[ANN] Release 9.0.0 DP-8

[panagiotis merakos]

Dear list members,

We are pleased to announce the release of LiveCode 9.0.0 DP-8.


Developer Preview Release
=========================
Warning: this is not a stable release.  Please ensure that you back up your
stacks before testing them.

Getting the Release
===================
You can get the release at https://downloads.livecode.com/livecode/ or via
the automatic updater.

Release Contents
================
LiveCode 9.0.0 DP-8 comes with 25 bugfixes. Moreover, more than 40 bugfixes
that were fixed in LiveCode 8.1.x, are now merged into LiveCode 9.0.0 DP-8.

In addition, LiveCode 9.0.0 DP-8 includes a lot of amazing new features:

- Widgets now work correctly in HTML5 standalones (apart from Browser
Widget)
- Script Editor: Support for auto completion of square bracket `[`,
parenthesis `(` or double quote `"` is now added
- A new "Edit Behavior Script" option is now added to the contextual menu
- Support for accepting socket connections on a port in the ephemeral port
range is now added
- Foreign handlers can now use 'objc' as the language, and in that case can
bind to both instance and class methods of Objective-C objects (Mac-only)

And of course, the ability to choose from a list of default handlers to add
to the object script in the script editor, originally implemented in
LiveCode 8.1.6 RC-1 has been included in LiveCode 9.0 DP-8, too.


New script libraries:

- A new QR Code Generation script library has been added. The public domain
licensed QR Code Generator Library (sQuiRt) by John Craig has been added to
the community repository for ease of maintenance and use.
- A new HTTPd script library has been added. The HTTP Server library can be
used to receive and respond to HTTP requests in your application.

New experimental features:

- [Experimental] A new "Mac Native Button" widget is added to LiveCode's
widget collection. This was the result of the implementation of Objective-C
FFI (Foreign Function Interface) in LCB.
- [Experimental] A new "Android Native Field" widget is added to LiveCode's
widget collection. [[ See known issues ]]

As stated before, Objective-C FFI is Mac-only in this DP release. It might
work on iOS too, as long as you do not do anything that requires thread
jumping.

In this context, "experimental" means that these features will continue to
be developed and supported. However, how they are used in script may change
during the development cycle of 9, before it gets to final release.


Known issues
================
- The Browser widget can cause hang in the IDE in some Linux distros - see
http://quality.livecode.com/show_bug.cgi?id=19658
- The Android Native Button widget uses "labelColor", not
"foregound"/"textColor" to set the text color
- The Android Native Button widget "enabled" (and "disabled") property does
not work if you set it by script.
- The HTTPd script library does not load on startup, so you have to issue
the following command from the message box to load it manually:  start
using stack "httpd"
- Unfortunately we tried to get the android native field widget into DP 8
at the last minute, but discovered that it crashes when it becomes focused.
We will of course try to fix this issue as soon as possible.


The full release notes are available from:

http://downloads.livecode.com/livecode/9_0_0/LiveCodeNotes-9_0_0_dp_8.pdf

Feedback
========
Please report any bugs encountered on our BugZilla at
http://quality.livecode.com/

We have a forum available for discussing LiveCode Builder at
http://forums.livecode.com/viewforum.php?f=93

Have fun!

The LiveCode Team
--