Versions of LC and Xcode

[Ben Rubinstein]

This continues to be a major source of friction.

Once again all my versions of LiveCode seem to have been reset so that they 
can't find a version of Xcode they like. (At any time I am probably switching 
between (or have simultaneously open) four version of LC: LC 6.7.11; the 
latest stable version of 8; the latest 8 RC or sometimes DP; the latest DP of 
9. Admittedly I'm not building iOS apps from 6.7.11.)

I think that there are two main problems:

1) Because preferences are shared between versions of LiveCode. I believe it 
is the case than when switching between versions of LiveCode, if the mobile 
support preferences are opened in a version of LC which doesn't play nice with 
the selected version of Xcode, that path is deleted; so that next time the 
version of LC which was previously happy is opened, the path to Xcode is gone. 
The behaviour may be a little more subtle than this, but I believe something 
along these lines is correct.

2) Something somewhere along the line of building apps seems to have a 
hardwired path to /Applications/Xcode.app; so that while I may be able to 
maintain a set of different Xcodes in separate folders or separately named, 
LiveCode won't entirely work this way.

So currently I have XCode 8.3.3 as the 'canonical' version, probably because I 
was using LiveCode 9.0 DP-9. Now that I have updated to LC 9.0 DP-10 and LC 
8.1.8 stable, nothing can build (except 8.1.6 stable - which unfortunately 
doesn't like the widgets in my stack!).

3) A third problem: I now want to start using LC 8.1.8, the latest stable 
version; what version of Xcode does it use on Mas OS 10.12? According to 
https://livecode.com/resources/support/ask-a-question/ :

> LiveCode 8.1.8 RC-2 – Xcode 7.2 -Mac OS 10.10 – iOS 9.2
> LiveCode 8.1.8 RC-2 – Xcode 8.2 -Mac OS 10.11 – iOS 10.2
> LiveCode 8.1.8 RC-2 – Xcode 9.1 -Mac OS 10.12.6+ – iOS 11.1
> 
> LiveCode 8.2.0 DP-1 – Xcode 7.2 -Mac OS 10.10 – iOS 9.2
> LiveCode 8.2.0 DP-1 – Xcode 8.2 -Mac OS 10.11 – iOS 10.2
> LiveCode 8.2.0 DP-1 – Xcode 8.3 -Mac OS 10.12 – iOS 10.3


Some things that would make this better:

1) When the mobile support preferences were opened, if there is a path to a 
version of Xcode which this version of LC can't use, it would be better if it 
were displayed - but in grey or red or similar to show it's not usable - 
rather than being deleted, this would be better.

2) Ensure that iOS standalones can be built if there is a path to a valid 
version of Xcode, regardless of that path.

3) Change the list on https://livecode.com/resources/support/ask-a-question/ 
to a table, with LiveCode versions on one axis, MacOS versions on the other, 
and Xcode/iOS versions in each cell.

3b) Update the above to include the current stable 8.1.8!

I'm off for a stiff drink...

Ben