New version 5.5 announced - free or fee?

[jacque]

I have absolutely no doubt that the bean counters at RR hold a release until a proper number of licenses have expired.

They put out releases fairly regularly, every few months. The release schedule is planned a year or two ahead of time along with the feature set for each future version, though some features can get delayed depending on how difficult they are to implement. The upcoming unicode stuff was originally set to be in a late version 4.x but it proved extremely difficult. Now that the main groundwork is done -- which basically involved rewriting the entire field object -- it will be easier to build on in the future.

The original creator of the engine back when it was MetaCard used to call the field object "the beast". And it was. It couldn't be patched or extended any longer, it had to be redone. I know the engineers have been working on the rewrite for more than a year.

I do think you'll like 5.5 though, and I hope you can save up to get it. I've been playing with some of the new Android stuff and it's amazing. I prefer Android over iOS most of the time, and I'm happy to see the engine approaching parity with that.

[Mark]

Thanks Jacque. Now it is official

Mark

[BarrySumpter]

Yeah, the lady is away on business for a few days.
Gonna hafta sell the house.
She ain't gonna be happy.

[gayasoft]

First lets start with the really annoying thing: Sending out mails claiming that people can download the new version by going to their account is just *****
For a UK company that by EU law is forced to stand to their advertisement thats a pretty bold step.

Gayasoft and Phiasco,

Did you pay half of the $749 per year for your last update?
Which would be about $375.

Did I pay that much? Nope
Do I want to? Nope

Why: I use Win + OSX and consider getting android + iOS and for that I'm not gonna pay 750 and not gonna pay twice per year for minimalistic upgrades, not with the inexistant support for feature enhancements even more so on the desktop that got buried alive for mobile. Common, pay £74 for upgrades from 5.0 to 5.5 to get text formating? Thats more than a sick joke given how long that field was lacking for a technology with primarily is used and focused on the text and text alike data front.

MonoDroid / MonoTouch cost me $400 a year each, which I unlike LC consider a totally fair price, because they put a major effort into it and expose nearly the whole native functionality of the platforms and have support for the newest platform features on the day of its official release if not earlier, not a filtered nothing of the features (not even native UI, is that some kind of a joke?) 2 years after they got added to iOS / Android.
So once RR feels like offering a similar timely, professional support for the platforms I pay for, we can talk about such yearly fees again but not as long as they think they can go the Adobe style, with .5 updates while at the same time even offering less on these updates than Adobe where its already overpriced for the minor updates.

I happened to own the full thing but as a OnRev funding member I kind of grew tired of hoping for long promised things to happen (like the OnRev editor stopping to be a pre alpha state joke after 2 years, you don't get free access to OnRev server to compensate for it by getting a proper IDE and docs, ...). So lets see how 6.0 will be, 5.5 won't end in my license pool

[karmacomposer]

I did not notice one thing - by installing 5.5.0, I won't even be able to deploy to Pc or Mac without paying.

MOREOVER, it seems that now all of my deployment options have to be upgraded (read - pay for upgrades) - really?

Really?

Runrev, please confirm this! Right now, my store account allows me to download 5.5.0, but every addon I previously purchased or earned now says UPDATE ADDON - to which each one costs a bit of money. For me, that will be about $326 to update them all. I simply am broke right now. So, I am not going to install anything. In fact, I think I am officially done with Live Code.

Bye all.

Mike

[BarrySumpter]

I did not notice one thing - by installing 5.5.0, I won't even be able to deploy to Pc or Mac without paying.

Not sure what is going on now with the store.
Looks like they've added LiveCode Deployment tools as a requirement.
I don't recall that when I was checking on prices last week.

Is that what karma is posting about?
So now it's gone up another $40?
Kick a man when he's down. Ouch!

OK I think since 5.5 is now officially ready for download the sales are finished.
Even though my store doesn't show 5.5 yet.

[BarrySumpter]

...
I happened to own the full thing ...

If you're writing about LC Complete then:
...
* a year of update releases as well any new platforms released within the year
...

Otherwise, like me, gotta pay n pay n pay.
Not just this release.
But all in the future as well.

Hoping for a better day with more pay.

[jacque]

I did not notice one thing - by installing 5.5.0, I won't even be able to deploy to Pc or Mac without paying.

MOREOVER, it seems that now all of my deployment options have to be upgraded (read - pay for upgrades) - really?

If you can deploy to Mac and PC already, you can deploy to those with 5.5. If your license is for mobile, then you can deploy for mobile with 5.5. In other words, the version has changed but your deployment options are the same. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

You don't need to update any addons to use 5.5 to my knowledge, but again, I'm not sure which "add-ons" you mean. I don't think any of the additions in the vendor marketplace are incompatible.

One thing to be aware of in 5.5 though, the file format has changed, so if you want to use 5.5 and also 5.0 at the same time, make sure you save your stacks in legacy format. Otherwise 5.5-saved stacks won't open in 5.0. If that happens to you, you can fix it by re-opening the stack in 5.5 and doing a "save as" in legacy 2.7 format. Another way to avoid the whole issue is to select the checkbox in Preferences that specifies the IDE should save all stacks in whatever format they were originally.

[jacque]

First lets start with the really annoying thing: Sending out mails claiming that people can download the new version by going to their account is just *****

You don't see it in there?

[Mark]

Jacque,

If you have a license for 5.0.2 but not for 5.5, then all your deployment options are gone if you install 5.5 and remove 5.0.2. Naturally, I kept 5.0.2 but I'm not sure that karmacomposer did.

People were sent e-mails with the offer to download a dp version of 5.5. They were told they could download it, but then it appeared that RunRev had made a mistake. I was confused, wrote to RunRev, and RunRev apologised.

Kind regards,

Mark

[jacque]

I see. Yes, that would be frustrating.

[BarrySumpter]

If you can deploy to Mac and PC already, you can deploy to those with 5.5.
If your license is for mobile, then you can deploy for mobile with 5.5.
In other words, the version has changed but your deployment options are the same.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
...

Perhaps thats what the 5.x users are writing about.
That you have to pay for 5.5 no matter what.
And from previous posts in this thread,
maybe even if you are a LC Complete license holder.

As a LC 4.6.4, Android, iOS, and Server Side Scripting user,
I was hoping for a package deal.
Still waiting with me fingers crossed.

And I'm not sure why they would start charging an extra fee to distribute.
Perhaps its always been there.

[karmacomposer]

I upgraded to 5.0 and almost all deployment options except Microsoft phone a few months ago.

With the previous 5.0.2 (or whatever the last one was), all options were working - all my deployments were correct.

Now, when I download 5.5.0, the only deployment options that show up are Linux and Server. That makes NO SENSE.

Something got messed up. If I do not need to pay for my deployment options, who do I contact to fix all this?

Mike

[jacque]

Contact support at support@runrev.com. Heather can straighten it out.

[BarrySumpter]

I think only LC Complete comes with 12 months of free upgrades.
So it doesn't sound like you have LC Complete.

I'm pretty sure anything else only gets you 3 months worth of free upgrades withnin a version.
And maybe not even that.

Contact support. They've always been responsive when asking about upgrade eligibility.
But mostly disappointingly when it comes to me being surprised with the LC upgrade policy.
i.e. with me missing out cause I'm so busy developing I forget the fine print.