Unless you have been avoiding your mailbox recently you will know that LiveCode 8 has launched with the first iteration of LiveCode widgets written in the LiveCode Builder Language. LiveCode 8 marks the beginning of the new for the LiveCode platform.
Today, LiveCode lets us build powerful applications faster. We have a powerful and productive programming language that is close to the way we speak and think, we have a tool that enables rapid app development, we can deploy apps to all major platforms from one code base. Imagine if we had a thriving extensions EcoSystem with thousands of useful widgets and libraries that you can use in your application without the need to expand your team size or programming ability. As things stand you can open up LiveCode and drag out useful objects, customise them in the Property Inspector and you have a fully functioning object that would have required hand coding in previous versions. This will forever be useful but it does leave you wanting more, more widgets, more functionality, more usefulness, more productivity.
Introducing the Infinite LiveCode campaign.
What does Infinite LiveCode mean to you, as an end user? Suppose you do not yourself feel you have the time, ability or inclination to write new widgets or extensions for the platform, how does it benefit you?
Well, it’s just this: If wrapping external functionality that already exists in lower level programming languages becomes easier then more widgets and libraries will be developed and your LiveCode toolbox will be unrecognisable to what it is today. New widgets will start appearing in droves, for you to simply pick up and use in your app. Some will be free, some may be paid, but all of them will make LiveCode a bigger, better and more vibrant platform for developing rich full featured apps on all platforms.
Let’s consider some hypothetical examples.
Let us assume that someone has decided to wrap the Amazon Web Services C library using our automated tool. They have then decided to build a LiveCode library that provides easy access to many of the most common AWS services.
Without having to learn any new languages you can easily integrate Amazon AWS Services into your applications and take advantage of Simple Storage Service (S3) SimpleDB DynamoDB Simple Queue Service (SQS) Simple Email Service (SES) Simple Notification Service (SNS) & Security Token Service (STS).
Another possible example is the arrival of a Google Analytics SDK library for iOS and Android. Once these libraries have been wrapped it opens up the possibility of developing a LiveCode Google Analytics library to monitor your mobile applications.
Without having to learn any new code or programming language you will be able to add Google Analytic tracking to your application to monitor screen viewing stats, event and interaction tracking, transaction tracking, plus any other features the builder of this library wishes to include such as real time user tracking for your application.
How about managing payments from your application? A possibility with a successful infinite LiveCode campaign is that someone will wrap the iOS and Android SDK Java libraries and create a PayPal integration LiveCode Builder library.
Picture being able to verify customer information, search transactions, make mass payments, issue refunds, and process payments in your application and for this to be made easily accessible from LiveCode script.
This will be possible because we will have made wrapping external functionality a simple process and we have created an environment where useful libraries can be built without having to know low level programming languages such as C.
Infinite LiveCode opens up thousands of opportunities to add useful functionality that you can then use in your own applications time and time again.
How will users of the platform benefit directly from the stretch goals in this campaign?
Beyond the main goal there are three stretch goals that will benefit users straight away.
  Stretch Goal 1 – SQLite Library
We will wrap the industry standard SQLite library directly providing a new, better set of LiveCode Script functions for manipulating data stored in SQLite database. The widget builders in our community can use this to develop cross platform SQLite widgets that you will be able to add to your toolbox to easily manipulate data stored in SQLite databases.
  Stretch Goal 2 – Full Cross Platform Audio Recording
We’ve had so many requests for Audio Recording, so we’re doing that for you. Just imagine, suddenly this is available in your Android app with no problems. We will write an extension which hooks into the engine’s record syntax and use the various audio recorder APIs (as exposed by the wrappers for the appropriate APIs on each platform). This will be available in all editions and fully documented making it simple to use – and for you to learn how it was made should you be interested.
  Stretch Goal 3 – Native Field Widget
LiveCode currently has an extremely extensive cross-platform text field control, however it has a downside in that it doesn’t feel entirely native on mobile platforms – particularly on iOS where copy/paste and other actions use a custom iOS-only user interface. Right now you can create a ‘native’ field control on iOS and Android which present these features, but it’s a very clunky process as you can’t manipulate them like you can all the LiveCode controls you are familiar with.
We will develop a new native field widget that will hook into the native field on each mobile platform that you can simply drag and drop onto your application making the native services on fields instantly available to you. The further benefit to users of the platform is we will template this process making it simple for widget builders to wrap more native platform controls accessing services and features specific to the OS.
All of these stretch goals will be accompanied by full documentation and training materials to ensure we encourage more users to build more extensions and we reach our goal of a thousand community developed widgets by Christmas.
Infinite LiveCode enables this. This is the LiveCode we want to build and we can bring this to you much sooner with a successful Infinite LiveCode campaign. Please back it today.
“Everyone who is using LiveCode as a professional developer or hobbyist should pledge NOW for Infinite LiveCode.” Erik Beugelaar
I’m sure you can think of many more examples of addons you’d like for LiveCode. What LiveCode widgets and libraries would you like to have in your infinite LiveCode toolbox? Let us know in the comments below, the widget developers are listening…
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