As an experiment recently, Steven Crighton (LiveCode Product Manager and essentially a non-coder) challenged Ali Lloyd (Senior Developer of LiveCode) to a head to head: Steven would build a specified UI using PolyGrid, and Ali would build it in DataGrid. Which would come out tops? How fast could they build it and how good was the end result?

What are DataGrid and PolyGrid, and Why do they Matter?

These both provide a way to create beautiful, powerful and flexible spreadsheets or tabular layouts in LiveCode. If your app creates reports, you need a grid. If you want to display data for your end user, you need a grid. There are a vast number of uses for this type of object, and a great many apps need it. Up until now, LiveCode’s solution was the built in DataGrid. PolyGrid is the new kid on the block, and this challenge should help you to understand how good a replacement it really is.

In this blog over the last few weeks we’ve talked a lot about the various new addons that have become available for LiveCode. (And these are great.) Another part of your MegaBundle download is in danger of being overlooked however, and that is the two great books by Andre Garzia.

As a non-coder, I have been tasked with reviewing them, and my first comment is – I’m actually enjoying reading these books. They are interesting, they are clear, and they are hugely helpful to any new or even moderately experienced LiveCoder. I’m betting there are some tips in these books even our longest standing and most skilled LiveCoders could learn from.

I’m going to focus on LiveCode App Architecture in this post, and hopefully I will be able to review Development Oriented Development at a later date.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Bill Hankins, the creator of Litecode. I asked him to tell me all about this great little plugin for LiveCode!

What is Litecode?

Litecode is a Mobile Development Environment created with and based on LiveCode. Litecode can be used as a mobile standalone application to write and test Livecode code on your phone or tablet. Litecode users can write, edit, and test entire projects on a mobile device. Projects can be saved and reopened later for continued production. Litecode comes with an export stack that users can open in the LiveCode IDE to transfer their Litecode mobile work to their desktop LiveCode IDE for finalizing and exporting to standalone versions.

What can I say. This conference was a blast from start to finish. Maybe not quite as great as a fully live in person event, but definitely the next best thing. One positive for our team in particular: although working to New York time meant some late nights, at least none of us were jetlagged while we were doing it! Another benefit of having an online event of course is that it is accessible to a wider audience.