[not quite OT] Serving a standalone

[Richard Gaskin]

William Prothero wrote:

 > Hopefully the coming HTML5 export will make it easier to integrate
 > Livecode apps into a web delivery. The main advantage of this is
 > the ease of updating the software.

The HTML output option will be a great thing for many projects, but I 
think it's safe to say it's many months away.

In the meantime, that main benefit of instant updates is easily 
achievable with LiveCode right now.

With HTML all code, UI, and data is downloaded over the wire.  With 
LiveCode we can do the same by merely extending the "anchor window" (or 
"splash stack") setup to open stacks from URLs rather than local files:

   go url "http://yourdomain/stacks/stackfile.livecode"

You can even cut the transfer time by more than half using LC's built-in 
gzip compression:

   go decompress(url "http://yourdomain/stacks/stackfile.livecode.gz)

A majority of the projects I'm working on currently use this setup. 
They're workgroup collaboration tools where an Internet connection is 
needed for the data anyway, so we just extended that to download all the 
stacks as well.

The standalone has only enough code to find the server and download the 
first stack.  Everything from that point on is handled in stacks that 
are always up to date, downloaded from the server at the start of each 
session just like HTML is.

But since we're using LiveCode, we're able to deliver all of the 
benefits of a UI designed specifically for the task at hand, never 
having to ponder the sorts of questions we do when we're making web 
apps, like "How do we handle the Back button?"  And we never have to 
sweat browser compatibility issues.  The UIs we deliver are fully 
dedicated for the workflows they support.

I often go a year or more without having to update the client 
standalone, far less frequent than most browser updates.  On one project 
we have a client app that's been in use by more than 100 team members 
for more than two years, and all the new features they're enjoying come 
over the wire as quickly as I can upload them to the server.

And if you haven't played with the fairly recent securityPermissions 
global property, you're in for a treat:  lock down everything except 
network access and your client app is far more secure than most 
browsers.  So admins are as happy with your security as the project 
owner is with your rapid deployment and your end-users are with your 
app's performance and usability.

Net-savvy apps aren't the answer for every need, and there will be a 
place for Web apps for years to come.

But if there's anything we've learned from the mobile world that we can 
use in our desktop work, it's that OS-native apps often outperform and 
provide better usability than cramming a UI inside of a browser window.

And with LiveCode, this is super easy to do right now.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com