LC and webviews

[Lyn Teyla]

Jerry Daniels wrote:

> I just read this article about Basecamp's use of webviews in their mobile (Android in this case) apps. It got me thinking about LiveCode's htmlText. Does it use some sort of CSS? If so, can one be set in its stead?

That's exactly the sort of thing the browser widget in LiveCode 8 allows you to do, and it really opens the door to all sorts of possibilities.

And, it works on all platforms, not just Android.

Once the Windows bug is fixed, it will get even better:

http://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=17633

;)

In my opinion, the multi-platform browser widget, with the included support for communication via JavaScript, is one of the most important features the LiveCode team has implemented, and will allow many more to consider LiveCode as a possible tool for development and deployment.

You do need to know at least some rudimentary JavaScript (it's easy to pick up the essentials, though the more you know the better) so you can pass data back and forth between the browser widget and your LiveCode handlers.

This way, you get to do the bulk of your coding using LiveCode rather than JavaScript, whilst using one or more browser widgets (a.k.a. "web views") to handle the UI via HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

You can create any sort of polished UI that can be accomplished using web views, and use Angular, Bootstrap, and other established web-based UI frameworks to speed up the process.

You can place your UI code on a server and update it on the fly.

You can create reusable widgets and libraries based on HTML, CSS and/or JavaScript.

You can tap into the huge repository of existing JavaScript libraries to shave off chunks of coding time.

You can perform concurrent processing by handing stuff over to JavaScript in one or more browser widgets.

In short, the browser widget is a brilliant, much-welcomed feature.

Lyn