LiveCode Forums

Hi Richard,

i have an app on which people can order stuff at different suppliers.
It's in a startup fase.
The Android app communicates with a Mariadb server on the VPS.
The suppliers can use a separate desktop app (win/mac/lin) to create their categories/products.

Similar platforms also use a webbased environment. So first i thought i create something in PHP but...
So then i thought i could let this lc server run on the VPS together with revigniter to have some sort of cms.
Our friend from India Brahman seems to have to sites already with revigniter. So it should be possible. That's why i mentioned also html5, i know it runs in the browser.

I could have worked the other way around, use an existing Joomla Component and work my app around that. But it's to late for that. Everything except for the webportal is running.

Bumping this thread for those of you who haven't yet voted:

Please take a gander at the OP here and select the option(s) that best describe your LC Server use.

The more participants we have there, the better our community can gauge where to devote time for tooling, libraries, etc.

Thanks for your participation in this poll.

I'm interested in LC server's possibilities, but know very little about it, and haven't used it. Use examples would be very helpful. Why use LC server instead of something else?

Peter Bogdanoff wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 3:00 am

Why use LC server instead of something else?

A worthwhile question. Why do you LC desktop instead of something else?

I don't think answering a question with a question is a very useful response.

The desktop and server builds serve different needs: the one has immediate effects at the desktop/mobile device, while the server presents its information through a web interface. I think Peter's question is quite apropos, given the hurdles to learning the platform, the differences between the desktop and server capabilities, the inability to just take a desktop app and throw it onto a server, and the long-term maintenance question, given that you can't just inform a prospective client that you'll cobble together a server installation and they'll be able to find someone off the street to maintain it, the way they could easily find php/javascript/python/etc coders.

mwieder wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 4:41 am

I don't think answering a question with a question is a very useful response.

We are different people.

Which was very much where I was going with that.

I already know why I find LC Server useful, but for all the reasons you mentioned I also understand that my interests may not reflect others'.

So rather than tell people what works for me, I was more interested in inviting each of us to explore the question, and share our own perspectives. It's a good question. I like your answer:

The desktop and server builds serve different needs: the one has immediate effects at the desktop/mobile device, while the server presents its information through a web interface. I think Peter's question is quite apropos, given the hurdles to learning the platform, the differences between the desktop and server capabilities, the inability to just take a desktop app and throw it onto a server, and the long-term maintenance question, given that you can't just inform a prospective client that you'll cobble together a server installation and they'll be able to find someone off the street to maintain it, the way they could easily find php/javascript/python/etc coders.

In what other languages would one expect to "just take a desktop app and throw it onto a server"?

And if the availability of replacement staff were the primary consideration for server language choices, we'd all still be using Perl, and Ruby would have remained a niche without a Rails, and there would have been no room for Java.

And because the popularity factor is so popularly cited even on the desktop, it seemed another good reason to ask Peter, and the rest of us, why we choose LiveCode at all.

I have my reasons. I'm interested in learning others'.

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 11, 2016 1:05 am

I'm curious about how people are using LiveCode Server - please pick the option that best describes how you use it.

A: I tried several times to start using LCS on various shared servers, VPS and desktop machines but consistently struggled to get beyond the "hello world" situation - so LCS (and therefore, LiveCode) has been 'parked' for me for some time (and I'm likely out of touch on recent developments, so the following may be old news).

The root causes for me were the lack of (or me not locating) a clear map to navigate the various configuration and toolkit building options and insufficient server/development domain knowledge, (I came to LiveCode as an amateur scripted, with zero computer science education, just self-taught HTML and JavaScript hacking to extend websites).

Multiple layers of fog seemed to be in the way - primarily for me the demise of the LC server 'IDE' but also the need to build ones own system architecture, text based development toolkit and testing rig (with no official blueprints); rethinking the structure and inter-working of 'text only' stacks and resources accordingly (on desktop as well as server for development & testing); the concepts in frameworks such as RevIgniter that are probably vital but not natural extensions to LiveCode dictionary terms.

Even with support from a great community, the above require a 'developer' mindset, which most LCS users will likely have ported from other server environments - I couldn't find learning paths or general direction of travel whilst merely playing within LiveCode.

It's almost certain that everything one might need to know about navigating the latest, simplest approach is somewhere amidst forum posts, use lists and LiveCode docs but the signal-to-noise ratio is low, diagrams are rare (visual thinker here when it comes to architectural issues!j and it's hard to focus searches to find what you don't know you need to know!

Oh, to have a few sample stacks for basic use cases with some concept diagrams and the tooling resources needed to develop on a desktop with local host and publish to LCS - i.e. where (or what) is the LCS IDE!
Best,
Keith

Very helpful, Keith. Thank you.

If I see enough interest in this thread I'll see what I can do to pull together resources to make using LC Server easier and more productive.

FourthWorld wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 9:35 am

If I see enough interest in this thread I'll see what I can do to pull together resources to make using LC Server easier and more productive.

Thanks for your ongoing efforts on behalf of the community, Richard.

We use LC Server on a dedicated server to manage our companies primary file storage repo for our backoffice system as well as our API for many business applications.

For a part of one of my websites i wanted to use LC-server and have started with it, meaning converting PHP examples to LC-server. Partly it runs, but because the examples for PHP are immense i finished the demo in PHP.

I'm curious how KLM (the dutch airplane company) build their ticketing website with LC, because a time ago this was one of the advertising on LC's website. So assuming this is still the case, i would really like to know how they did it and what tricks they used.

We are using Livecode Server on Shared Hosting, VPS and also inHouse for

- Fastpring Order processing
- creating and providing customized pricelists with user authentication
- managing uploads/downloads including statistics
- providing realtime information from our ERP
- form data processing including Double-Optin for newsletter subscriptions

and some more i can´t remember right now

I do use the server in some pretty minor ways. What gets in the way of doing anything more serious is the lack of development tools. If things are going well there's no problem. But if anything's amiss it's up to you to figure out what's wrong. Doesn't matter if it's syntax problems or runtime errors like not being able to access resources, the server just quits.

mwieder wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:56 pm

I do use the server in some pretty minor ways. What gets in the way of doing anything more serious is the lack of development tools. If things are going well there's no problem. But if anything's amiss it's up to you to figure out what's wrong. Doesn't matter if it's syntax problems or runtime errors like not being able to access resources, the server just quits.

What do other CGIs do when they encounter a fatal error?

What tools would you like to see?

I selected the first option but I do actually use it on my workstations to provide linting for Atom. I have a VPS where I would like to set it up at some point for testing.