On 20st July 2013, eHUG organised a meeting of LiveCode users in Breda, the Netherlands. This was the second meeting dedicated to LiveCode, one year after the first meeting. There were 10 participants from Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. We had a good time, drinking coffee and juice, and eating Swiss chocolates.

Karin, an IT pro who is just starting with LiveCode, showed her one of the first iOS apps she made. Clicking on the body parts in a diagram of a human body, one gets access to information from a SQLite database. By Marc’s request, Jan showed Marco two ways to animate the sliding in and out of panels on iOS. Following up on Jan, Björnke demonstrated sliding groups in BvG Docu. John showed a game, which is used to teach accounting to students. We also discussed some problems, which he encountered while working with MySQL in connection to the game.

All other participants told us about the way they use LiveCode and we had long chats about scripting problems and possible solutions. The question that always comes back is: how many use LiveCode. Conclusion: wo don’t know. Perhaps there are up to 3500 commercial license holders. We didn’t have enough time to do everything we planned for. Next time, we’ll still have plenty to talk about.

We also raflled off a copy of the TopXNotes software and the eBook Take Control of Mountain Lion, written by Matt Neuburg.

Beste allemaal,

Aanstaande zaterdag 20 juli van 12:00h. tot ongeveer 16:00h. houden we een LiveCode-bijeenkomst. Deze bijeenkomst wordt gehouden in Breda. Het adres is:

Coffee & Cream
Willemstraat 18
4811 AL Breda
Nederland

We kunnen gebruik maken van een grote tafel en ons is toegezegd dat het er rustig zal zijn (al is dat natuurlijk enigszins relatief). Coffee & Cream zit vlak bij het station in het centrum van Breda. Dit http://goo.gl/maps/RMzAV is een linkje naar Google Maps. Er is WIFI in de zaak en er zijn 1 of 2 stopcontacten. Ik raad je echter wel aan om te zorgen dat de batterij van je laptop is opgeladen, mocht je die mee willen nemen.

We verwachten ongeveer 10 deelnemers uit drie verschillende landen. Er zullen drie of vier korte presentaties worden gehouden. Tot de onderwerpen zullen waarschijnlijk behoren: MetaCard in het technisch onderwijs; een spel om te leren boekhouden; een overzichtje van een aantal kleinere projecten; en GUI-ontwerp voor iOS. Er zal zaterdag ook tijd zijn om gewoon vragen te stellen.

Er zal een e-book uit de Take Control serie worden verloot. De titel van het boek is Take Control Of Using Mountain Lion, geschreven door Matt Neuburg. Ook zal het softwarepakket TopXNotes worden verloot.

Er zijn nog twee exemplaren van de eerste druk van het boek Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner beschikbaar. Deze kunnen ter plekke worden aangeschaft voor 25 euro i.p.v. 32 euro. Je kunt ook nog 2 weken wachten en een exemplaar van de tweede druk bestellen voor 32 euro.

Als je nog vragen hebt, dan kun je per e-mail of telefoon contact met me opnemen.

Nog even een paar nuttige links.
Nederlands LiveCode forum:
http://nl.runrev.info/
eHUG op Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AUG.eHUG/
LiveCode gebruikers op Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/runrev/
Mijn Twitter account:
http://twitter.com/xtalkprogrammer

Dear all,

This Saturday, 20 July, from 12:00 until approximately 16:00PM, we will have our LiveCode meeting. The meeting is in Breda. The address is:

Coffee & Cream
Willemstraat 18
4811 AL Breda
Nederland

We can use a big table we have been promised a relatively quiet place. Coffee & Cream is close to the railway station in the city centre. Here’s a link http://goo.gl/maps/RMzAV to Google Maps. WIFI is available and there are 1 or 2 power outlets. However, it is recommended to make sure that the battery of your laptop is fully charged if you decided to take your laptop with you.

We expect approximately 10 participants from three different countries. there will be three or four brief presentations. Possible subjects are: Metacard in technical education; a game to learn accounting; an overview of a number of smaller projects; and GUI design for iOS. You will also get an opportunity to ask questions.

A book from the Take Control series will be raffled off. The title of the book is Take Control of Using Mountain Lion, written by Matt Neuburg. Additionally, we will raffle off a copy of the TopXNotes software.

Currently, two copies of the first print of the book Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner still remain. These can be purchased on location for 25 euro instead of 32 euro. Alternatively, you can wait 2 weeks and order a copy of the second print for 32 euro.

If you have any more questions, you can contact me by e-mail or phone.

Following are a few useful links.
Dutch LiveCode forum:
http://nl.runrev.info/
eHUG on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AUG.eHUG/
LiveCode users on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/runrev/
My Twitter account:
http://twitter.com/xtalkprogrammer

Liebe Leute,

An diesem Samstag gibt es das LiveCode-Treffen. Dieses Treffen findet statt in Breda ab 12:00U. bis ungefähr 16:00U. Die Adresse ist:

Coffee & Cream
Willemstraat 18
4811 AL Breda
Nederland

Wir dürfen einen grossen Tisch in der Mitte benutzen und man hat versprochen dass es relativ ruhig sein wird. Coffee & Cream befindet sich in der Nähe des Bahnhofs in der Stadtmitte. Dieser Link http://goo.gl/maps/RMzAV auf Google Maps zeigt die genaue Stelle. Es gibt WIFI und es gibt 1 oder 2 Steckdosen. Ich möchte dir jedoch empfehlen den Akku deines Laptops voll zu laden wenn du es mitnehmen möchtest.

Wir erwarten ungefähr 10 Teilnehmer aus 3 unterschiedlichen Ländern. Es wird drei oder vier Präsentation geben. Zu den möglichen Themen gehören: MetaCard im technischen Unterricht; ein Spiel das hilft beim lernen der Buchhaltung; ein übersicht mehrerer kleinen Projekte; und GUI-Entwurf für iOS. Es wird auch eine Möglichkeit geben Fragen zu stellen.

Ein E-Book aus der Take Control Serie wird verlost. Der Titel ist Take Control of Using Mounting Lion, geschrieben von Matt Neuburg. Ausserdem wird die Software TopXNotes verlost.

Es gibt noch 2 Exemplare des ersten Drucks de Buches Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner. Diese kann man vor Ort erwerben für 25 Euro. Die Alternative ist noch 2 Wochen zu warten und für 32 Euro ein Exemplar des zweiten Drucks zu bestellen.

Wenn du mich noch was zu fragen hat, kannst du dich per E-Mail oder per Telefon mit mir in Verbindung setzen.

Folgen noch einige nützlichen Links.
Niederländisches LiveCode forum:
http://nl.runrev.info/
eHUG auf Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/AUG.eHUG/
LiveCode Nutzer auf Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/runrev/
Mein Twitter-Konto:
http://twitter.com/xtalkprogrammer

Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner, by Mark Schonewille. Front and back sides of the book. ISBN 978-90-820741-0-9.

Book description:

LiveCode is a software development tool with an easy to comprehend, almost natural, English-like language. Yet, even such an easy programming language needs an introduction. The purpose of this book is to be simple enough to get people started with LiveCode while at the same time elevating the reader beyond the beginners stage.

The first few chapters deal with basic syntax, followed by a discussion of the most important functions and commands of the LiveCode language. Halfway the book, the reader is able to create a simple program. The second half of the book discusses advanced subjects including unicode, network communications, MySQL, XML and more.

Read this book from the beginning till the end. You will know all you need to create software and exchange ideas with other programmers of the LiveCode community.

About the author:

Mark Schonewille has been programming with xTalk languages, including LiveCode, for over a quarter of a century. After obtaining is masters degree in Economics, he worked as a researcher and a teacher at the universities of Groningen and Nijmegen. He founded the company Economy-x-Talk to work as an independent professional software developer. Now he leads a small team of programmers, using LiveCode as one of the main development tools. Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner is the materialization of his long experience as a LiveCode programmer.

Where to buy:

Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner can be ordered through every good book shop, but it is faster and possibly cheaper to order it directly from Economy-x-Talk. Go to the website and choose your preferred way to order.

It is official! The book Programming LiveCode for the Real Beginner can now be pre-ordered for 32 euro (USD 42). Look here http://qery.us/3fh for more information about the book and download the first 25 pages. We’re still working on the last few details and expect to print within 2 weeks. Note: we need orders to make this new book possible! Order now!

Nederlands:

Na de problemen met de server afgelopen januari, is het Nederlandse forum verloren gegaan. Door bijkomende omstandigheden heeft het even geduurd voor ik het forum weer kon installeren.

Bij deze wil ik je laten weten dat het forum opnieuw is geïnstalleerd. Helaas zijn alle berichten verloren gegaan en ik zal niet proberen de berichten terug te zetten, omdat mij dat veel teveel tijd zou kosten. Excuus voor het ongemak.

Je kunt het Nederlande forum bezoeken op http://nl.runrev.info Als je nog vragen hebt, kun je daarvoor het contactformulier op de Nederlandse website gebruiken.

English:

After the problems with my server last January, I lost the Dutch forum. Due to additional circumstances, it took a while before the forum could be re-installed.

This is to let you know that the forum has been re-installed. Unfortunately, all messages are lost and I don’t intend to try to restore the messages, because that would take me way too much time. Sorry for the inconvenience.

You can visit the Dutch LiveCode forum at http://nl.runrev.info If you have any questions, you can use the contact form on Economy-x-Talk’s website.

On a side-note: I’ll be organising a user group meeting in the Netherlands soon.

Economy-x-Talk is giving away 5 free web hosting accounts. In January, we hired a larger, faster server and we have quite a few additional web hosting accounts available now. So, why not give away a few for free? Your account will be available for free between 1 April 2013 and 1 April 2014 (this is no joke). Each account comes with all common features, such as PHP, FTP, POP and IMAP e-mail, forums and CMS’s ready for installation, spam filters, MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin, etc., etc., etc. You will have 1 GB of disk space on your account and at most 10GB bandwidth.

If you’re currently looking for a web hosting solution, follow us on Facebook or Twitter and contact us before 1 April 2013. There is a contact form on our website.  You can find our Facebook page at http://qery.us/3db and our Twitter account at https://twitter.com/MoreNewz. Make sure to include your Facebook or Twitter user name (rather than a link) in your request. Because we expect a big response, we will really just answer the first 5 requests. If you don’t get a reply, then we’re very sorry: it means that someone else must have been quicker.

(You can do with your account pretty much whatever you like, except for spamming people, providing adult or illegal content and hosting websites of third parties. You will receive an invoice for 11 euro on 1 April 2014 and you can choose not to pay after which your account may be discontinued. Any decision regarding the admissibility of any content is completely Economy-x-Talk’s to make. We reserve the right to refuse requests without disclosing the reason. Any requests made on or after 1 April 2013 are ignored.)

Now that the open-source initiative for LiveCode has been successful, it is time to make clear where we stand. Economy-x-Talk has quite a few products for LiveCode developers, who might include these products in their own projects. Installer Maker is evidently distributed together with other projects. Would there be any conflicts between closed and open-source license conditions, if Installer Maker is used to distribute open-source products? Not from our point of view, but there are a few issues you might want to keep in mind.

The Installer Maker license isn’t necessarily in contradiction with relatively flexible open source licenses. As long as you consider the installer as a way to distribute your software rather than as a part of your software, you can use Installer Maker for your open-source project. Only very strict open-source licenses might prohibit this.

Most discussions about whether it is allowed to combine open-source and closed-source software in one project boils down to the question whether the software is linked dynamically or statically. First of all, one might argue that Installer Maker and the open-source software it is supposed to install aren’t linked at all, because there is no functional relationship between the two.

Second, any linkage would be dynamical, because to embed a project in Installer Maker, neither Installer Maker nor the open-source project needs to be modified. (Statically linked software needs to be modified before it is compiled, because the programming code contains calls to the “other” software and these calls combine the two projects into one big new open-source project, which doesn’t happen in the case of Installer Maker).

Because the Installer Maker plugin is protected by a password, you can’t use the plugin in the open-source version of LiveCode. The OS version of LiveCode doesn’t include the password routine necessary to open password-protected stacks. You need to use the standalone version of Installer Maker instead.

Therefore, you may assume that you can safely use the standalone version of Installer Maker with most open-source projects, particularly with the open-source version of LiveCode. In case of any doubts, please consult with a legal expert.

You can find the standalone version of Installer Maker at http://qery.us/oc .

Here’s a really (seriously) interesting fragment from BBC’s Blue Peter. Blue Peter is a half a century old children’s television programme, which increasingly often features design and production themes. In this movie, Jonathan Ive, senior vice president of industrial design at Apple, explains a little about his way of thinking with regard to design.

Now on to the not-so-serious part. Look at the auto-subtitles added by Youtube. Either go to second 49 of the movie or look at the picture below:

Ouch!

The announcement about the open-source version of LiveCode also reveals something of what the future version of LiveCode may look like. As you can see, the web option has been removed from the standalone applications settings. The first picture shows LiveCode 5.5.3 and the second picture shows what seems to be the next version. This was to be expected, because the web option hasn’t been available from the RunRev store for a while now.

The second picture is from a video and seems to be from a version actually being used by a RunRev team member.

Apparently, RunRev is working on an all-new IDE, which resembles XCode. This is only a prototype, which is supposed to be included with the open-source version of LiveCode. The actual IDE may look differently and it may take (quite) a few more versions for the complete IDE to be implemented.

It is interesting to see how the new look also resembles RealStudio somewhat, with the interface builder in the middle of the screen. This makes me wonder where RunRev got the inspiration from. I’m very surprised to see separate run and edit tabs in the top-right of the new IDE.

There was also an accidental post to the use list about an al-new properties inspector. I don’t know what this will look like, but apparently the new IDE doesn’t sport the unified interface as shown here just yet. In the above picture, the properties inspector seems to be all over the place, which confuses me. I would also think that there is no place for the standalone settings window in such an IDE and that’s why I think the new IDE won’t be ready for use in the next official version.

I don’t know if this is going to be version 5.6 or 6.0, but given the big visual changes, I’d go with 6.0.

Getting LiveCode (or Revolution) to run on 64 bit Linux is fairly simple. Assuming that you have the latest version of your Linux distro installed (e.g. Ubuntu 12.10, 64 bit), enter the Dash, usually by clicking the top-button in the sidebar on the left and type “terminal” in the search field. You can now click the Terminal icon to start it. In other Linux distros, you have to find a different way to start the terminal.

Once you have started the terminal, just enter the following syntax:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-multiarch

When asked, enter your password and let it run. When it is finished, you can start Revolution or LiveCode and most other 32 bit applications.