POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Are you using LiveCode to create server scripts or CGIs?

Moderators: FourthWorld, heatherlaine, Klaus, kevinmiller, robinmiller

How do you use LiveCode Server?

I haven't used it yet but intend to.
30
29%
I run it on a VPS or dedicated server.
30
29%
I run it on a shared hosting service.
34
33%
I have no interest in LiveCode Server.
9
9%
 
Total votes: 103

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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by FourthWorld » Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:47 am

Very pleased to read your enthusiastic reply, fritzdekatt. Thanks for chiming in here.

There's so much to the range of topics with client-server apps, let's see if we can narrow it down to get you going: what would you like to build, how far have you gotten so far, and what roadblocks have you run into thus far?
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by fritzdekatt » Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:41 am

FourthWorld wrote:
Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:47 am
Very pleased to read your enthusiastic reply, fritzdekatt. Thanks for chiming in here.

There's so much to the range of topics with client-server apps, let's see if we can narrow it down to get you going: what would you like to build, how far have you gotten so far, and what roadblocks have you run into thus far?
I would like several cradle-to-grave examples of browser based implementations. A CRUD MySQL or SQLite app would be a good place to start, using no LC Desktop front end, just a regular old browser. If you want to know exactly what I personally would like to see (and what I suppose other newbies would be interested in), take that whole Cloud and Database Academy and convert it to the browser as client. It's a great course, but it's all desktop consuming web services (or desktop directly interfacing with a database server).

I've built a rudimentary database CRUD app on the desktop and I can query MySQL all day from a browser. Roadblocks, besides the inevitable calcification of the brain due to my age, amount to the serious dearth of complete tutorials for LC server. The fact that there's virtually nothing on YouTube concentrating on browser based LC Server solutions suggests to me that nobody's doing that. Ditto for Udemy.com. The longest piece I've ever read on the subject was from BYU, and that was a few paragraphs.

Most of the posts seem to focus on the problems inherent in setting it up, which may be why we see so few actually programming it.

Thank you for asking, and good luck in your quest to make sense of all of this.

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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by fritzdekatt » Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:15 am

"Have you seen Scott McDonald's LiveCode Lab? It's pretty cool, a sort of platform-as-a-service for LiveCode Server:
http://thelivecodelab.com/"


This lab is currently offline, but it says it will be back later this year.
Sounds like a good idea though.

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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by bogs » Wed Feb 13, 2019 11:30 am

Scott did leave an email address there at the bottom of the page, you might give that a shot ?
Image

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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:48 am

FourthWorld wrote:
Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:19 pm
I wonder how many folks who've had difficulty setting up LC Server would find it easy to upload and run a shell script on their server?
I would, relatively speaking. That sounds superb. I hope those things still work this long after you posted. :)
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Jun 19, 2019 7:10 pm

thatkeith wrote:
Wed Jun 19, 2019 10:48 am
FourthWorld wrote:
Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:19 pm
I wonder how many folks who've had difficulty setting up LC Server would find it easy to upload and run a shell script on their server?
I would, relatively speaking. That sounds superb. I hope those things still work this long after you posted. :)
Linux permissions are forever, and its base directory structures rarely change. Apache does a good job of maintaining backward compatibility as well, so a script that works today will likely work for several years forward. At worst, any changes would be minor.

That is, as far as the core components go.

The bigger challenge is that there's little consistency in path naming conventions among hosting services. Some call the web root "http", others "web", others by the domain name, and others something else.

And hosts differ in other configurations as well, such as default folder permissions, assumptions about file name extensions, etc.

If there's enough interest in this sort of thing it would be a fun exercise, but to make it work it would be helpful to get a sense of which hosting services we'd need to target first.
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:05 pm

Dreamhost is my preference, and the web root there is the domain name, for example thatkeith.com. So yes, it varies for each domain but in a logical manner.
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:08 pm

I read in a 2008 post on this topic (back in the Rev day’s) that Dreamhost requires .cgi as the filename extension, but my tests with htaccess suggest this may not be restricted like that – or at least it’s trivial to work around.
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by FourthWorld » Wed Jun 19, 2019 11:49 pm

Forum posts can be helpful, sometimes. Many here chime in with useful info, but few update things when they change.

I tend to use the forums for those things I can't find a tutorial for in the official (and maintained) LiveCode Lessons repository.

Please let me know if this is readable and work for you:

http://lessons.livecode.com/m/4070/l/36 ... a-htaccess
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:38 pm

I tried that 'How To' page before, but I did it again (as I know I make mistakes) and got the same result. Here's my experience:

In the web root .htaccess I added:

Code: Select all

AddHandler livecode-script .lc
Action livecode-script /cgi-bin/livecode-server
I created a cgi-bin folder and added the contents of the LC server download, as instructed. I set the livecode-server permissions to 755.

/cgi-bin/drivers/
/cgi-bin/externals/
/cgi-bin/livecode-server

I made a test.lc file at the web root. But when I browse to it I just get this:
The requested URL /cgi-bin/livecode-server/test.lc was not found on this server
The test.lc file is NOT in the cgi-bin directory despite the error. If I disable the AddHandler lines in the .htaccess file I see the results of the raw code in the file, as per the test instructions, but of course no interpretation of the LC code. Does anyone have suggestions?
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 26, 2019 6:59 pm

fritzdekatt wrote:
Tue Feb 12, 2019 11:41 am
Most of the posts seem to focus on the problems inherent in setting it up, which may be why we see so few actually programming it.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I've asked for help from LC Towers, but no joy yet. I use shared hosting at Dreamhost and I'm happy with this; I'm hoping not to have to do this elsewhere. But when I try the instructions found at http://lessons.livecode.com/m/4070/l/36 ... a-htaccess they simply don't work. I really hope someone can come up with answers that actually work! :(
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by thatkeith » Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:38 pm

EDIT for posterity: it IS possible to run LC Server in Dreamhost shared server space. See the link to a different thread in Richard’s post below.

---

Figured out the problem. Unfortunately it's NOT possible on Dreamhost's shared servers. Three Apache modules are required for livecode-server to run as CGI: mod_cgi, mod_actions and mod_alias. Unfortunately, mod_actions can't be enabled on a shared DH server.

It CAN be enabled on a dedicated server or their DreamCompute offering. I'm now mulling over whether to do DreamCompute or open an account at Hostm.com. DH's added cost is *marginally* less than Hostm, and tech support is (in my 13+ years of experience) outstanding, but Hostm has LiveCode set up as part of the hosting service... dang.
Last edited by thatkeith on Mon Jul 01, 2019 1:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by FourthWorld » Thu Jun 27, 2019 12:13 am

thatkeith wrote:
Wed Jun 26, 2019 7:38 pm
Figured out the problem. Unfortunately it's NOT possible on Dreamhost's shared servers. Three Apache modules are required for livecode-server to run as CGI: mod_cgi, mod_actions and mod_alias. Unfortunately, mod_actions can't be enabled on a shared DH server.

It CAN be enabled on a dedicated server or their DreamCompute offering. I'm now mulling over whether to do DreamCompute or open an account at Hostm.com. DH's added cost is *marginally* less than Hostm, and tech support is (in my 13+ years of experience) outstanding, but Hostm has LiveCode set up as part of the hosting service... dang.
Note for readers who may be following this, the Dreamhost part of this discussion continues at duplicate post here:
https://forums.livecode.com/viewtopic.p ... 21#p181069
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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by sphere » Sun Aug 18, 2019 3:04 pm

I'm just starting with this.

I created something that also needs a webbased portal. And as i am a bad PHP writer(only use it for DB middleware). I want to give this a go and probably with revigniter. I want to see if that's sufficient.
It has to mimic the app i made for Android.
It will have to run on a VPS.
I have a Joomla website representing the product, but all data for the Android and Windows supportive apps are on the VPS.
Then if it succeeds i want to use the lc part in an iframe on te Joomla site. Because i tried all options to get it run, but no go on this hared hosting.
HTML5 seems not to be good for it as it is. as far as i know, no direct communication to a db, and most of all no one is going to wait 30secs before the whole thing runs.
So now i have it installed on XAMPP on windows, to see how it works.

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Re: POLL: LiveCode Server deployment

Post by FourthWorld » Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:21 pm

Hello sphere -

I'm not clear on what you're attempting. This thread is about LC Server, and you mention HTML. These run on opposite sides of the Internet connection, LC Server on the server and HTML in the user's browser.

Can you tell us more about what you're putting together?
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