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Android features

Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 9:08 pm
by sefrojones
My wishlist for android:

Sockets
Record Sound
Ability for app to run in background without the chance of being shut down by the OS

Al in all, I love Livecode, but I would also love to see these features soon(ish).

Re: Android features

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 12:12 pm
by AxWald
Hi,
sefrojonesGAda40 wrote:My wishlist for android:
Sockets
Record Sound
Ability for app to run in background without the chance of being shut down by the OS
Fully supporting this!
Especially sockets and "running as background service" - whereas I don't know if it's possible at all (unkillable background app).

Android tablets are coming for very little money these days, and I see a growing demand for small, custom-made apps.

For instance, a food distributor wants to give tablets to his good customers (landlords) as an incentive, and they shall be preloaded with his website in the browser (starting page), and should contain an app where the landlord can order his supplies directly, while checking his kitchen, cellars and cold stores. (using socket communication)

LC is perfectly suited for such tasks. Easy interface building, good database connectivity, excellence in string operations (SQL!). Only the Android part feels like a cinderella :/

I understand that a whole lot of the LC people are still with apple, just that isn't an alternative for me - much to high costs for me & customer, no way of "side-loading" customer-specific apps, and the rigid shop-policy (still not sure if apple wouldn't want to grab it's 30% from the above mentioned in-app orders ...).

So I'd really love if RunRev would think to improve its support for Android (and Win/ Win RT). There's a market, there it's needed. There's the customers we devs need to earn a piece of bread, and our coffee.

Have fun!

Re: Android features

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:03 pm
by FourthWorld
While custom protocols using sockets can be useful for certain apps, it should be noted that not all socket use is unsupported. Indeed, most app connectivity these days is done with RESTful APIs over HTTP/HTTPS, which is currently supported for GET and POST for HTTP/HTTPS:
http://livecode.com/developers/guides/m ... -features/

If you're using PHP or LiveCode Server to drive your backend, you can easily create APIs based around GET and POST, from simple storage of prefs or retrieving high scores for games, to uploading images and more.

Libraries are available for working with data in JSON format, XML support is included in LiveCode, and if you're using LiveCode Server you may find that encoded arrays make wonderful data packages, esp. given the ease with with we can compress/decompress them with the built-in functions for those.

The existing GET and POST support won't be a solution for all possible socket needs, but they cover many use cases and can be used today while the team works toward finishing the revised socket layer noted on the Road Map:
http://livecode.com/community/roadmap/

Re: Android features

Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:28 pm
by sefrojones
One of the projects I had in mind when I first discovered Livecode was an android point of sale system that would use the local wifi to receive information from a main server PC (for today's specials, menu changes, allergy information, etc) and be able to send an order to a second computer to print out a ticket in the kitchen. The kitchen computer would also have the ability to notify the specific user on an android tablet that their order was ready to be picked up from the kitchen. Would there be some way to do this without sockets in livecode?

thanks,

--sefro