calling Livecode from other languages

[Richard Gaskin]

Matt Maier wrote:

 > Please correct me if any of the following is wrong.
 >
 > So in general we can run a standalone executable from the command
 > line. It will fire up in whatever way it knows how. Normally that
 > means the GUI will appear and the program will read/write visually.
 > But if the code knows to listen on STDIN and respond on STDOUT (or
 > more accurately redirect them?), then all visible elements can be
 > hidden* and just the command line can be used to interact with the
 > standalone.

That seems correct.


 > * One way is to pass -ui as confirmed by a couple discussions on using
 > Livecode from the command line, but I can't find -ui in google
 > searches.

Google is funny that way.  I think it's trying to account for possible 
misspellings by filtering out the "-", so if you search for "livecode 
-ui" you'll wind up with a lot of articles on user interface.

If you search for "livecode faceless" you'll find more relevant hits, 
including this one which may have some useful tips on this:
<http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2013-April/186750.html>


 > Another way is to set the visible of the stack to false. Another way
 > is to set the location of the stack to somewhere off screen.

With all due respect to Mr. Wieder, I never use that option.  One of the 
great things about running LC facelessly is the blinding boot speed, but 
when it needs to init the UI stuff it takes much longer. Launching from 
the command line with -ui bypasses the UI init, but simply hiding it 
makes for a normal GUI init process.

If the process will stay resident the time difference probably doesn't 
matter, but when using standalones in a time-sensitive context such as 
CGI (where the engine is launched, runs, and dies with each request) 
it'll matter more.

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