[OT] LC's Fields of the Future

[Richard Gaskin]

Ken Corey wrote:

> On 24/02/2012 14:36, Richard Gaskin wrote:
>> With 5.5 it's now possible to make a decent word processor, and a few
>> hundred other things besides....
>
> A word processor!?!?!
>
> Aren't we straying a little far from the right-tool-for-the-job
> territory here?
>
> Especially with something with such religious overtones.  I can't image
> anyone is ever going to make an editor that is cross platform and yet
> keeps the majority of people happy.
>
> Of course, if you accomplish it, world peace might seem simple...:^)

For many reasons, mostly market dominance of MS Word and OpenOffice, it 
would be foolish to make a word processor as a standalone product.

With most projects of such ambitious scope, feature-completeness is 
largely a function of "industrial capacity"; that is, to make something 
as complete as OpenOffice will likely require the million or so 
programmer hours that went into making OpenOffice.

RAD tools aren't well suited for those kinds of apps, which is why 
almost none of us make things like that and why none of those apps use 
RAD tools, instead accepting the tradeoffs of using lower-level 
languages to gain more control.

But where RAD tools shine is in vertical-market opportunities, the 
millions of niches we LiveCoders do address, many of which have yet to 
be discovered.

In such niche applications there may be a need for an embedded word 
processor, a way for the user to write and format styled text.  This 
won't be a replacement for Word or OO, but instead is an integrated part 
of an app that serves a different, more specialized workflow.

Similarly, many of us have built custom drawing environments in xTalks, 
and while none of these attempt to rival Adobe Illustrator, Visio, or 
even Inkscape, they're very useful for the goals they address.

Here are two examples:

Mark Schonewille's Strõm Flow Chart Software
<http://www3.economy-x-talk.com/file.php?node=str%259Bm>

Ken Ray's Stykz:
<http://www.stykz.net/>

Just as those developers have used LC's graphics capabilities to deliver 
valuable tools for their users, the new field enhancements open up new 
possibilities for working with text as well.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  LiveCode Journal blog: http://LiveCodejournal.com/blog.irv