Planning the LiveCode training day
I’m assuming the following:
• The day will be spent on coding for the desktop environment
• Participants will bring their own laptops
• I’ll be available in Thinqtanq the day before and on Saturday morning to help participants install LiveCode
• I will support Mac and Windows platforms
• I’ve never run LiveCode on Linux, so participants bringing Linux machines should expect to sort out any ‘Linux only’ issues themselves if I can’t help.
• During the day we can poll demand for:
o A follow up day on iOS
o A follow up day on Android
o A LiveCode User Group (monthly?)
• Following our selection of exercise from the following list, I’ll put together a running order and will work to follow this on the day (but my priority will be to follow participants’ needs/demands)
Training exercises:
Following a general introduction to LiveCode, I suggest we let participants choose the order in which we work through the following exercises until we run out of time – with a wrap up session at the end…
Monitor a Directory for Changes
You’ll learn how to monitor a directory for changes so that each time a change is made (for example in a shared team folder), a notification widget will fade in and fade out on your screen.
Create a PDF of a ‘form’ Document
You’ll learn how to create a template ‘form’ for a document (for example a reminder note or invoice) and how to create a PDF of each completed ‘form’ you produce (this exercise can be augmented to save data locally to a text file).
Scrub Text
You’ll learn how to take styled text from the clipboard and replace it with plain text ready for your next paste command.
Encrypt/Decrypt
You’ll learn how to make simple encrypting/decrypting apps which can be used to protect documents and/or send secure messages.
Execute a Shell Command
You’ll learn how to make a frontend for command line tasks on a Mac or Windows PC using the ‘Shell’ command – initially to get basic system information (this exercise can be augmented to include other Shell commands).
Clock Timer
You’ll learn how to make a simple stopwatch timer (this exercise can be augmented to make a clock & alarm)
Calculator
You’ll learn how to make a simple calculator.
Simple Newsreader
You’ll learn how to take data from an rss feed and display it in an app (this exercise can be augmented to display more advanced formatting)