Can you run LiveCode or Standalone from a USB?

[Monox18]

Hello all!

When reading through the wiki, I came across the startup command https://livecode.fandom.com/wiki/Startup

In the description it states "If you are developing your application to work from a U3 compliant drive, you can use the mode to respond to U3 actions." I've never heard of U3 drives, but reading a bit about it seems that it allowed LiveCode to run from a USB. But U3 is dead now. So I suppose this support is dead as well? I couldn't find any "advanced U3 settings of the Standalone Settings".

Anyway, I'm wondering if you can still run LiveCode from a USB? Never thought of that. Under what kind scenarios would you run LiveCode from an USB? or the standalone executable from an USB? Feeling curious about the uses.

[FourthWorld]

U3 was an attempt to create a standard to let Windows users run Windows apps from a modest external storage, at a time when most Win apps required having DLLs thrown all over the boot drive. There's probably a Wikipedia page on it, but it's so old it may not be interesting.

As for LC, it's apps are generally self-contained within a single folder, and that folder can reside on any local storage, not just the boot drive, so that would include USB drives.

[bogs]

Anyway, I'm wondering if you can still run LiveCode from a USB? Never thought of that. Under what kind scenarios would you run LiveCode from an USB? or the standalone executable from an USB? Feeling curious about the uses.

Well, I had a use case for just that scenario recently (within the last year) and you can indeed run the livecode ide directly from a usb drive (tested on Windows and Linux, dunno about Mac).

The use case scenario was I was showing one of my instructors in school LiveCode. I have a healthy amount of projects and demos, so I copied those to the usb stick, and since I was uncomfortable installing software on a school computer, I figured "why not?" and copied the .runrev folder over as well from the Windows install.

Brought it to school, plugged it in to the port, navigated to the folder, and launched the IDE. Lc still puts the license info on the computer running it, but after skipping the registration stuff the IDE itself ran directly from the USB drive, opened projects, made standalones, etc.

Recently (again, within the last year) I bought a usb backup hardrive and thought, well, it worked so well on Windows, why not try it on 'nix?

This time, I actually ran the custom installer and pointed it to the USB connected hardrive. It installed and ran no problems at all. I then copied over my .runrev folder to the drive, and now all my IDEs run from it (this works back all the way to MC 2.x, btw). The nicest part of it from my pov is that I can attach that drive to any computer running either Win or LIn, and have a working copy of the IDE and all my own projects and demos to muck about with, really handy when the power is out and the laptop is all I have to work with.

[Monox18]

Thanks guys

Now I understand better about the U3 attempt. It is also very interesting to see that both the standalone and IDE can be run from an USB. It opens new possibilities. Never thought I could have the IDE in a usb. Will be useful in the future specially when travelling.

The way I have been using LiveCode in multiple PCs is by keeping the script files in dropbox. So both PCs always have the script updated. The problem is that even if I'm using the same version, the license and the IDE configuration (preferences) are not synchronized. Only one PC is licensed with my Indy, while the other is community.

[bogs]

Only one PC is licensed with my Indy, while the other is community.

Ah, I should have mentioned I was specifically speaking about the Community (Open Source) IDE, Although I do have older versions of Enterprise that I run in the same manner (pre ver. 5.xx that I am using to access different versions of the OSS project for MC files), I don't know if that would also be workable today.

From a 'legal' pov, I guess it would depend on how the term "1 computer" might apply to the licensing, i.e. if it says 1 computer, and it is installed on 1 drive that moves to many computers.

From a technical one, I don't see how it would not be able to work, but someone that actually uses newer vers. of LC than I do would have to answer that one

[richmond62]

You can use LiveCode based on a USB drive with a Macintosh computer.

With Windows and Linux the installer puts various files in various places in the file-system of the OS.

Macintosh "apps" are self-contained packages.

However, as far as I am aware, your preferences will not be portable, and every time you use
a version of LiveCode that resides on a USB drive it will write to various caches on the host system.

[kdjanz]

Nope. I keep all my files and my preferences/plugins etc in a folder on my Dropbox, so my environment is always there on any of my machines. Only the app itself is on the hard drive.

kelly

[Monox18]

I couldn't find the preferences folder in the Program Files LiveCode. I saw the Plugins folder though. Where is that folder and how to properly move it? Windows user here.

[richmond62]

Nope. I keep all my files and my preferences/plugins etc in a folder on my Dropbox, so my environment is always there on any of my machines. Only the app itself is on the hard drive.

kelly

That's very clever indeed: well, until you end up somewhere where internet is unavailable/off.

[kdjanz]

The local Dropbox on each device is kept synced automatically, so I work with what I have until I get back in range and get back to other devices. So far, the longest ‘outage’ was a two week trip to Africa where my connectivity was spotty and slow, but I had what I needed on the devices I was carrying. When I got to the airport, there was a 2-3 mb exchange where Dropbox played catch-up. I don’t use Dropbox for photos, because they would use up all my room and syncing would take forever - it is just my documents and working files that I keep up to date and with me at all times.

I’ve tried creating a cloud on the Synology server that I have in my home, but for whatever reason, the sync is not as robust or as quick as Dropbox, so I keep using both. Dropbox for immediate and short term and Synology for long term and mass storage - like photos.
So far so good.

Kelly

[AndyP]

Another great advantage of having your working files synced on Dropbox or in my case Nextcloud, is that if Livecode crashes mid execution and trashes your code as it sometimes does is that you can go back to a previous save and download.