,651.0.html. I mention it here, because it's really well documented (there's a website with tutorials about how to use it and there are some example maps). Apart from that, you can download a lot of tilesets with ALTTP-Graphics (see the video tutorials for more information).

This is all Hope I could help you

[llamazing]

For general Lua assistance, see the following sources:

Lua 5.1 Reference
http://www.lua.org/manual/5.1/manual.html

Programming in Lua E-book
http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html

Basic Lua Tutorials
http://lua-users.org/wiki/TutorialDirectory

[Zefk]

Greetings,

It seems everyone beat me to most of the helpful information. This info below might help you out. Also, this guide I made might assist with other questions and resources needs. I should add the stuff below to my help guide.

IDE:

ZeroBrane is a good lightweight IDE

Books or PDF:

TutorialPoint is always be helpful with programming. Here is a offline book version of the lua Section. You can learn C++ and a bunch of other languages at tutorialpoint too, but only Lua is needed for Solarus. The PDF is free, but there is an option to buy it for $10.

[Christopho]

Moonscript and C++ are useless for Solarus, the scripting language is Lua.
The programming in Lua book is the best resource, and its first edition is free online: http://www.lua.org/pil/contents.html

[Zefk]

Thanks for the tip on Moonscript. At first I thought it was a compiler for Lua code. Tutorialpoint online lua compiler will do instead.

Online Lua Compiler:
Tutorialpoint Online Lua Compiler: Here


Edit:
Tutorialpoint has Windows and Mac installation instructions. Here

@Eric C
I made this post. It might help you with Lua Installation. I use the terminal on Linux for Lua, but I found what I could for Windows. You could use tutorialpoint online lua compiler instead just in the learning process. The Solarus package already comes with everything you need.

[froggy77]

Welcome Eric C to our small but growing community! One day, Solarus will kill Rpg Maker . It will be a mass exodus of Rpg Maker communities to our forum .
lol "Noob Alert!!" I like the name of the topic. It shows that Solarus is not so easy to understand for a newbie. Solarus is a ARPG engine and RPG Maker more a TRPG engine. However, make a good ARPG project on Rpg Maker without knowing ruby and workaround/hack is difficult, but make a good ARPG project on Solarus without knowing lua a little is almost impossible.
That 's why, I say it would be nice to have also some examples with explanation on lua commands and simple functions in a topic. Then, explain how these examples can be used in a Solarus project.

Thank you Zefk, I did not know Tutorialpoint Online. It would certainly replace repl that I use for lua tests. I like the vertical split screen in repl, but Tutorialpoint Online seems to offer more options for a project.  In fact, maybe I will use both .

[Zefk]

One day, Solarus will kill Rpg Maker . It will be a mass exodus of Rpg Maker communities to our forum

I have to agree. I think in the future that will be the case. As someone experienced with RPG maker....I have to say there is not much difference. Eventing is basically coding without the typing, but I like typing my code because massive event clicks can cause repetitions sprains. Coding with ruby on RPG Maker is much harder than Lua with Solarus. The only major difference is that RPG maker has tons of free, easy plug in scripts available from many people like Yanfly and Himi.

Thank you Zefk, I did not know Tutorialpoint Online. It would certainly replace repl that I use for lua tests.

No, thank you. I have been looking for repl. I lost the link to repl and confused it with the moonscript online compiler because they look so similar.