Xcode 8 / iOS 10 support coming in 8.1.1

[Richard Gaskin]

Roger Eller wrote:

 > Android 7.0 Nougat is the latest version currently.
 >
 > The killer feature of 7 is the ability to run 2 apps at the same
 > time, and share screen space (side by side).

It looks like that's declarable in the manifest:
<https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/multi-window.html>

What else is needed for an app to support that in Android 7?

Given that LC already issues a resizeStack message whenever the OS 
changes dimensions, I'd guess this might possibly work out of the box 
with a mod to the manifest, no?


 >  Also the ability to drag text and images from one app to the other.

That would probably require new API support.  But that's just a guess. 
Since Android already supports drag-and-drop, I wonder if they merely 
extended the existing APIs to automatically support that across app 
instances.

Seems worth researching...

Does LC support multiwindowing in iOS?


 > You mention that popular apps exist in both the App Store as well as
 > on Google Play.  Have you ever just randomly picked such an app as an
 > exercise, and went through the process of evaluation to see where you
 > might run into a roadblock while using LC's "built-in" features, not
 > a mashup of externals and roll-your-own C code mess?  Most of the
 > folks I've heard from on this list anyway are relying on externals
 > for iOS that aren't available on Android (even for the older
 > versions).

I don't think that's a mobile thing, as much as it is just part of the 
art of making software.

If we were using C for everything we could do everything any other app 
does.  We'd just spend a LOT more time doing it.  And we'd have to do it 
all over and over again for every platform we support.

LiveCode provides the basics for a wide range of apps on every major 
desktop and mobile platform.  Some features take only minutes where they 
might take days in C.  Other features might take hours.  And once in a 
while it may even take the same amount of time if that specific feature 
can only be implemented in the same language.

Sure, I'd love to see LiveCode with infinite features.  And indeed, we 
just funded that, Infinite LiveCode, to extend Builder to allow us to 
access OS APIs from a high-level scripting language.

But no language is a magic pony that can do everything best.  There is 
no best.  All languages and tools provide some things they do better 
than others, which is the reason they're made.  But we live in a world 
where new languages are created every year because each one delivers its 
own unique balance of tradeoffs that favor a particular set of tasks 
more than the others.

For making multi-platform GUI apps, I can't find another tool that has 
integrated GUI objects as a core part of the language and runs on as 
many platforms.

And as luck would have it, aside from the security DLLs and occasionally 
the DB externals, I haven't needed any externals in my apps for many years.

But when folks do, we have an interface that keeps that scope of work 
isolated and small.  And we still get to use LC for everything else.

And when the extensions to LC Builder are in place, it only gets better 
because we'll have another scripting layer available for working 
directly with the host OS without ever having to boot a C compiler.

All in all, not a bad situation, IMO.

For the apps I build, LiveCode works quite well.  If I needed things I 
can only do in another language, I just use another language.  The worst 
that can happen is that I'd be merely on par with the entire rest of the 
developer world.  And most days I have a head start over them because I 
let the LiveCode team write a million lines of code for me.

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