Best way to support LiveCode?

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tetsuo29
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Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by tetsuo29 » Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:33 pm

Recently, I've been doing a deep dive on what Rapid Application Development / 4th Generatlon Languages are available and which ones support multiplatform development. And, I'm realizing that there really isn't anything like LC. SuperCard (which is Mac only and therefore not muliplatform) seems all but dead because they have failed to make the transition to 64-bit-ness. Xojo just brings back painful memories and also doesn't have the cool HyperCard stack paradigm that can be oh so useful in many situations.

I've looked a plethora of others. Some of them:
  • Visual Studio
  • B4X
  • Lazarus
  • Flutter
  • OmnisStudio
  • Xojo
  • React Native
  • 4D
  • PureBasic
  • OpenXava
  • GL Basic
And while some of them look interesting and promising (or conversely old and dying), none of them really have some of the features and capabilities of LC that I want and use but... I am a little worried about the future of LC. In my poking around, I stumbled across some things that made me wonder about the financial health of LC and that's actually what this post is about.

I want to support LC. Currently, I have a lifetime license of LC Indy and that works great for me and I can't really justify or afford buying an annual Indy subscription. I don't make money from LC (unless you count some of the things I've used it for in my job but, I don't sell apps I make in LC). LC works really well for the kinds of programming projects that I want to tackle. However, I paid for this lifetime license back in 2016 so, you know, I doubt I'm contributing financially any more to my favorite programming tool.

I considered adding LC to my spreadsheet of projects and applications that I make annual donations to but, the only LC donate link I can find is dead.

I am now considering just buying a LC Community Plus license even though I don't need the license just as a way of making an annual contribution to LC.

What do you think? What's the best way for someone with a lifetime license, who doesn't really generate income directly from LC, to contribute financially to LC so that it remains a viable and healthy company?

stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:54 pm

That is tricky. Perhaps check with LC directly if they are considering crowdfunding any new features? (revamping of the IDE with for example a tab control that actually contains controls, or being able to draw a line properly lol ;) )

Or perhaps if LC or some other clever group of people started an initiative to promote the platform, which could be crowdfunded?
I know i would contribute to both of these if they were being crowdfunded...

There is some strong competition building up on the x-plat front (not counting the many mobile app and web app dev platforms out there) - if you're a visual basic buff then B4X will rock your boat. XOJO i would dismiss because their mobile offerings are very poor and the company seems to have given up on desktop development which was always their forte to prioritise their mobile and web offerings but not succeeding - so they're floundering and many long term devs/evangelists have jumped ship already - but sadly only few to LC.

Qt (not in your list above) is a solid x-plat environment as well (dual-licenced as well, in that respect the closest to LC).

Swift, java and Flutter seem to be the main home for those XOJO lost souls who didn't make it to B4X, (swift is not x-plat yet, but there is a beta for windows i think). Then there is the .net MAUI coming to the scene as well, but that's some years off. Mega names with mega funding behind them and all these platforms are completely free.

But LiveCode has something to offer that they don't... everyone here would be happy to help support as they can i think...

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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by tetsuo29 » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:29 pm

stam wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:54 pm
if you're a visual basic buff then B4X will rock your boat.
B4X looked very interesting but, I didn't like that desktop apps apparently require Java. That's kind of a deal breaker for me these days.

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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by FourthWorld » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:37 pm

tetsuo29 wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:33 pm
I considered adding LC to my spreadsheet of projects and applications that I make annual donations to but, the only LC donate link I can find is dead.
There is a Donation option on the Download page for the free and open source Community Edition:
https://livecode.org/download-member-offer/
Richard Gaskin
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tetsuo29
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by tetsuo29 » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:40 pm

FourthWorld wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:37 pm
There is a Donation option on the Download page for the free and open source Community Edition:
https://livecode.org/download-member-offer/
Cool. Thanks for pointing that out.

When I Googled for "LiveCode donate" this page with the dead link is the top result that was coming up and I'll confess, I didn't dig any deeper.

stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:42 pm

tetsuo29 wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:29 pm
stam wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:54 pm
if you're a visual basic buff then B4X will rock your boat.
B4X looked very interesting but, I didn't like that desktop apps apparently require Java. That's kind of a deal breaker for me these days.
I never got into B4X because the IDE is Windows-only even though it's x-plat.
But what is it about the java that would stop you? (I mean it's not like you have to actually see any of the java).

If it was starting afresh and not using LC i probably would be looking at Flutter personally... delved into it for a while and it was weird but nice. Everything is a 'widget' that contains other 'widgets' built on a 'scaffold'. I really did miss the ability to position stuff visually, but it comes close to LC's ability to run apps directly with their 'hot reload'.

tetsuo29
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by tetsuo29 » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:48 pm

stam wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:42 pm
But what is it about the java that would stop you? (I mean it's not like you have to actually see any of the java).
I can't always depend on a JVM to be installed (and I don't always have the rights to install it) in some of the places where I use the apps I've created with LC. The fact that LC apps are essentially portable and require no installer is kind of a prerequisite for me.

stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:53 pm

Ah well, one more reason not to use B4X ;)

Bernard
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by Bernard » Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:28 pm

tetsuo29 wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:33 pm
What do you think? What's the best way for someone with a lifetime license, who doesn't really generate income directly from LC, to contribute financially to LC so that it remains a viable and healthy company?
Conference purchases? https://livecode.com/products/learn/

According to some analyses 73% of visitors to Livecode.com leave the website in less than 2 minutes. That is a huge potential market who are clearly not finding the what they thought they'd find there. Part of the problem is that "live code" has a meaning for fairly advanced programmers, and my guess is when they land on Livecode.com they don't realise that this is very probably the tool they are looking for, so they leave.

stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:12 pm

Yep i purchased the conference (well the remote version) more in way of support than anything else.
Bernard wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:28 pm
According to some analyses 73% of visitors to Livecode.com leave the website in less than 2 minutes.
Very interesting statistic you found there - i take what you mean about 'live code' vs 'liveCode' - i'm sure we've all experienced the inverse when searching for stuff.
But again, the website should be capturing the attention of at least *some* of the visitors a bit more, no?
A website revamp is needed...

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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by FourthWorld » Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:38 pm

tetsuo29 wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:40 pm
FourthWorld wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:37 pm
There is a Donation option on the Download page for the free and open source Community Edition:
https://livecode.org/download-member-offer/
Cool. Thanks for pointing that out.

When I Googled for "LiveCode donate" this page with the dead link is the top result that was coming up and I'll confess, I didn't dig any deeper.
Thanks for letting me know. I've passed that along to the support team.
Richard Gaskin
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LiveCode Group on Facebook
LiveCode Group on LinkedIn

Bernard
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by Bernard » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:14 am

tetsuo29 wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:33 pm
I've looked a plethora of others. Some of them:
  • Visual Studio
  • B4X
  • Lazarus
  • Flutter
  • OmnisStudio
  • Xojo
  • React Native
  • 4D
  • PureBasic
  • OpenXava
  • GL Basic
And while some of them look interesting and promising (or conversely old and dying), none of them really have some of the features and capabilities of LC that I want and use but...
Thanks for the list. It's about 20 years since I did a similar comparison, and came to the same conclusion. I guess what this tells us is that producing a GUI tool that targets as many runtimes as LC does is hard.

I couldn't even find a price list for OmnisStudio (their website returned a 404 on that page). 4D is Mac or Win only. I tried running the webassembly demo of Qt (after Stam indicated it). The demo wouldn't run on Safari but did at least run on Windows. I tried to look at GL Basic sample apps, and that (PHP) page is broken too. I only realised that Xojo is having problems because of comments posted here. Surprising how many of those tools have an IDE that is Windows only.

So B4X looks like it's the only thing that comes close to Livecode (but I hadn't realised that the Windows client apps require Java to be installed). The way in which it can make use of Java libraries and have inline Java is quite impressive though. That tool has an IDE that is Windows only.

When I look back on the Livecode tool I evaluated 20 years ago as the best of the bunch I realise it's not only maintained that position but has come so much further than what it was capable of doing then. But what I value almost as much is the liveness of Livecode (the change in name went from highlighting cross-platformness to highlighting dynamism).

For those of us who believe that the principal of cross-platform GUI development is key, it's rather disappointing that only LC Ltd has managed to garden in this terrain. But it makes me more appreciative of the work of LC Ltd and of this community.

stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Tue Aug 03, 2021 8:54 am

I know I keep mentioning Qt: https://www.qt.io/
I should say I don’t use this but did go through a phase of checking it out. Ultimately my day job doesn’t permit the time required to learn this properly…

This may be closest to LC:
- native IDE
- cross platform
- visual layout design
- dual-licensed

More performant that LC - based on C++
However:
- quite complex licensing schemes
- layout is programmed with a declarative language (QML) and uses JavaScript or python for its logic
- much more expensive If commercially licensing


But perhaps even closer to livecode is Flutter/Dart:
- cross platform
- native IDE (but no visual layout tools)
- easy language
- performant
- FREE

There is competition out there….

AndyP
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by AndyP » Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:06 am

Re Flutter/Dart: I've been using Flutter a little recently simply because of the lack of ability to use external sdks in Android apps eg. advertising with LiveCode. Flutter is powerful but has a fairly steep learning curve.

There is a visual third party ide https://flutterflow.io/ but is 30$ per month! + A very limited free version.

Perhaps the biggest threat from Flutter to Livecode is that Adobe's XD can now export to Flutter/Dart, this is still a young project for XD but has high demand and I can see Adobe pushing this hard.

But I still always come back to Livecode when not needing external sdks 👍
Andy Piddock
https://livecode1001.blogspot.com Built with LiveCode
https://github.com/AndyPiddock/TinyIDE Mini IDE alternative
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stam
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Re: Best way to support LiveCode?

Post by stam » Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:19 pm

AndyP wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 10:06 am
There is a visual third party ide https://flutterflow.io/ but is 30$ per month! + A very limited free version.
FlutterFlow is primarily targeted at mobile apps, which is fair enough if you consider that there are already > 200,000 apps on the google play store built in flutter. $30/month is not unreasonable i guess, if it does the job, but would be nice if they catered for web/desktop formats as well. There is also Flutter Studio (https://flutterstudio.app) - free but limited. Didn't realise XD was exporting flutter projects, that will be very interesting...

Given that flutter is released on iOS/android/Web but still beta for mac/win/linux - LiveCode has perhaps some a little breathing space but they are competing for the same target audience and new developers eyeing the market will likely be swayed by the giant that is Google - and truth be said its not an unpleasant platform, but does have a steeper learning curve.

Where liveCode wins for me is the multiple conveniences the environment provides as well as the much shallower learning curve, which let me get stuff done quicker. But of course it comes with other limitations...

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