Livecode IDE

[igamealot]

wikipedia puts it:

The LiveCode programming language (formerly the "Revolution" programming language)[1] is both an open-source and commercial cross-platform[2] rapid application development language inspired by Hypercard's programming language HyperTalk.[3][4]

You can download the Free Open Source Community Edition Here

It's easiest to keep up with their mailing list by using Nabble.

Their forums are kind overwhelming and underused, but a source of information nontheless.[/url]

Derbrill Animation Engine is a free GPL'd game function library.

You can find a free getting started ebook, a pascal external compiler, and a bunch of other great examples  at runrevplanet

They used to have some kind of web plugin but I don't know what happened to that.

Oh here's some Examples.

Here's an old Educational  'stack' that
opens in Livecode it covers the language very quickly and simply. It's designed for kids and teachers.


Mirye has a bunch of tutorials for writing externals for Livecode below their big ad for 3D software.
I just found those  because the livecode external tutorial is a  mess of HTML and missing important code.
EDIT 12 13 2013
Looks like mirye only has the files missing from THESE tutorials

External Writing for the Uninitiated – Part I
http://newsletters.livecode.com/november/issue13/newsletter5.php
External Writing for the Uninitiated – Part II
http://newsletters.livecode.com/november/issue14/newsletter3.php
Writing Externals for Linux with 2.9 - Part III
http://newsletters.livecode.com/october/issue34/newsletter1.php

Hope that helps someone.

[igamealot]

Wanted to show you guys a quick and small example and got into a full blow 8 bit character editor, upgrade to Livecode 6.5 and it all broke.
Luckily a directory of old versions are maintained at downloads.livecode.com/livecode/

Here's a quick tutorial.
Download Livecode. Install Livecode. Start Livecode.

There's a horizontal main program window and a vertical tools window.
From the main program window choose "Message Box". on the bottom left.
A new window appears called "Message Box".
There's a button bar, then an input field, and finally an output in the default view.

The input field should grab focus, if not give it a click.
Type some of these things to see how the "Message Box" console can help you.

beep
--check to see if the computer is alive

ask "your name" if it is not empty then put "Hello " & it
--  Interactivity!
-- Note PUT statement is used everywhere.
-- x=a is illegal. Its PUT value INTO container

put  1 & comma & 2 & cr & quote & 3 & quote
-- note cr is a carriage return

put folders()
-- folders of the current path

set the folder to specialFolderPath("Documents") put files()
In the default view input of multiple commands flows on a single line with spaces or semi-colons.

The second button at the top left of the Message Box console window opens a
multiline input window which activates its script by pressing the number pad enter key.

A complete list of the internal commands of the software can be listed.
put the commandNames

as well as all of the internal globals
put globals()

Of course you could always click the Dictionary link in the main window to get detailed information about all those things.
You could also use the menus in the main window for all kinds of tricks, but for now lets script.

Make the message box wider and type (or leave it and paste this monster in).

Code: [Select]

create stack "my first stack" create button set the label of it to "beep" set the script of it to "on mousedown" & cr & "beep" &cr & "end mousedown"You should have a new stack named "my first stack" and when you click on it (with the solid black "browse tool" selected), your stack should give a little beep.

Right click over your new stack window and choose "Edit Stack Script" and behold the fancy
 editor and the  script created by the big one line command above.


Now what? feeling artistic? you'll find vector and raster paint and drawing tools at the bottom of the Tools Palette.
Go ahead and scribble around with some of those tools.
Or maybe you want to design an application full of fields, tabbed groups, menus, scrollbars and widgets?
Well they are in there for you to drag and drop into your project.

Note that holding Control and Option and clicking on your project objects will open their script to edit.

[igamealot]

Happy Holiday Time of this season.
I know you all been waiting by the holiday code log for more Livecode talk.

Here's a gift.  A tutorial on programming Pong in livecode at LiveCodeGameDeveloper


I've been trying to re-learn this software and language by reliving my 1980s childhood
with the Mattel Aquarius Computer System.
I've made three programs one that edits the 8-bit custom character set, one that paints
and sets type  with those characters and outputs the screen code to a 1983 version of Microsoft BASIC commands, and then one that draws the character
set in the 'hi resolution' graphics mode 80 by 72 pixels.
Here's quick gallery of progress so far.

I've posted the code for the first two to github although I can't seem
to post the Livecode "stack" document files to github, or zip files(?)
Which would be useful. Whatever. If you just want to look at code to see how
easyit is to maybe make something like this in your own favorite language and
retro graphics format then its available on the internet.

Github Aquarius Bitmap Composer alpha release 1.0.0.1
It's key feature at the moment is exporting the 256 8-bit items you can
edit to images with alpha channels in one big batch operation.
It also opens and saves very easy to edit data, 256 lines of 64 ones and zeros.

Github Aquarius Ascii Draw
The Aquarius custom character set can be drawn with mouse or pushed into the screen matrix with a text input. The screen matrix is actually a text field, and the space character in the text field's imageSource is set to the image of the selected Aquarius custom ascii character.
The images are controls that are embedded into the stack.
Not the best way, but a way to get it up and running pretty quick.

If you want to run the binaries for Mac, Windows, or Linux or feel like editing the livecode project (in livecode 6.0.2),
you could pop over to to the  Atariage thread about the endeavour.

I'd like to bring the three projects into one, but I was keep this code separate and as simple as I could to get started.