where do i start?

depends what level/experienced coder you are and how you learn, get notepad++ or some other lua editor and take a look at some examples maybe if you prefer a hands-on approach as i do
and/or take a look through the lua manual along with the reloaded command guide and see what's available and what it does.

if you're new there isn't a set way to learn and there is generally many ways to achieve 1 objective with coding (although naturally some ways are more efficient than others), my advice would be to give yourself some basic goals and try achieve those, once you do give yourself some harder goals and repeat.
if you're experienced at coding then be aware reloaded scripting is still quite limited so there are a lot of things you can't do yet.

For me, my intro to LUA has been recent but I'm finally getting some good results. Although we are quite limited at the moment there are a couple simple things you can pull off with it.



You may need a basic understanding variables and functions. The best way to start is to just play around and see what works.

thanks but i amstill a little confused as to what i coding software i need to download,any advice?

My advice is that if you're not a programmer and never wanted to be one before then don't start now. That may seem harsh, but I'm just being honest. Just because Reloaded offers scripting doesn't mean everyone and their grandpa should be coding suddenly. Now, if you genuinely want to learn programming and do scripting in Reloaded then start with learning the basics of programming first, then the basics of the LUA language and then look at the Reloaded scripting examples that are available. If you try to jump ahead then you'll just end up frustrated and discouraged.

you dont need any really, you can open the lua files in notepad but notepad++ offers code colouring and other benefits (it's free and im sure there are other great free options too)

I've been testing LUA out with ZeroBrane but also hear good things about notepad++ as others have mentioned. But also as smallg says, you can just use notpad.

thanks so much for all the replies.

I use notepad. Pretty sure there are numerous editors out there that would support lua, but so far as long as I type correctly notepad is fine

I have had a long background of coding since the ZX Spectrum which got me started. Mostly I have used variants of BASIC as that was the language I used on the Speccy. obviously things change over the years, but the concepts are pretty much the same as when I programmed on the Spectrum, just with more commands and a smidge more memory I have used numerous packages since on the Amiga and PC and so picking up Lua has been fairly easy in the main so far. I have learned mostly from examples and studying the commands available, also browsed the main lua online docs a little, but not much in actuality. Most I have learned from digging in and trying things. Admittedly having a background knowledge of coding helps, and there's only one way to do that. Read, and practice a lot. I can only say that I have many years of coding under my belt, so it is hard to remember back to the days when I knew nothing. but when I started I read as much as I could (not so easy back then, no internet) and wrote and rewrote many programs until I could do it without having to think too hard.
Things are much easier now, with many languages available with more features and commands than the Speccy could dream of, or even fit in memory 48k was not a lot, and you didn't actually get 48k all to yourself. Lol, text files are bigger these days.

Check out the scripts included with reloaded, check out general programming principles. Nothing stopping you from at least doing some simple scripts to start, and work up to more advanced stuff.