Helping newcomers anticipate that standalones can't save to themselves

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Fri Aug 15 10:13:23 EDT 2014


One of the most frequent frustrations new users have with LiveCode is 
the moment they realize the standalone they've built can't save changes 
to its stacks.

Often this happens very late in the process, just after building the 
standalone to test out the work they've been doing, and suddenly 
everything that worked so well in the IDE stops working, with no readily 
discernible cause.

So they come into the forums or this list, and folks mention everything 
from refactoring their work to use an anchor window (or "splash" screen) 
pattern, or completely rewrite everything to use an external text file 
or database or what have you.

The LiveCode User Guide's section on building standalones includes a 
bold purple callout box explaining this (p 299), but it's a testament to 
the usability of LiveCode that apparently a great many people can use it 
productively for many weeks without ever cracking the User Guide.

Clearly something more is needed.  What should that be?

Putting a note in the Standalone Builder might help, but if they've 
gotten that far it's too late, they probably have to start rewriting things.

How can we help users anticipate IN ADVANCE that no OS will allow their 
executable to write to itself, so they can write useful things from the 
very start?

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Systems
  Software Design and Development for the Desktop, Mobile, and the Web
  ____________________________________________________________________
  Ambassador at FourthWorld.com                http://www.FourthWorld.com




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