LiveCode 10 - what are your thoughts on the new features?

[Martin Koob]

Hi all.

There has been lots of discussion on the list and forums about the one part of Kevin’s announcement regarding the changes in licensing but nothing that I see on the other major part of the announcement — the new features coming in LiveCode 10.

> On Aug 31, 2021, at 12:53 PM, Kevin Miller CEO <kmiller at livecode.com> wrote:
> 
> The Future
> 
> We do have exciting plans for the future! LiveCode 10 is about to go into the test cycle, with substantial changes and improvements to Web, Media and Camera enhancements, integration of mobile widgets, and some handy new language features. You can read all about this here <https://livecode.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8404b344b09103bf489dd8a9a&id=52647ac2dd&e=1eacf0ebea>.


https://livecode.com/livecode-10-sneak-peek/

The major features listed on the page above are:

Brand New Web Deployment Experience usingWeb Assembly (WASM)
	- I have no idea what WASM is.  There have always been complaints about web deployment in the past.  Do you think this will make a difference?

M1 Architecture Support
	- Looking forward to this.  I am chomping on the bit to buy a new MacBook Pro with M1 as soon as they come out this fall.  Look forward to giving LiveCode 10 a spin on it.

Windows Player Media Foundation &
Windows Camera Media Foundation
	- these two features are the ones that I am really waiting for.  My app records and plays video using the CameraControl and the Player respectively but the Mac version does so in .mp4 and the Windows version records and plays .wmv.  I had been researching different methods of converting from one format to the other when users shared their video projects over the web.  Then this was announced rendering that moot! This is a much better solution.  I am looking forward to giving the updated player and camera control a good workout on Windows.
	-One question I have is whether a player can be part of a Web app with the new Web Deployment. To this point I don’t think you could but I have wondered if you could control an HTML5 video player elsewhere on the page outside of the LiveCode HTML5 web app.  Having video play directly in the Web app would be a much cleaner solution. I haven’t looked into this in a long time so once LC 10 is out I will do some more research on this.

Improved AcceleratedRendering on Mobile
	- iOS and Android will be updated to use OpenGL3ES internally
	- I haven’t developed for iOS or Android and don’t  know what OpenGL3ES is.  What do all you mobile developers think?

Mobile Widgets by LiveCode Factory
	- now acquired by LiveCode Ltd. and will be integrated into LiveCode 10.
	- again not currently developing for mobile but I understand getting native look, feel and performance has been an oft discussed topic. Hopefully this will resolve some of the issues LiveCode developers have had.

New Syntax in 10
	Array Literals
	Constant Expressions
	Static Switch Optimization
	Constant folding
	Tail Expressions
	- I am just reading them over trying to think of how having these might affect my code and my app.  Some promise speed improvements others flexibility in working with arrays and constants.  Does these make the language more complex or easier?

I am interested in what people have to say about these new features, especially in the areas I don’t have much experience in.

Anyway I am excited to see the first DP which is promised in the next couple of weeks.  My wife and I have an ongoing disagreement about the term 'couple of’ in terms of counting.  I say it means around 2 or 3ish.  She says it means 2. Further she says if you wanted to say 3 or 4 you would say ‘a few’.  So in this case I am hoping she is right and I am wrong and we do get the new DP in a couple of weeks and not a few weeks. :-)

Martin Koob