Webifying livecode is a real mystery to me

[Richard Gaskin]

Igor de Oliveira Couto wrote:

 > I have been trying out LiveCode for about 3 weeks now, and I think
 > we may be able to offer an alternative to the client, with LiveCode.
 > The client can still keep their database on the shared host, but
 > instead of accessing it with web browsers, we can develop desktop
 > and iOS apps that will access this data remotely.

Well said.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the popularity of the app 
stores for mobile platforms makes it pretty clear that Web-connected 
native apps can be a valuable option to meet customers' needs.

This is as true for the desktop as it is for mobile.

If a customer needs a truly browser-native experience, any discussion of 
a solution dependent on installing a proprietary compiled plugin 
probably hasn't been thought through well enough for the customer to 
realize that it's not what really they're asking for.

In those cases where it will indeed meet their needs, in which their IT 
staff is sufficiently comfortable allowing users to install the LC 
engine as a plugin, they're just as likely to consider a native app 
which provides all those benefits and more: they still download stacks 
over HTTP and those stacks can be updated at any time (see RevNet in 
your Plugins menu as one modest example), but they also get a UI 
dedicated for the workflow the app supports, and have options for 
offline storage and workflows beyond anything any browser can provide.

Those cases where local installation isn't acceptable at all, once the 
implications of a plugin are realized it won't be a candidate either. 
For those you're limited to what the browser carries with it, which 
currently means HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

We've discussed many of the challenges of LiveCode->JavaScript 
translation here many times, so I won't reiterate them here.

But there is another approach, opportunities available which can provide 
significant benefit for perhaps a majority of the types of things that 
are practical to deliver in a browser, and without waiting for anything 
from RunRev - consider this proposal from 2006, inspired by the work 
ToolBook did a decade before:

<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2006-June/083956.html>

The scope of my current client work prevents me from managing such a 
project, but having written a few LiveCode->HTML/JS translators for 
specifics apps before I'd be happy to lend that experience to such an 
effort if anyone else has time to lead it.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv