This release is important if you are trying to build apps for iOS. You can now build LiveCode apps for iOS 6.1, using Xcode 4.6. Armv7 device builds are now produced using the iOS 6.1 SDK and testing with the 6.1 simulators is now possible.

For Lion & Mountain Lion users to produce Armv7 device builds, you must have the iOS 6.1 SDK installed, which comes with Xcode 4.6. For Armv6 builds, the iOS 5.1 SDK is needed, which comes with Xcode 4.4. Naturally, to produce universal builds, both Xcode 4.4 and 4.6 are needed.

For Snow Leopard users, all device builds are produced using the iOS 5.1 SDK (the latest version available for Snow Leopard) which comes with Xcode 4.2.

LiveCode 5.5.4 supports the 4.3, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0 and 6.1 simulators. To use LiveCode with a given simulator version, point LiveCode to the version of Xcode the simulator comes with using the “Mobile Support” section of the LiveCode preferences. Extra simulators can be installed through the “Downloads” pane of Xcode’s preferences.

You can download the release notes for 5.5.4 here:

Desktop

iOS

Android

This version brings you the all new field, with it’s exciting new text handling abilities and Unicode improvements, and no less than 15 new features on Android, and 8 for iOS, largely bringing these two platforms into line with each other.

To help you get to grips with the new features, we’ve created a series of new lessons. Take a look at how to style paragraphs, using the “flagged” property, displaying a table, or hierarchical list support.

For mobile there is a lesson on using custom URL schemes, and you can check out local notifications in this newsletter.

For a detailed discussion of the new Field features, please see this newsletter article.

Text Messaging for iOS and Android
Text messaging has been a much requested feature we’ve now added for you. Here’s how it works:

Use the command mobileComposeTextMessage to launch the default text messaging app.

mobileComposeTextMessage recipients, [body]

The recipients is a comma separated list of phone numbers you want the message to be sent to. The optional body is the content of the message you wish to be sent. Note that once you’ve called the mobileComposeTextMessage command you have no more control over what the user does with the message – they are free to modify it and the addresses as they see fit.

Upon completion of a compose request, the result is set to one of the following:

• sent – the text was sent successfully
• cancel – the text was not sent, and the user elected not to save it for later
• failed – the text could not be sent
• false – the device does not have text messaging functionality

You can determine if the device has the text messaging client configured using the function
mobileCanComposeTextMessage(). This returns true if the client is configured.

Mobile Features Added
New features on both iOS and Android include:

• Rotation sensor
• Local notifications
• Custom URL schemes
• Text messaging
• Vibration
• Busy indicators

Features new to Android that iOS already supports include:

• Native browser control
• Modal pick wheel support
• Date picker support
• GPS
• Compass
• Multi-channel sound
• Beep
• Custom fonts
• Idle Timer configuration
• Localisation calls

Important: The file format in this release has changed to allow us to better support the new field and unicode features. This means that if you wish to retain compatiblity with older versions of LiveCode, you must save your projects by choosing “Save As… legacy format” in the File/save menu.

What’s new?
Firstly, on all platforms we have implemented improvements to the Accelerated Rendering which was introduced with LiveCode 5. No fewer than 35 bugs were squished, many on desktop/all platforms (see below). Generally, this is a fairly Android centric release in terms of features. We’ve added:

Open GL support on Android

As well as the new graphics architecture introduced across all platforms in LiveCode 5.0, you can now use the Open GL features on Android as well as iOS. Get the fastest possible performance out of your animations!

In App purchasing for Android

This important feature allowing you to earrn more money from your apps now works on Android as well as iOS, and you can find out how to use it by following our hands on lesson. Start adding powerups to your Android games to boost your user engagement 🙂

Support for the hardware “Menu” key on Android.

A simple but important feature. Use this with the following syntax:

on menuKey     answer "You pressed the menu key" with "Okay"  end menuKey  

This allows you to handle the menuKey message to perform an action when the menu key is pressed by your user.

Support for the hardware “Search” key on Android

Sent to the current card of the defaultStack when the hardware search button is pressed.

on searchKey     answer "You pressed the search key" with "Okay"  end searchKey  

Again, a very welcome addition to the Android features available to you.

Store on the SD card as well as device.

This is going to make your apps much more popular with end users – now you can store them externally, saving space on the device.

iOS gets some new features too:

Activity indicator

iOS provides a native animated activity indicator that sits above all other components and is used to indicate that an app is busy processing. Use the iphoneActivityIndicatorStart command to display a native iOS activity indicator on the top of the LiveCode stack that is running.

iphoneActivityIndicatorStart [type], [xposition, yposition]

Here, type can be one of:

• gray – default, displays a small gray spoked animation
• white – displays a small white spoked animation
• whiteLarge – displays a large white spoked animation

The xposition and yposition specify the location in pixels of the activity indicator. If a location is
not specified, then the animation is positioned in the middle of the screen. You can turn the activity indicator off by calling iphoneActivityIndicatorStop.

Media picker

You can present the user with the standard iOS media picker using:

iphonePickMedia [multiple], [type…]

Set multiple to true if you want to allow the user to pick more than one item.

You can specify the type of media item the user is to select from by passing one or more of the
following:

• music – Specifies that the user should be allowed to select music items.
• podCast – Specifies that the user should be allowed to select pod casts.
• audioBook – Specifies that the user should be allowed to select audio books.
• anyAudio – Specifies that the user should be allowed to select any audio item.

If no types are passed, all media items will be displayed. A return separated list of all the media items the user has picked will be present in the result. A media item can be played back using the play command.

We’ve also updated the play command to support playback of files in iPod
library and updated native browser control to send a new message “browserLoadRequested”.

What’s Fixed?

We’ve ironed flat no fewer than 35 bugs in this release, many on desktop, a large number on iOS and a handful on Android. To list them all here would be tedious, but some noteworthy beasties were: 

• Visual effects now working when transitioning from card to stack (iOS)
• Export snapshot no longer produces inverted images in landscape mode. (iOS)
• Launch image is displayed with the correct orientation (iOS).
• PDF printing now works on iOS4 (iOS).
• Date picker permits the selection of dates before 1970 (iOS).
• Updated template plists to remove deprecated entry CFBundleIcon. (iOS)
• Device builds no longer confused by externals built for 5.0 simulator (iOS)
• opaque graphics render correctly using OpenGL compositor (Android)
• No black screen when switching between OpenGL and Bitmap modes ( Android)
• Visual effects now work in OpenGL mode ( Android)
• Focus correctly revoked when object hidden using ‘hide … with visual effect’ (desktop)
• Redraw issues fixed with QT players on Mac (desktop)
• New objects redraw correctly when created (desktop)
• Toggling ‘show invisibles’ now redraws bottom-most stack (desktop)
• Focus border is included in redraw when hiding field (desktop)
• Posting to HTTPS URLs now works (desktop)
• Now able to set blendLevel of stacks with a windowShape that contains alpha (desktop)

For a full listing of fixed issues, please check the release notes for each platform.

iOS release notes

Android release notes

General release notes

LiveCode 5 now lets you create apps with hardware accelerated graphics.This means you can now create stunning multimedia rich apps and exciting games that run faster and more smoothly than ever before on mobile platforms as well as the desktop.

The rendering speed of LiveCode 5 is up to 10x faster than its predecessor.

Other Headline Features

Not only that, we’ve brought you In-App purchasing, iOS 5 compatibility, and a brand new Learning Portal. This Learning Portal is well worth a look. Elanor got such great feedback in the Academy course, that we asked her to create these six videos together with the learning materials. Below is the first one in the series, and you can check the rest out at your leisure here.

In this first lesson we take you on a tour of LiveCode and introduce basic concepts like stacks (windows), cards (screens), objects (buttons, fields etc) and how actions and information are passed between them. We’ll also show you the various panes within LiveCode and what they all do.

What else is new?

If you’ve been reading our blog or seen our new front door you’ll know all about the headline features already. What you may not appreciate yet is all the additional work that has been done, across the board, to make LiveCode 5 the best LiveCode ever. On your behalf I’ve been digging through the release notes for the various platforms, to see what else has been done by our hard working team.

Bug fixing

Not the sexiest topic, but as every programmer knows, one more bug squished is one less sleepless night for someone, somewhere. I’ve counted up 54 bugs mentioned as fixed in the release notes across desktop, iOS and Android. Here are a handful of gems:

Desktop fixes
Fixed: Building a standalone cuts off a stack
Fixed: Wrong color used to draw on Windows if new color has same red and blue when inverted as old color
… and 31 more bugs eliminated on desktop!

Android fixes
Fixed: card/stack initialized with wrong size during Android startup.
Fixed: import/export snapshot inverts colors on Android
… and 5 more specific Android bugs gone!

iOS fixes
Fixed: allowed orientations not set to plist settings on startup on iPad.
Fixed: nested controls don’t receive touch messages
… and 18 more nasty little bugs squished here!

Android Love
You might be thinking – hey, great, LiveCode iOS gets in-app purchasing and support for iOS 5, but what’s in it for Android? A quote from our user base answers this rather well:

“The new engine works great on Android and I can attest that it makes an amazing difference. Also, visual effects are now functional, stability and memory management has been markedly improved, redraw and background pattern issues have been addressed, orientation is better supported, graphic effects (shadows, etc) now work. These are all in parity with iOS.” ~ Jacque Landman-Gay

In-App purchasing is coming very shortly to Android, it just didn’t quite make the cut for 5.0. We decided to hold it back and give it a little more polish, rather than risk shipping it in a slightly experimental form.

More features
As well as the major features, LiveCode 5 brings you Pixel Perfect Intersect and the Auto-Updater on desktop. LiveCode will now inform you when there is a new release available that you might be interested in, and you can grab your update right from inside the program. Android gets support for all the standard visual effects, and even Server gets a sneaky little feature add – support for sessions has been added.