LiveCode Forums

Let's say I have developed a great app on the free version. I notice that I can create read-only standalones with this free version. If I purchase an "Indy" subscription @ $49/mo., will I be able to create read-write standalones? If I can, and I wish to sell the read-write standalone, say on the App store, is the $49/month a license to sell this for each month that the app is commercially available, or is the fee simply for the ability to make read-write standalones?

Thanks,
David

Operating systems do not allow any app to modify itself.

Hi Richard,
I thought if I had the main stack be the app and substacks be files that the app could modify, and that as independent files could be saved, that that might work. Obviously wrong, Is there a way to do this with stacks? (I thought of having data saved to text files and retrieved from them but that is really cumbersome.)
Best,
David

A single, monolithic executable file cannot modify itself on any current OS. This is something that affects all versions of livecode. A couple of approaches get round this, by saving data to a writeable location and loading the data on subsequent runs. Commonly, the splash stack technique is used, and a runtime stack which can be saved is called by the launcher, as you described.
This is possible in both community and commercial versions.
The community version is licenced under GPL which means that you have to make the source code available to the distributees. The only real restriction within LiveCode itself is that you cannot password protect a stack in the community version. To distribute commercially via the major app stores would typically require a commercial licence. You can develop everything to the point of release, purchase a commercial licence, publish your app to the stores and then subsequently allow your licence to revert to community. Your completed app will remain published and commercially available in the app stores. If you require any updates or maintenance to be done on the published app, you can do what you need in the community version but you would need to licence commercially again in order to update in the stores.