LiveCode Forums.

Was wandering around through my browser bookmarks and found this:

http://www.canelasoftware.com/metacard.html

and realised that all of those were 32 bit stuff, and wondered . . .

That was a stupid question as all the stacks are openable by a current version of LiveCode:
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Quite a lot of informative fun.

Jacque's MetaCard conversion stack:

http://livecodeshare.runrev.com/stack/5 ... Setup-2-02

The continued existence of MC is a healthy reminder that an IDE is just a collection of stacks. So anyone comfortable making software with LC can apply those skills to creating an IDE if they like. The number and variety of possible IDEs is nearly limitless, each with its own focus: one for pro devs, one for adult students, one for young minds, one for courseware authors, one for interactive presentations, one for whatever you wish to help people create...

But nobody, but nobody seems motivated to do what you describe,
probably diue to the fact that the 'standard' LiveCode IDE can be set up very
easily to serve each of the communities you mention.
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It depends on what you're doing, and how you want to go about it.

About half my career had been building authoring systems in xTalks. Some for medical reference info, others for professional training courseware, others for web development, and a few others besides.

I rarely make everything; there only so many ways to make a Standalone Builder, for example, so even if the effort streamlines usage, the benefit is only incremental. MC was the last Standalone Builder I bothered maintaining.

But stack structure and layout have nearly infinite opportunities for tailoring workflows for specific outcomes. Combined with template stacks, with good use of getProp/setProp and other rich language features, making tool palettes, inspectors, object browsers, and other goodies can come together to build specific kinds of works orders of magnitude faster than using the stock IDE.

The stock IDE is good, but designed for the audience that pays for it, indy devs and enterprise workgroups.

It has a lot going on, and window management alone, with all of its various parts and pieces, can sometimes feel fiddly.

For most it's pretty good. But to a child, or even to an adult subject matter expert, it can be daunting. And even though most adults can pick it up, having something purpose-built for the types of things they want to produce takes the experience to a whole new level.

Providing alternate UIs do the subset of features relevant to more specialized workflows can support those workflows very powerfully.

What Bill Appleton said about SuperCard can apply to LC even more so:

"HyperCard is a multimedia authoring environment. SuperCard is a tool you can use to build multimedia authoring environments."

In LC, you can tailor the environment easily with a plugin, providing access to what you want from the IDE, while leaving the rest behind and offering new UIs where useful.

The range of ways custom tools can use the engine to craft custom workflows is limited only by the imagination...

An example of this sort of thinking:
https://livecode.com/homebrew-livecode-mobile-ide/

richmond62 wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:46 am

That was a stupid question as all the stacks are openable by a current version of LiveCode...

...I feel obligated to point out that there are some caveats to the above, as if you were working with Mc for serious development, I've found different engines will generate some... well, let's just say interesting quirks

Mostly annoyances, like font size, stack placement, etc, but some are more serious, like script editor issues. I haven't had the time recently to finish what I started doing with the IDE, but as time frees up I will likely be using it as a base to another adaptation. I found the standalone building code fascinating in contrast to the current model.