Native looks for iOS

[Opaquer]

Hey everyone

I'm making an app for my bosses at the moment, and they want it to go out on iPad/iPhone. I'm still pretty new to iOS deployment, so just want to get a few things straight.

I know (though not much yet) about Livecode's native fields using mobileControlCreate, but not much else native stuff. My question is this - there's a lot of talk about MobGUI, TMTools, maybe to an extent mergExt, but which of these is the best for having native buttons, text fields and overall iOS look? I'm using LC 8 RC 1 if that makes a difference (I don't think TMTools or MobGUI work on LC 8 last I checked), but I can go to LC 7 if needed I'm pretty sure. There's a few things to take into consideration, and the most important one is that I have to convince my bosses to get one and not be scared off in terms of price

I want to get mergExt because it's got a very good Dropbox library by the looks of it (I'm using Guglielmo's Dropbox library, which is amazing, but a) does it work on iOS too? b) it doesn't have progress for upload/download like mergExt and c) is mergExt's version faster at all?), but mergExt doesn't seem to have the same capacity as MobGUI or TMTools while costing a lot more than the other 2. Meanwhile MobGUI and TMTools look quite similar in terms of functionality, so which would be better?

Does anyone have any experience with any of them (preferably with all 3 ) and has some insight they'd be able to share?

Thanks in advanced

Michael

[Mikey]

use tmc for the interface.
mergext has nothing to do with interface, just like tmc has nothing to do with dropbox.
Because gugliermo's library is native LC, it works on all platforms. mergext is more limited. I believe the dropbox external is ios only. The external will not necessarily be faster, but it is asynchronous, so you won't have to wait. The coding can be more complicated because it is asynchronous, though. Read through the documentation with the external for more. Also, the mergext externals are now owned by LC so they are bundled with the indy and business versions of lc.

[Opaquer]

use tmc for the interface.
mergext has nothing to do with interface, just like tmc has nothing to do with dropbox.
Because gugliermo's library is native LC, it works on all platforms. mergext is more limited. I believe the dropbox external is ios only. The external will not necessarily be faster, but it is asynchronous, so you won't have to wait. The coding can be more complicated because it is asynchronous, though. Read through the documentation with the external for more. Also, the mergext externals are now owned by LC so they are bundled with the indy and business versions of lc.

Thanks Mikey

That makes sense about mergExt and TMTools. I'll try convince my bosses to get TMTools . Also, with the Dropbox functionality from mergExt, does that mean that I can get something to be uploaded, and then do other stuff while it's uploading, including have other things start to upload? Because one slight downside to Gugliermo's library is that I have to wait for stuff to be uploaded, which can take a while sometimes . Since mergExt is owned by Livecode now, does that mean I can't get just the Dropbox external? I don't think my bosses will want to spend $300 just to get the one feature unfortunately

[Mikey]

It's tmControls, by the way, and it's worth the money. Not only does it help me make great-looking interfaces, but the source is unlocked, so I have been able to make changes to it where I have wanted to add something-or-another, and Scott has been very helpful in making suggestions between updates when I have had some issue or wanted to tweak something. On my latest two apps, I have gone away from the standard interface, but have been able to make it look fabulous. Because all of the controls are just grouped objects, I can do all sorts of fiddling that even Scott didn't originally build into it.

The mergEXT externals are included with the price of liveCode, now, I believe. There is a separate download for Indy and Business license holders at http://downloads.livecode.com/mergext/

I would mess with the dropbox external and see what you can do with it. Asynchronous does not necessarily mean that you can have multiple file operations underway at the same time (but you should check with Monte about that), but it does mean that your app won't be sitting there while downloading or uploading. You can have those operations going on while the user is doing something else.

[Opaquer]

It's tmControls, by the way, and it's worth the money. Not only does it help me make great-looking interfaces, but the source is unlocked, so I have been able to make changes to it where I have wanted to add something-or-another, and Scott has been very helpful in making suggestions between updates when I have had some issue or wanted to tweak something. On my latest two apps, I have gone away from the standard interface, but have been able to make it look fabulous. Because all of the controls are just grouped objects, I can do all sorts of fiddling that even Scott didn't originally build into it.

The mergEXT externals are included with the price of liveCode, now, I believe. There is a separate download for Indy and Business license holders at http://downloads.livecode.com/mergext/

I would mess with the dropbox external and see what you can do with it. Asynchronous does not necessarily mean that you can have multiple file operations underway at the same time (but you should check with Monte about that), but it does mean that your app won't be sitting there while downloading or uploading. You can have those operations going on while the user is doing something else.

So it is! Sorry about that, I thought it was TMTools . I'm definitely leaning towards tmControls now though! Also, I don't have an Indy or Business license, so I don't have mergEXT . I wish I could just get the Dropbox external by itself, because that sounds exactly like what I need! I'll have to talk to my bosses and see if I can get them to spend a bit of extra money on it

[Simon]

Hi Michael,
Just dropping in here to check if dropbox is your only option.
If not, check this out.
http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19144
Splash21's stack works great.

Simon

[Opaquer]

Hi Michael,
Just dropping in here to check if dropbox is your only option.
If not, check this out.
http://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=19144
Splash21's stack works great.

Simon

That does sound like a good option, though I don't know much about it, so I'll need to research it. The only issue is that all the code I've done so far has been using Dropbox... It might take a lot of work to recode everything !

[Mikey]

I personally like Dropbox because I don't need to manage a server.

[Opaquer]

I personally like Dropbox because I don't need to manage a server.

That's a good point. After thinking about it, I've decided to stick with Dropbox, mostly because it's already coded, and partially because I want it to be as easy as possible for my bosses (who aren't the most computer literate people around ) to use, and not have to call me every 10 minutes with a question . Thanks for all your help though, everyone