LiveCode 9.5 Released

We’re delighted to announce today the release of LiveCode 9.5, stable. This version brings a raft of great new features and benefits, with over 400 fixes making it smoother and more reliable than ever.

64 Bit

This release sees an emphasis on 64 bit architectures, with both Windows and Android having 64 bit support added. You can now author on and for 64 bit Windows OS’s, and we’ve provided support for the latest Google Play store requirements on Android. You can also now use fast Android emulators for a better authoring experience.

Widget Power

Another eagerly anticipated feature is barcode scanning on Android. This now reaches parity for our offering on iOS, with the Android Barcode Widget (available in Indy and Business editions of LiveCode). In this release we also have the PDF Widget (Business Edition), providing power user features for editing and viewing PDFs within LiveCode. The PDF Widget works on mobile platforms as well as desktop.

Android Love

Lots of enhancements and new features have been aimed specifically at Android in this release. As well as the new architecture support and the barcode widget, several mobile keyboard improvements and the important container layer mode will make your Android apps behave better, scroll more smoothly and select the right keyboard in the right place at the right time.

Feature List

If you are into lists, here is a (non exhaustive!) list of new features in 9.5:

• New Android Architectures (32/64 bit) + support for the latest Google Play Store requirements. Create your app for the latest and greatest Android OS’s, with fast simulators to help you preview and test.
• Windows 64 bit IDE & deployment support. Write code on and for 64bit Window’s operating systems, ensuring your app is fast and smooth wherever it runs. LiveCode 9 has supported 64 bit on Mac, iOS and Linux for a while, now Windows can join the party.
• PDF Widget (Business Edition). A powerful full featured drag and drop widget to view and edit PDF files on desktop and mobile.
• Android Barcode Scanner Widget (Indy + Business Edition). Your Android apps can now scan barcodes just like your iOS apps.
• New Container Layer Mode. Build beautiful tables and grids that scroll fast and smoothly.
• New mobileSetKeyboardDisplay and mobileGetKeyboardDisplay handlers. Pan your screen view up to ensure your controls remain in view above the keyboard when needed.
• Progress, isSecure and allowUserInteraction features added to the browser widget. Need we say more? The beauty of the LiveCode language is that it is self explanatory.
• Several enhancements to Tree View Widget. You can now auto expand to reveal a row when selected and get and set the fold state of a specific row.
• Mac Status Menu library added. Use the new library to create, delete and set properties on a status menu.
• Improved Sort International to support lots of additional locales. Useful if you are creating an app in several languages.
• Static linked code libraries for iOS device builds. Results in making LiveCode even more extensible, by supporting .lcext compiled objects.
• New Log Command and logMessage Property. A new command (“log”) and global property (“logMessage”) have been added to allow an easy and low-cost method to disable or redirect script logs. This helps a lot in debugging.
• Implement Filter Where clause. Filter where an expression evaluates to true. For example:   

    put "foo,bar,baz" into tList

  filter items of tList where each begins with "b"

  -- tList contains "bar,baz"

• Implemented clip to path for LCB. A new statement clip to <path> on <canvas> has been implemented to allow drawing on a canvas to be clipped to the path. Previously the clip region could only be set to a rectangle via the clip to <rectangle> on <canvas> statement.
• Updated SQLite library to the latest version (v3.28.0). This includes a couple of security fixes and all the latest features of SQLite.
• Maths operations – you now have real boolean constants and an infinity constant
• Added support for URI filenames and JSON storage/retrieval in SQLite databases.
• Implemented modifier key state access for LiveCode Builder (e.g. “key is down”).
• Implemented mobileSetKeyboardReturnKey on Android. This was previously available only on iOS.
• New returnKeyType & keyboardType Field Property. A new property has been added to fields to control the return key type displayed on the mobile keyboard.

Read the full release notes here.

Get LiveCode 9.5 today from your account.