Magic Lantern Lua API Documentation
Startup
The scripting engine looks for scripts in ML/SCRIPTS. Scripts should end with .LUA.
Any scripts found get "loaded" at startup by the scripting engine simply running them.
Therefore the main body of the script should simply define the script's menu and
behavior, not actually execute anything.
Menus
Scripts are not automatically visible in any specific menu. The script itself should define it's own menu (if a menu is needed). See: menu, calc.lua, copy2m.lua, menutest.lua, recdelay.lua, scrnshot.lua, sokoban.lua
State
The scripting engine will maintain your script's global state for as long as the camera is powered on. So any global variables you declare will persist until the camera is turned off.
Each script get's it's own lua state (virtual machine). If you would like scripts to
share a state, have only one of the scripts in the ML/SCRIPTS folder, and have it
call the other scripts with dofile() or require()
Tasks (threading)
"Preemptive" multithreading is not allowed within a single lua state, so only one thread of execution is allowed to be running in your script at a given time. Any attempts by other tasks to call functions in your scripts (e.g. via event handlers) will block until the current execution completes (or yields) or some timeout is reached (this is achieved by the scripting backend making use of semaphores). (Separate scripts may run at "the same time" since they have separate lua states)
The scripting engine will load and run scripts in a separate task created explicitly to load scripts. If a script blocks during loading, it will prevent other subsequent scripts from loading.
Different event and menu handlers get called from different ML or Canon tasks, and scripts may start their own tasks. A script may yield it's execution to some other task that is calling the script by calling task.yield. Execution is automatically yielded when the script returns from a call.
When writing a script, you should be mindful of the context (task) from which your script is running, and consider when it might be appropriate to start something in a separate task (to keep from blocking some ML or Canon task), or when to yield (to keep the script from blocking itself)
See: task
Library Scripts
You can write re-usable script code as a "library" by saving it as a .lua file in
ML/SCRIPTS/LIB The require function will search for libraries (or "packages") here.
As with regular scripts make sure to use valid 8.3 filenames. For a library called
ML/SCRIPTS/LIB/MYLIB.LUA, load it by calling require("MYLIB"). For example, see
config.lua and keys.lua, which are 'library' scripts included in this API.
Canon Properties
Canon firmware manages many settings via what it refers to as "properties". We can set handlers to recieve notificatons when properties change and we can send requests to change their values. One must be very careful when doing so, because Canon firmware persists this properties in NVRAM, and setting invalid values can 'soft-brick' the camera.
'Safe' getters and setters for some of the more common of these properties are available in sereveral of the modules, mainly camera and lens. You can register handlers for properties with the property module. Property handlers are run in a seprate task, so you can take as much time as you like without worrying about blocking Canon code, but doing so will block subsequent property handlers.
Errors
Unhandled errors are logged to the "console". You can turn it on from Debug > Modules debug > Show Console. This is also where you will see the output of the print() function. You can also implement your own error handling see editor.lua
Standard Libraries
All of the standard Lua libraries are available except os (replaced by dryos):
Modules
| event | Event Handlers. |
| battery | Battery properties |
| camera | Basic camera operations and properties |
| console | Functions for writing data to the console |
| constants | Constants |
| display | Display and bmp drawing functions |
| dryos | DryOS functions |
| global | Global Functions |
| interval | Intervalometer operations and properties |
| key | Key functions |
| lens | Lens functions |
| lv | LiveView functions |
| menu | Functions for interacting with the ML menu |
| movie | Movie functions |
| property | Canon Properties |
| task | Task functions |
| config | Functions for saving/loading config data |
| keys | Helper for dealing with keypresses |
| logger | Logging helper. |
Examples
| api_test.lua | |
| calc.lua | |
| editor.lua | |
| copy2m.lua | |
| menutest.lua | |
| scrnshot.lua | |
| hello.lua | |
| config.lua | |
| keys.lua | |
| logger.lua | |
| strict.lua | |
| pong.lua | |
| recdelay.lua | |
| sokoban.lua |