9.6.6 RC-1 brings iOS 15, Android Adaptive Icons + Your Top Fixes

Just in time for the Holiday Season! This release is stuffed to bursting with improvements that you, our customers, have asked for. We ran a survey recently to find out which issues mattered the most and we’ve done our very best to fix as many of them as possible in this release. So while it’s just a maintenance release, we think you’ll find it a treasure trove of goodness.

iOS goodies

In addition to fixing issues we now support iOS 15 and the corresponding Xcode 13 in this release. This will enhance your experience on Monterey and allow you to use the very latest iOS features in your apps. You can also now allow for the Notch and other device furniture using our new “safe areas” function.

Android also feeling the love

We’ve added adaptive icons for Android, giving your apps a fully up to date, professional and responsive look and feel. Check out this step by step lesson on how to generate and use adaptive icons in your LiveCode apps.

We’ve also added support for an App query whitelist on Android. Support has been added for specifying which other apps can be interacted with via the intent and other (custom) URL schemes. Since Android 11, by default, an app cannot interact with any others due to changes to package visibility. You must now specify which apps you need access to by adding their ids to the App ID Query Whitelist field in the Android standalone settings.

Performance, Printing and Dates

We focussed on performance improvements heavily in this release, especially on Windows. If you were one of the unlucky users hit by slowness in the Script Editor, we think we’ve nailed that one. We also sorted out some memory leaks, and the player object no longer causes a CPU spike in some circumstances. We’ve fixed some PDF printing errors and font issues. And we’ve implemented system dates on Android, so your users will now see what they expect to see whether they are in Germany, the UK or Thailand.

A laundry list of fixes you asked for

Here is a complete list of fixes, features and enhancements addressed in 9.6.6 rc-1:

• iOS 15/Xcode 13 support. Building iOS apps using Xcode 13.2 with the iOS 15.2 SDK is now supported
• iOS device safe area insets function. An iphoneSafeAreaInsets function has been added to enable getting the safe area insets of the device the app is running on. These can be used to adjust your app’s user interface elements to avoid areas that are covered by device furniture, e.g. the notch
• Android adaptive icons. It is now possible to configure your Android apps to use adaptive icons. To use adaptive icons, generate them using the Image Asset Editor in Android Studio and then choose the resulting res folder in the android standalone settings pane
• Android app query whitelist. Support has been added for specifying which other apps can be interacted with via the intent and other (custom) URL schemes. Since Android 11, by default, an app cannot interact with any others due to changes to package visibility. You must now specify which apps you need access to by adding their IDs to the App ID Query Whitelist field in the Android standalone settings
• HyperCard compatibility restored. Opening HyperCard stacks will no longer cause a crash
• Android system date now respected. Support for the system date and the system time has been added on Android
• Stack rect position respected. A stack’s rect will no longer become out of sync with its actual position after being moved in the IDE on macOS
• More TrueType font support. A wider range of TrueType font files will now work on Android and Web
• Tutorials vs Lessons. Use of the term Tutorials have been replaced by the term Lessons in IDE menus. Tutorials now only refers to the built in interactive tutorials available from the Start Center.
• Better error dialog display. When a runtime error occurs in a context where the script debugger cannot run, the error dialog will be displayed rather than failing silently
• Multi-screen positioning improved. Conversions between global and local co-ordinates are now correct on multi-screen macOS systems
• Start tutorial from Start Center. The interactive welcome tutorial can now be started on first run via the Start Interactive Welcome button in the Start Center
• Close previous tutorial. Starting a new interactive tutorial will now close the previous tutorial’s stack, if present
• Better Script Editor performance. The performance of the script editor while typing has been improved
• Faster data download. Downloading large amounts of data using tsNet on Windows is now substantially faster
• Print to PDF on win-64 now works. Invalid PDFs will no longer be generated when using the open printing to PDF command on Windows using the 64-bit engine
• Scripts debug in Pro. Script debugging will no longer fail to work intermittently when running the IDE with pro features
• Scripts faster on Big Sur. Scripts which run without locking the screen are no longer slower on macOS Big Sur and later
• Drawing gradients improved. The drawing library now correctly handles gradients which are referred to using an id containing – or _
• Key events will now work correctly after a modal dialog is shown from a mouseUp handler in a grouped control
• Get the model of the iOS/iPadOS Simulator. The iphoneDeviceModel function now returns the correct model string when run on an iOS/iPadOS simulator.
• Performance improvement. Default buttons and progress bars will no longer cause unnecessary CPU usage on macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) or later
• byteOffset correct. The byteOffset function will no longer cause incorrect results in some cases nor cause a crash
• Better accent handling in scripts. Scripts containing accented characters will no longer incorrectly report being externally modified
• Print to PDF on Windows improved. Using the print link command when printing to PDF on Windows no longer causes a crash
• Copyright date correct. The copyright notices in the engine app bundle (macOS) and exe (Windows) have been updated
• Browser widget memory leak fixed. A significant memory leak in the browser widget on macOS has been resolved
• More data can be posted by Server. POST data larger than 64kb is now parsed correctly by the Windows server engine
• Player performance improvement. Audio-only players no longer consume excessive CPU when in Edit Mode on macOS Big Sur
• WebGL content now displays in the browser widget when running on macOS 12.x (Monterey)
• Better error handling for “set”. The union (and other set operation) commands now throw an error if there is no into clause and the target is not a declared variable
• Access local files. Local file and content access has been re-enabled in the browser widget and native control on Android
• Track touch correctly. Touch events now occur at the correct location when handled by objects underneath a disabled Android scroller
• No unwanted hairlines. SVG elements with a stroke-width of 0 are no longer drawn with a hairline stroke
• Open menus fast. There is no longer a delay when opening the IDE menus on macOS
• Use your selected browser. Selecting a specific browser to test a web project against now works correctly
• Faster JavaScript execution. The overhead of using “do ..” to evaluate long JavaScript scripts in the browser widget on Android has been greatly reduced

We hope you love 9.6.6 rc-1. You can download it now from your account – please scroll down below the full list of stable releases to see it as a test release right at the bottom. Please give us feedback on any issues you see in this Release Candidate via the Quality Center.

Happy Holidays!