Just starting out in iOs and LiveCode

[J. Landman Gay]

On 3/3/11 4:35 PM, Steve Jones wrote:
> Greeting!
>
> I am a novice LiveCode user, and even more so to the iOS environment.
> I used RuntimeRevolution for a bit, and before that SuperCard and
> HyperCard so I am not completely lost.  But I did have a question on
> the best methodology to use for a project I have started working on
> to use as a learning project with LiveCode iOS.

Welcome. Since you're familiar with HyperCard and SuperCard, you won't 
have much trouble adjusting to LiveCode.

>
> I work for a non-profit theatre and am attempting to build an iPhone
> app for them.  My question concerns the best way to update content.
> Some sections of the app will be static info.  But other sections,
> like UPCOMING EVENTS the content will change as new events are added
> and old ones go past.  This could probably be done via app updates,
> but I doubt that will be timely enough. So I am wondering if there is
> a way that content (such as text and small images) can be pulled up
> via the internet and inserted into a "layout" in the app?  I know I
> can load a web page thru the app, but then I have to maintain a web
> page AND an app.  It would be great to have just the pieces I need to
> update pulled offline and "inserted" into the app.  I know this would
> be problematic for those w/ no internet access.
>
> Is this doable?  Even allowed by Apple?  Any recommendation on how to
> get started on such a section?

Perfectly doable, and even pretty easy. If I were doing this, I'd have a 
field for the changeable data (or several fields, depending on what you 
need) and then I would grab a text file off a server. Parse the text if 
you need to divide it up for display in different places, or else just 
dump the whole thing into a field.

Say you've got an events list, for example, with one event per line in a 
text file, and you want to put that text into a field in your app called 
"events". You can do it in one line:

   put url ("http://www.myserver.com/textfile.txt") into fld "events"

I don't know what exactly Apple allows, but I'd be surprised if 
something like this was forbidden.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com