LiveCode 10 dp-6: Web Fonts and API 33

by Heather Laine on August 31, 2023 4 comments

We’re pleased to announce that LiveCode 10 Developer Preview 6 is now available. This test release includes the use of Web Fonts in your Web apps, and supports Android API 33, now required for submission to the Google Play store. In addition to this, the Web engine is now around 4mb smaller, owing to added compression and our use of Web Fonts.

What are Web Fonts and why does it matter?

Your Web apps will now use fonts provided by the browser. This makes a big difference to how your app text displays, as well as reducing the size of your Web App significantly. You no longer need to bundle specific fonts with it to ensure a consistent display. Additionally, you can easily specify as many fonts you need, either mapping to local fonts on a user’s system, fonts you have uploaded to your domain, or any available through a web fonts provider such as Google Fonts. This represents a significant part of the improved rendering project for Web we are working on for LiveCode 10.

Google Play Store support

We’ve updated the supported Android API in this release to API 33 so that you can go on submitting your Android apps to the Google Play store without issues. Note that you need to use the Build Tools SDK version 31 with this, do not update your Build Tools to a version later than 31.

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Heather LaineLiveCode 10 dp-6: Web Fonts and API 33

LiveCode 9.6.10 Stable Released

by Heather Laine on August 29, 2023 2 comments

We are delighted to announce the release of 9.6.10, stable. This will now become the latest shipping edition of LiveCode and you can download it from your account. This release comes with more than 20 bugfixes and improvements since the last stable version.

FEATURES ADDED:

  • Android API 33 update
    The Android engine is now built using version 33 of the Android API, a requirement for new apps submitted to the Google Play Store. Note you’ll have to install “Android API 33” using the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

  • RSA encryption padding modes
    The rsa encryption (and decryption) commands now accept an optional padding phrase. If no padding phrase is specified, then pkcs1 is used. For more details, see the release notes.

  • SQLite improvements
    The version of SQLite included in revdb’s dbsqlite driver has been updated to version 3.42.0.
    In addition to this the SQLite math functions have been included, as well as an implementation of the regular expression operations. For more details, see the release notes.
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Heather LaineLiveCode 9.6.10 Stable Released

Codename Xavvi will ship as LiveCode Create

by Heather Laine on August 24, 2023 No comments

Our new no-code platform, initially funded under the codename “Xavvi”, will be launched under the name of LiveCode Create. This decision has been made after a great deal of discussion, internally and externally, and we’re very happy that it reflects the direction for this product.

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Heather LaineCodename Xavvi will ship as LiveCode Create

LiveCode 9.6.10 RC-1 Released

by Panagiotis Merakos on August 17, 2023 1 comment

We are delighted to announce the release of 9.6.10 RC-1. This release comes with more than 20 bugfixes and improvements since the last stable version.

FEATURES ADDED:

  • Android API 33 update
    The Android engine is now built using version 33 of the Android API, a requirement for new apps submitted to the Google Play Store. Note you’ll have to install “Android API 33” using the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

  • RSA encryption padding modes
    The rsa encryption (and decryption) commands now accept an optional padding phrase. If no padding phrase is specified, then pkcs1 is used. For more details, see the release notes.

  • SQLite improvements
    The version of SQLite included in revdb’s dbsqlite driver has been updated to version 3.42.0.
    In addition to this the SQLite math functions have been included, as well as an implementation of the regular expression operations. For more details, see the release notes.
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Panagiotis MerakosLiveCode 9.6.10 RC-1 Released

Mac Sonoma – Initial Beta Support

by Heather Laine on July 27, 2023 4 comments

We’re pleased to say that today we are releasing a build of LiveCode 9.6.9 with a hotfix backported into it, to allow it to open and run on the Beta Mac OS Sonoma.

While we do not usually backport bug fixes into a stable release, we would like as many people as possible to be able to test LiveCode on Sonoma before this is fully released. Since to date LiveCode would not even open in Sonoma, this fix is needed to allow us to see if there are any other issues with compatibility we need to address.

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Heather LaineMac Sonoma – Initial Beta Support

A PolyGrid Success Story

by David Simpson on July 5, 2023 No comments

A Useful FileMaker Conversion Tool Built Economically with LiveCode

Find out how David Simpson created a great little tool using the PolyGrid in LiveCode to automate a large project for a client. The very modest amount of time invested in creating the tool potentially saved hundreds of hours of tedious work.

The Customer Requirement

This tool was built as a custom app for a large FM6 to FM19 conversion project having 153 files and thousands of scripts across the entire solution. With a solution this large, there are numerous changes required to upgrade it for full functionality with FileMaker Pro 19. Why so many files? Well, before FileMaker 7 the FileMaker product could only handle 1 table per file. Today, we would likely put all of those tables into a single file to make it easier to develop and manage the application and user accounts.

First, there are 20-year-old outdated plug-ins that are no longer available. This tool helps automate the task of finding and updating these old plug-in functions to use new built-in commands. Another very time-consuming manual task is updating scripts to include Commit Records steps because these weren’t required in FM6, but they are required with newer FileMaker versions. Newer versions of FileMaker Pro give developers more control over the process of committing records into the database to enable both transactional commit and rollback functionality.

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David SimpsonA PolyGrid Success Story

Storing User Data on the Web

by Ruaridh Bell on June 30, 2023 6 comments

Introduction

In the world of software development, one of the most important considerations is how to store and manage data across different sessions and users. One way to achieve this is through local storage. In this blog post, we will explore how to store user specific data within LiveCode as well as in your deployed web apps using local storage, demonstrating how it works, and its benefits.

Using LocalStorage within LiveCode

Within this post in order to demonstrate how each of these methods work we are going to be creating an app that allows you to store your name, age and location/city that will eventually be displayed when you start up your app, just using local storage methods. This stack can be downloaded here.

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Ruaridh BellStoring User Data on the Web

Coding the Future of Mental Health: Dr. Jason Taylor’s LiveCode Breakthrough

by Adam Howard on June 22, 2023 No comments

Meet Dr. Jason Taylor, a psychiatrist whose interest in app development led him to great success using LiveCode to create a groundbreaking mental health application, Historian.

Historian is an app that tracks and creates a summary and risk profile of the user’s mental health based on anonymized data the user inputs over time. This information can then be shared with healthcare professionals, enabling them to gain a more accurate understanding of the individual’s needs and provide targeted treatments more efficiently. Let’s delve into the details of Dr. Taylor’s journey with LiveCode and the positive impact his app has had on improving access to mental health resources.

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Adam HowardCoding the Future of Mental Health: Dr. Jason Taylor’s LiveCode Breakthrough