LiveCode for the rest of us

[Roland Huettmann]

First of all, thank you all for replies ), to Todd, Mark, Tim, Richard ...
I really appreciate and I agree.

Dear Hugh, thank you indeed for your offer of FieldFormatter.

www.flexiblelearning.com/fieldformatter


Is there a way to test before purchase? Does it really allow to separate
underlying data entered by users and through scripts from display? Would a
simple function such as "put field A + field B into field C" be supported
even if in the display there are thousands separators and a decimal comma ?

Would it allow easy filtering of user input as well?

In Germany the decimal point is a comma, and the thousands separator a dot.
In Switzerland with same written language it is the other way around, and
usually the thousands separator is a high comma. And I am not even speaking
of the ambiguous data formats in various other countries.

I worked around formatting fields through scripts, putting underlying
values into custom properties. But then I have to set and get such
properties instead of simply referring to a field as such by name or id or
number. There should be a way to do this automatically and behind the wall.
Maybe FieldFormatter is doing this?

It would be very very good to also have support for fields in the data grid
because they should display data in the local format. Should they not? And
data there is also used, and not just displayed. But maybe we will
hopefully see a more versatile data grid soon supporting a user friendly
way of applying visual components and multi media in an easier way. And it
should allow field content formatting of course as in Excel or FM Pro.

Or would it be possible to have a new field object and data grid as widgets
which would behave the way we need extending the possibilities for a better
user interface and usability.

I would also love to see a calculation field updating itself automatically
as in Excel or Filemaker.

Since this is so basic - I would prefer to have it as part of the engine or
as part of at least a basic framework around it.

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A side question: Is there a way to hilite the content of a field hiliting
all the area inside the field boundaries? Fields in Filemaker are hilite
this way. And it looks just better than just a text-only hilite as in
LiveCode

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And Peter Hayworth, I am really and naturally interested in your offer for
sqlMagic.

http://www.lcsql.com/sqlmagic.html

Again to repeat my dreams, I am dreaming of something like Filemaker
incorporated into LiveCode - and I am sure there is a huge market out
there.

There should be an editor to define databases tables and relationships.
There should be an editor to define database columns/fields. There are
database fields which would automatically link to the underlying database
(remote or local) including basic menus for navigation.

There is a local database which easily could be synchronized with a remote
one, or a peer-to-peer network could be established exchanging such data.

Basically all that Filemaker provides could be supported from within
LiveCode plus so much more.

Filemaker is more or less a closed shop. LiveCode would just be an open
market. (And there is a potential for a revenue stream generated as this is
necessary for the mothership and developers and extension builders,
template designers and whoever else could provide add-ons..)

Probably these new LiveCode 8 with widgets and libraries will be of great
help.

I know, this is a major task. (I am even thinking of raising a big enough
budget for that from investors.)

Roland