Full Stack App Development

Whether you’re a single coder working on a project or you’re working in a team of engineers, we recommend you consider using GitHub for your project. We use GitHub at LiveCode for all our projects. The ability to create branches, see version history and share code are key features for professional development and project maintenance. Even if you are a single engineer working on a project you’ll benefit greatly from the version history capabilities.

The best framework for working with GitHub in LiveCode is Levure. It is made by the wonderful folks at screensteps.com.

It is possible to migrate existing LiveCode projects to the Levure framework. However if you’re working on something new it is easiest to plan and use the Levure structure from the start.

One of the most important components in LiveCode is the Web Browser Object. This component allows you to render web content effortlessly within your applications. You have full control over what is rendered. For example, you can specify the content URL, get messages to allow or prevent navigation, or embed HTML content locally within your app.

Of equal importance is the ability to integrate any component written in JavaScript. A common use for this capability is to integrate chart rendering using one of the many freely available JavaScript chart libraries. LiveCode allows you to exchange messages with JavaScript components bidirectionally, giving you tight integration with full control.

Available from the tools palette inside LiveCode IDE

D3 charts is a freely available JavaScript charting engine. Like any JavaScript component, it can easily be integrated into LiveCode using the Web Browser Object (above).

For a code example and interactive demo of this in action, see this free library made by the folks at Digital Pomegranate

LiveCode applications integrate seamlessly with web services using Restful APIs. LiveCode has an implementation of libCURL called from its built-in tsNet library. The LiveCode Pro features pack brings some additional advanced capabilities to our URL handling. Watch LiveCode engineer Michael McCreary discussing adding web services with REST API in this video session.

LiveCode Server gives you the option of using the same language and framework on the server side that you use in your clients. It has a full set of standard networking capabilities built in, together with the ability to roll your own protocols using our full sockets support.

LiveCode Server also allows you to create server side HTML output, embedding LiveCode Script tags within a web page and using those to render interactive content as the page is requested.

revIgniter is a Web Application Development Framework for LiveCode primarily modeled on CodeIgniter (by Ellislab, Inc). It is a toolkit for people who develop web projects using LiveCode.

revIgniter empowers you to develop web projects in a fraction of time compared to writing LiveCode code from scratch by providing a large number of code libraries addressing frequently needed tasks, as well as a straightforward interface and consequential pattern to access these libraries.

Create extensions and plug them into the LiveCode engine with a specially created flavor of our language called LiveCode Builder. LiveCode Builder looks a lot like LiveCode Script so should feel familiar for any seasoned LiveCode developer. However it has specific syntax which exposes parts of the LiveCode engine that were only previously available to those who were skilled C/C++ developers. This allows you to integrate libraries or OS components written in other lower level languages.

CouchDB is a free Apache library for handling Big Data. It includes seamless multi-master sync, that scales for mobile, and an intuitive HTTP/JSON API,  designed for reliability. You can view a video tutorial session on using it here.