Idea to keep us all connected

[Heather Laine]

Dear List Folks,

These are strange and difficult times. Thanks to COVID-19 we at LiveCode Ltd. are all now working from home, and staying together as a company via Zoom and Slack. It's working pretty well for us I must say, at least so far. Turns out programmers don't much mind being locked in a room alone with just a computer and a takeaway pizza for company...

I'm sure many of you are in the same boat, quarantined or semi-quarantined and trying to keep going without the usual levels of face to face support and company. We've been talking about how we can all support each other during this time, and stick together as a community. 

We want to do our bit. To this end, we are planning to setup a monthly zoom room for everyone on the list to access. You can speak to each other, find out how everyone is doing, share your projects, tell your story. We will join these rooms when we can. This will very much be an extension of the use-list, with the same ground rules - we're here to talk about using LiveCode, and help each other out with that. Obviously there will be some water cooler type chit chat but please... no politics, religion or cheese! Let's keep it positive. It will be community run, we will participate as and when we can but primarily this is for you all to talk to each other. We'll work out the mechanics of it as we go along, but it looks like zoom has the facility to split off smaller groups so it does not become too unmanageable and everyone has a chance to participate.

On top of this we want to do more - we want to use what we have to help. We are fully aware that people across the world are having to stay home, some are fortunate enough to be able to keep their jobs or businesses and some have not been so fortunate. We want to give people the opportunity to learn a new skill. Taking a leaf from Andre's book (thanks Andre, and pun intended...), while this crisis is ongoing we are going to make the first year of LiveCode Indy available to brand new users from free to full price. This will be on a sliding scale - people can pay whatever they want or can afford. No judgement. We hope you can help us spread the word, if you know anyone who is in a tough situation, or just someone who has always wanted to code - please pass this on to them. We also ask you (although we know you will) to welcome new people to the community with open arms and help them through this new journey. We would love to hear any ideas you have on how we as a community can help more people through coding. We are putting the campaign together now, we expect to be ready to launch it in a few days time.

All we ask at this time is that existing customers do not cancel their subscriptions to then go ahead and purchase a new license on the sliding scale. It's worth noting that although the first year will be at a price determined by the user - the second year will be at full price. If any of you are struggling at this time and are concerned about your subscription payments please do get in touch with me on the usual support at livecode.com email and we will try to support you in the best way we can.

Thanks for reading this rather long post. Take care, stay home, stay well and enjoy this excellent opportunity to really get to grips with LiveCode in your solitude!

Warm Regards,

Heather

Heather Laine
Customer Services Manager
LiveCode Ltd
www.livecode.com