Webinar Session Questions 26/03/2014

[elanorb]

Coding School
Q: not a question, more of a request... would it be possible to get the lesson video on Monday instead of Tuesday; with my schedule, I don't have enough time to really play with what I learned in the lesson before coming to the Q&A session
A: Hi Greg, I've email Neil and ask him to consider this request. I'm sure that will be fine.

Q: Being new to programming I feel like I am totally lost. Is this normal, and if so....How would you go about learning more about LiveCode's syntax?
A: Hi Robert. learning programming certainly can be difficult and you are not alone in feeling lost. Our academies are helpful when in comes to learning how to create applications from the ground up, following along with those will give you the basics of programming and your confidence should grow. The user guide is also helpful. you can access this from help menu. Elanor may have other suggestions. You could also have a look at LiveCode University, which starts from first principles.

Q: Could the SQLite file for the contacts list be placed on the lessons page for download?
A: This should be available from the Lesson 3 resource page now.

LiveCode
Q: what versions of livecode, MobGui, xCode and Android do you recommend should be used together? And is the recommendation based on the operating system?
A: Hi Lars, I would stick with the latest stable release of LiveCode (Currently 6.6). Android API level 8. xCode 5.1. And the latest verion of MobGui which you can get from your account area.

Q: Is it possible to filter the dictionary - so you only see items avail for Android ..or iOS.
A: It isn't at the moment, though it's a good feature request. We'll be working on the dictionary stack in the coming months so we'll ensure that we get that added.

Q: Can sort dictionary entries by platform (including Android)
A: You can sort the dictionary entries by column, but as the platforms are a list in some cases, this is not always ideal. We will be looking at improving the Dictionary in the future and this is a feature we would add.

Q: is there a good way to ensure the text appears correctly - sometimes doesn't fit inside field
A: I'll post an example of how to do this on the forum.

Q: When I switch between the cards it always does a "opencard". I want to only run it when I start the app. How is that done? Do I have to use a variable?
A: Hi Alex, the openCard message is always sent to a card when you go to it. If you have code to perform app setup which you only want to run when the app opens, move that script the "stack script" and put it in 'preOpenStack' or 'openStack'.

Q: How do you test the script in the openstack en the preopenstack?
A: You can trigger any handler from the message box simply by typing it's name "preOpenStack".

Q: How do i know if I use too many memory on a tablet/iphone/ipad (or is that not possible)? Is there garbage collection necessary/possible in Livecode.
A: LiveCode does garbage collection for you and releases any cached image data when the OS tells the app it's using too much memory.

Q: How do we populate a map from sqlite databse
A: Hi Pradeep, what data is store in your database? lat,long?

Q: What if I have a list of lat. & long. (10-50 pairs)
A: Hi Pradeep, past it to StackOverflow and Neil will answer in the morning. We will also be looking at working with maps in more detail in the next lesson.

Q: can you show again how to line buttons again please
Q: In your button group example, how do you line them up and spread then across the toolbar?
A: I'll post a separate example of this on the forum.

Q: Could you show us how to install and use externals? I was going to play around with mergJSON and tripped a little bit on how to set things up
A: Hi, there is a lesson on installing externals at http://lessons.runrev.com/s/lessons/m/4 ... e%20forum/

Q: is the browser object limited to http? can it be used to connected to an FTP server or possibly telnet or SSH?
A: Anything you can do in a normal browser you can do in the LiveCode embedded browser. LiveCode 6.7 will feature a new browser implementation based on WebKit.

Q: can you talk briefly about the upcoming UI scaling features?
A: Hi Roddy, these features were made available in LiveCode 6.5. http://lessons.runrev.com/s/lessons/m/15262/c/60870. Try the following in your preOpenStack and open it on a mobile device: Set the fullscreenmode to "exactFit"

Q: i haven't been able to test this yet but if we don't use a high res image @2x in our app, will the image look horrible on a retina display?
A: Hi Roddy, the image will be upscaled. For photographs and other rich images your wouldn't notice the difference. However, for line art and images with very distinct contrasting areas and lines you notice because they are not beautifully crisp like the rest of the display. I'd focus on making sure you provide @2x for UI elements like icons first and progress from there.

Q: I have a lot of small pictures / icons in a DB that I want to display dynamically. It will not be possible to preload the pics / icon onto a card beforehand as you have shown. How would you e.g. load a pic from a DB and show it on a button?
A: Is the data for your images stored as binary data (blobs)?
Q: yes, as blobs.
A: OK, you sound pretty familiar with SQL so I'll presume you can get the image data into a variable. Then it's simply a case of using the following line of script. Set the text of image "image" to tImageData

MobGUI
Q: would it be possible to have both mobgui's available?
A: Hi David, you can download the older version from your account or from a link at the bottom of this page: http://mobgui.com/download.php. I don't believe it is possible to have them both installed as plugins at the same time though.

Q: How can use icon in the new mobgui in the AB button instead of the icon button?
A: The Option buttons is MobGUI are not designed to work with icons, as MobGUI controls are designed to look and behave like native controls and these types of control would not have icons. For more on using option buttons see the MobGUI docs at http://mobgui.com/doc.php?docId=11

Q: How do I change button and icon button icons on MobGUI V1.24
Q: Sorry I am new to LiveCode - How to I import iCons to MobGUI and do you change the button iCon same as you did for "Icon Button"?
A: Hi Pushpa, does this entry in the MobGui documentation help? http://mobgui.com/doc.php?docId=23. Please have a look at the forum post Lesson 2 Stack with new MobGui http://forums.runrev.com/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=19695, this explains how to set up icon buttons

Q: can you pull and display info from other peoples websites without their permission? For instance, a teams schedule off of a league website?
A: Hi Roddy, if the website give you permission or the data is public domain you can 'scrape' it. This would involve parsing the source of the webpate. You can get this using "put url into tSource". You can then repeat over the the lines,words,characters to pull out the data you want.

Q: Would you mind talking a bit about the differences and similarities between a standard text field and the MobGuI Input field?
A: The MobGUI provides a native mobile text input control, the same control you

Mobile Development
Q: What fonts are available as standard on a mobile phone I notice google docs reference e.g. roboto
A: You can get a list of fonts using the 'fontNames' function: http://livecode.com/developers/api/6.0. ... fontNames/. To get a list that are avaiable on your specific device you could create a simple app with a field and in the openStack handler put the following line of script: put the fontNames into field 1

Q: I have worked through forum examples of adding an attachment to an email. Is there a bug for Android - or does this work - example..
A: I believe there is a bug. http://quality.runrev.com/show_bug.cgi?id=11895. We expect to fix it in the next maintenance release.

Q: which is better to use Apple maps or google maps with livecode
A: You can launch the default maps app from LiveCode using the launch command and pass your coordinates in the URL
Q: I have a mobile project which will include info on 27 invasive plants. Picture and info on each. From a performance perspective, would you suggest having 27 static cards or loading the photos and info into one card from a dropdown list?
A: Either would work fine. It would be easier add extra content if you are loading the images and text based on a dropdown as you suggest.

Q: are there font license issues when you use and supply a font in an app?
A: Hi Roddy, yes, many fonts are licended and require you to buy a copy if you are distributing as part of your application. However, many are free and can be distributed. The google font foundy has a good number of license free fonts: http://www.google.com/fonts