Announcing Xavvi, a Great Leap Forward for App Building

[heatherlaine]

We are genuinely thrilled to be at the start of our journey to bring you Xavvi, the no-code platform incorporating Artificial Intelligence, that will make create apps dramatically easier for you. For the first time the dream of describing your app and seeing it built before your eyes is coming true.

To get all the way there, we need you. Learn more here:

https://www.livecode.com/xavvi

Best Regards,

Heather

Customer Services Manager
LiveCode Ltd.

[Ajm]

Hi Heather,

I'm at a loss to understand why Livecode are trying to fund raise another product line when there hasn't yet been anything seen on the last fund raised product line the script compiler. LC 10 DP 5 has just appeared after a long period of silence.

I for one will not be funding this until I see some evidence that the script compiler is almost complete.

Regards
Andy

[AndyP]

This looks very exciting and a logical and probably necessary step forward. It is unclear from what I've read so far what the future holds for the Livecode platform as it stands.

So some questions to help clarify the situation.

1. Will Livecode continue to be developed?

2. If so, will the update period be similar as now or will they take a back seat to the new platform?

I'm sure there will be a lot more questions comming, but I think these two are probably the most pertinent to current Livecode user's re the future of Livecode as a platform.

Looking forward to your replies and assurances.

[Klaus]

And the AI will probably be fed with all the mailing list answers from the last years and all of the forum entries...

[dunbarx]

Andy.

I have helped fund every LC request, even though I use none of any of it. I doubt I will ever use this new thingie, assuming it matures into a standard of some kind.

But the reason i am writing here is because of a point you raised. You implied that the codelsss AI-based gadget might mean a switch away from "standard" LC stuff.

I take heart that is not so, using the, for me, exciting prospect that widgets can be built with LCS. I am not even sure what that will mean to me, in that I am not really clear about the practical difference between a group of controls and a widget. That is on me. But it appears that there is no reason for concern.

I hope.

Craig

[dunbarx]

Was it something I said?

Oh yes.

In just a sentence or two, what is the difference between a group of controls and a widget? What can a widget do that the other cannot?

I do not mean the advantage of them being ready-made, like the browser widget. I mean if you had a particular gadgetary (!) functionality in mind, what would making a widget for that purpose do for you that making something out of "regular" LC tools would not?

Craig

[richmond62]

Why have LC's fundraisers, to which I have donated as much as I have been able, always left me with a sour
taste in my mouth?

[stam]

@AndyP - very valid questions. I'm going to completely guess 'yes' because the blurb states that the AI generated apps will be backward-compatible and can be opened in LC. Would be nice to have a bit more info before pledging on a vague promise tho... and @Ajm raises valid points too...

The info is quite vague - and understandably so - but would be nice to have some more meat on some of the planned details as I hardly think the strategy is being made up on the hoof. For example what does 'at personal level' and 'at professional level' actually mean. Would also be good to have a vague idea of what 50% savings means... It's of no use to me if the full cost is £5,000 for example, as I do not make hardly any financial profit from my LC stuff (mainly stuff that is used at my workplace to ease friction points) and it would need to make a very strong case indeed if Xavvi turns out to be more expensive that commercial LC which is already pricey.

Having said that I'll probably end up pledging something - just to support the team. But the level of contribution will be influenced by what information is released.

[stam]

In just a sentence or two, what is the difference between a group of controls and a widget? What can a widget do that the other cannot?

I do not mean the advantage of them being ready-made, like the browser widget. I mean if you had a particular gadgetary (!) functionality in mind, what would making a widget for that purpose do for you that making something out of "regular" LC tools would not?

Best case scenario for me would be to include ability to have properties adjustable in the property inspector, being a single, re-usable object that you can use in any stack like what we now do with LCB widgets, not having to rely on cards with behaviour scripts etc.
Not sure if any of this is planned or is possible, but would be nice...

S.

[dunbarx]

Stam.

to have properties adjustable in the property inspector, being a single, re-usable object that you can use in any stack

Not sure I see the difference. A group has its own properties in its own inspector, and can be used elsewhere.

Perhaps there are differences in the properties of, say, the browser widget, whereas the properties of a group are of, well, the group, and not of its child controls.

So are there, for example in the browser widget, properties relating specifically to browser-like things? That is, properties pertinent to the functionality of the widget as a whole? That would be very different from the separate properties of the several child controls that just happened to work together as a "browser gadget".

Just wondering...

Craig

[stam]

to have properties adjustable in the property inspector, being a single, re-usable object that you can use in any stack

Not sure I see the difference.

You are not correct in your assumption that you'd need to adjust properties of child controls. The exact point of this would be to create group level properties and using setProp for example to control child properties.

A more correct comparison would be with the Data Grid. It's a group that behaves like a widget but isn't. But it could be. It does have property panels that lets you adjust column names, sizes, subscripts etc. The usual alternative however when creating groups that function as a widget should is to either create a programmatic API or a specific palette, like Data Grid Helper. Just more inconvenience/annoyance either way. You can imagine how well it would be received if the only way to adjust datagrid column names/sizes/row templates was programmatically, or having to open several other palettes on top of the properties palette.

Plus the DG is not fully encapsulated as it relies on a behaviour substack which also makes it more complicated to copy to other stacks - the hope would be that perhaps if it's a proper 'widget' it can be more encapsulated, like PolyGrid.

S.

[dunbarx]

Stam.

No. I wasn't clear.

I was trying to make the point that the child properties of the constituent controls in a group are not pertinent, that only the properties of the group as a whole was, and that has no bearing on the actual purpose of that group.

I assume that a widget has function-specific properties, relevant to its purpose, and that might be a fundamental distinction between the two. After all, a DG is, as you say, just a very clever group. But all its specific properties are accessed via dgProps.

Craig

[AndyP]

So I've been re-reading this blog post on Livecode 10,

https://livecode.com/reflecting-on-2022 ... ng-2023-2/

and there appears to be conflicting information between the statements in parts of the blog and information presented in the Xavvi information.

In the blog post on LC 10,

We will be creating a bunch of new widgets and API connectors so that your LiveCode experience “out of the box” is first class.

Xavvi,

The Business and Scale level pledges includes the Xavvi Extensions for LiveCode addon at no extra charge.

Are these the same widgets, I can't imagine that there would be two different development lines for these.

What is Business and Scale levels in respect to Xavvi?

The general tone of the LC 10 blog post feels very much like the final version of LC 10 is Xavvi, is the X a clue or just a coincidence?

Read through both the blog and Xavvi information, am I just reading too much into this?

Livecode HQ we need some clarification on the future of our much loved Livecode platform, and how it fits in with Xavvi.

[heatherlaine]

Good morning! I see there are quite a few questions in this thread I can answer for you, let me see what I can do.

Ajm said:

there hasn't yet been anything seen on the last fund raised product line the script compiler. LC 10 DP 5 has just appeared after a long period of silence.

I'm a bit concerned you say "a long period of silence". We wrote recently with a detailed update to all the Script Compiler backers, did you not get that email? Contact me on support@livecode.com and I can try and figure out what happened there. We also held a full LiveCode Global session dedicated to the Script Compiler and its status. I think you should have access to that session in your account?

AndyP said:

1. Will Livecode continue to be developed?

2. If so, will the update period be similar as now or will they take a back seat to the new platform?

Yes, LiveCode will continue to be developed. The release cycle should remain similar to what it is now. Please see this document:

https://livecode.com/xavvi/xavvi-vs-livecode/

richmond2 said:

LC's fundraisers, to which I have donated as much as I have been able

Thank you for donating to our campaigns, it is appreciated.

dunbarx said

In just a sentence or two, what is the difference between a group of controls and a widget? What can a widget do that the other cannot?

Stam has it pretty much right Please stand by for a nice blog post and lesson on the whole subject from Ali Lloyd, he's just putting the finishing touches to it and it will hopefully be public later today. I'll post again when its available.

stam said:

The info is quite vague - and understandably so - but would be nice to have some more meat on some of the planned details as I hardly think the strategy is being made up on the hoof. For example what does 'at personal level' and 'at professional level' actually mean.

Stam... I think you missed the Tech and Pricing tabs on the Xavvi page. Please check the top navigation on https://livecode.com/xavvi, and click on Tech for a pretty detailed breakdown on what we're planning for Xavvi, and Pricing for what the expected pricing will be.

AndyP said:

Livecode HQ we need some clarification on the future of our much loved Livecode platform, and how it fits in with Xavvi.

Clarification is coming. I see that our Tech page could do with some improvements in this line to clarify what is included in which product. LiveCode 10 as originally conceived was always going to need different and entirely new based pricing to cover the Cloud utilization, Cloud data storage, API connectors (many of which require a Cloud component) and cost of building all the widgets (many of which have a Cloud component). We’ve gone a step further than originally suggested with separating out the brand and adding AI in order to better appeal to new users. But the new pricing line up you see would have happened even if we hadn’t done that. You should note that you can import LiveCode projects into Xavvi, you can publish Xavvi projects on the desktop using LiveCode, access to all the features you want including traditional “LiveCode” is possible from a single Xavvi Business or Scale license. I’ll post again when we’ve improved the Tech page descriptions and explanations, and you can tell me if we made it clear enough!

Best Regards,

Heather

[AndyP]

Heather, thank you for the quick and concise clarifications.
I hope my posts did not appear negative in any way, l was just feeling uneasy about the future of our Livecode platform with the information provided. Relaxing now