Category Archives: LiveCode

Code, handy scripts, LiveCode, Plugins

Full screen scripting in LiveCode for Lion/Mountain Lion

When using LC on my ML MBPro I long for an immersive full screen scripting environment just like I use in Xcode. I thought that Jerry Daniels new Glass project might help but just like GLX it’s just too different for me to justify spending the time getting familiar with. The LC Script editor works and I have some integrated plugins etc that I can’t really do without. Anyway… to  cut a long story short I made just about the simplest plugin ever and it gives me 99% of what I want. HEre’s the script:
on preOpenStack
   set the style of stack "revMenubar" to "modeless"  -- stops the toolbar overlapping the SE
   set the windowBoundingRect to the working screenrect -- let's you maximise the SE
end preOpenStack
Put this in a stack script in the plugins folder and run it wen LC starts up.
Once run then
– edit a script
– 4 finger down swipe to bring up mission control
– drag the SE window to another space… over to the right on top of the + sign if you need a new one
– go to the space and maximise the SE
From then on you SE window will be in the other space and you can 4 finger swipe left/ right to get to it and anything that causes a script edit in the stack screen will switch you to the SE screen.
[Download not found]

LiveCode, LiveCode Externals, LiveCode Mobile

Huge mergExt update

Today we have a massive update to the mergExt suite of externals.

NEW: mergGK ($49) has been released. This is the first crowd sourced external developed for the LiveCode community. The external implements player authentication, leaderboards, achievements and challenges. It also implements peer-to-peer bluetooth and wifi messaging. There’s more to implement with Game Center matches so the crowd funding is still open for those features. Thanks goes to those who were involved in funding this project.

NEW mergAWS ($49) has been released and is focussed on Amazon Web Services. The initial release supports SimpleDB.

NEW: mergCL ($39) has been released that allows your app to receive notifications when the user enters or exits a specified geographic region or moves a significant distance. This external requires the removal of the exits on suspend key from the app plist file. You app is woken in the background whenever any of these events occur and you can send a local notification to get the user to bring it to the foreground.

mergAES 1.1.2 has been released and now also includes 128 bit, ECB and encrypt with key/iv options.

mergMK 1.1.3 has been released resolving a bug with setting the user tracking mode of the map.

These new additions to the suite take the total value to $757 and you can access it all for $299 for a year of updates or $79 for the first month and $20 per month ongoing.

LiveCode, LiveCode Externals, LiveCode Mobile

mergSocial released – post to facebook. twitter and sina weibo

Today I have released a new external for iOS called mergSocial. This one allows you to present a modal dialog for posting to facebook. twitter and sina weibo using the standard iOS 6 interface. The external allows you to specify some initial text, a list of images and a list of urls to post. With the release of this external mergTwitter will be deprecated as mergSocial on iOS 5 will use the Twitter framework to post to twitter. The external also includes the deprecated mergTwitter syntax or backwards compatibility. All this is nicely wrapped up for you into a single function to check if the service is available and a single command to present the view. Make some Objective-C coders jealous and add this to your app in 2 minutes. Here I’ll write the code for you:
on touchEnd
  mergSocial “facebook”,”Isn’t this app cool!”,,<your app store url here>
end touchEnd
You will want to use mergSocialIsAvailableForServiceType(“facebook”) somewhere in your openCard handler to work out if you should enable that button. That’s it!
mergSocial is available for purchase from http://mergext.com for $29 or as part of the iOS suite of externals. The price for the suite is doubling next week but you still have a chance to lock in the current pricing.
More information here: http://mergext.com/home/mergsocial/

LiveCode, LiveCode Externals, LiveCode Mobile

Dropbox, AES encryption and camera control added to mergExt

Today I have released two new externals and a huge update to an existing external. Now the suite contains a total of 15 iOS externals and 1 custom control (DropTool).

The new externals are:
– mergDropbox 1.0 which fully implements the Dropbox SDK on iOS including search, revisions, delta, thumbnails, upload, download and more. Everything is asynchronous which means your users can do other things in your app while files are downloading etc.
– mergAES 1.0 which implements the AES 256 encryption on iOS.

The major update is mergAV 2.0 which now includes a camera control that you can use to capture a still image or record video to a file from the front or back camera.

These externals have been added to the mergExt suite which also includes MapKit, document interaction, action sheets, PDF reader, external accessories, iAd, Settings app, tweet and barcode reading. You can purchase the suite from http://mergext.com or the RunRev store.

LiveCode, LiveCode Externals, LiveCode Mobile

Settings app integration added to mergExt

A new external called mergSettings that integrates your LiveCode iOS app with the Settings app and also presents a matching modal settings dialog using InAppSettingsKit has just been added to the mergExt suite.

The mergExt suite now includes 13 iOS externals and a DropTool adding capabilities to LiveCode ranging from barcode reading through to sending tweets. A poll is now available on the M E R Goulding Software Development facebook site for you to vote on what you would like to see added to the suite next.

LiveCode Externals, LiveCode Mobile

ShakeNScan & LiveCode iOS Barcode reader external

Today I announced a demo for my barcode reader external called ShakeNScan is available in the app store. Sorry about the app, I built it in about an hour as it’s sole purpose is to demo the modal barcode reader, ensure the external was not a blocker for app store release (which obviously I now know it’s not) and to gauge interest in it. I’m keen to hear if you have a need for it.

The external can read EAN-13/UPC-A, UPC-E, EAN-8, Code 128, Code 39 and QR Code. The app will browse to a url in a QR code but it will display the results of all the other codes. It uses one function mergGetBarcode() which presents a modal barcode reader using the back camera. An embedded barcode reader control is in the works but there’s still some issues with that I’m working through.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/shakenscan/id490000309

It will be available via revSelect as soon as I can arrange it.

EDIT

This external along with a heap of other externals for iOS are available at mergExt

LiveCode, Plugins

LiveCode Growl Plugin

I spent an hour this afternoon having a play with the AppleScript commands for Growl and came up with a this little plugin toy for LiveCode. It notifies you when LiveCode is saving a standalone and when the standalone is saved. If anyone can think of anything else they might like notifications of I’m happy to add some more but this is really just a demo of the growl library which is a substack of the plugin.[Download not found]