LiveCode Forums.

Hi.

This is my first post. I'm an experienced Adobe/Macromedia Director user. I am using Livecode for the first time. I've been poking around trying to get a grip on how it differs from Director in terms of workflow. I'm still feeling a bit lost to be honest, but slowly making progress. Look out for a deluge of posts on how to do very basic things in Livecode...

The project I want to build on it is a simple cross-platform app - menu-driven stuff taken from web space. Should be simple, right? (heh). Well my first issue (before I even start!) is how to manage resizing for different resolutions of different devices. In Director there is a property of the stage known as the 'drawRect' - this takes whatever is being drawn on the stage and resizes it to whatever rect I say e.g. stage.drawRect = rect(0,0,640,480). This includes all buttons and UI - basically redrawing it all. This is the approach I was hoping to employ in Livecode, as I'm not too concerned about the slight stretching that will occur in different aspect ratios. But it seems outrageously complex to have to take each card and rescale and reposition every element to fit the device resolution, especially per card. Is there a stack-wide property like drawRect that I'm missing? I'm lost at how best to set a base resolution and organise the onscreen assets to allow simple resizing. Any help really appreciated. Thanks.

Kind regards, Paul.

Hi Paul,

1. welcome to the forum

PaulMaguire wrote:Hi.

This is my first post. I'm an experienced Adobe/Macromedia Director user. I am using Livecode for the first time. I've been poking around trying to get a grip on how it differs from Director in terms of workflow. I'm still feeling a bit lost to be honest, but slowly making progress. Look out for a deluge of posts on how to do very basic things in Livecode...

2. Check these stacks to get an overview of Livecode:
http://www.runrev.com/developers/lesson ... nferences/

PaulMaguire wrote:The project I want to build on it is a simple cross-platform app - menu-driven stuff taken from web space. Should be simple, right? (heh). Well my first issue (before I even start!) is how to manage resizing for different resolutions of different devices. In Director there is a property of the stage known as the 'drawRect' - this takes whatever is being drawn on the stage and resizes it to whatever rect I say e.g. stage.drawRect = rect(0,0,640,480). This includes all buttons and UI - basically redrawing it all. This is the approach I was hoping to employ in Livecode, as I'm not too concerned about the slight stretching that will occur in different aspect ratios. But it seems outrageously complex to have to take each card and rescale and reposition every element to fit the device resolution, especially per card. Is there a stack-wide property like drawRect that I'm missing? I'm lost at how best to set a base resolution and organise the onscreen assets to allow simple resizing. Any help really appreciated. Thanks.

There is nothing like "drawrect" in Livecode, sorry. You will need to script this.
Search the ANDROID and iOS forum to see some hints and examples for this.


Best

Klaus

You should also take a quick look at:

http://www.runrev.com/developers/docume ... rs-course/

be well,
randy

HI again.

Thanks for the pointers. Sorry to hear there is no main-stack-wide property such as the drawRect from Director. I got a solution though - spent yesterday trying to implement and test it and it seems to work. It's the Chipp Walters mobile resizer tool.

(tried to include some links here to URLs but it bounces back because I don't have permission to post URLs - not cool)

Seems strange that this is not somehow 'built-in' to the feature set of Livecode - it's extremely important in this age of non-standard display sizes and multiple devices and platforms and app development. Anyways, thanks again. Look out for more similar posts from me

Kind regards, Paul.

You're right, Paul: given the ever-growing diversity of device resolutions, built-in scaling is only getting more important and should ideally be handled in the engine. It's my understanding that such scaling is being planned for a future release, but I don't know when that will be.

Given the types of native-looking apps LiveCode has excelled at over the years, region scaling was historically a lower priority than providing good mechanisms for integrating with the native look-and-feel of the host OS, and providing options for handling resizable windows. So while Director has done a wonderful job with its focus on scalable multimedia, LiveCode has excelled at making apps that substantially conform with the design guidelines for the platforms it runs on.

Of course, for most of LiveCode's life those platforms were desktop, and most mobile OSes only provide a single window. This is a new set of design requirements for LiveCode to support, but the engine team is keen to address them.

In the meantime, the current mechanisms for scaling UI elements may be somewhat tedious to set up, but also provide a greater opportunity for a single app to adapt to different device types than simple scaling. For example, simply scaling an app designed for a small-screen smartphone up to a Galaxy Note, a 7" tablet, or a 10" tablet, won't provide nearly as satisfying an experience as taking the time to consider dimensions and resolution and having your app's layout adjust to provide a layout optimized for the device.

With that in mind, my hope is that as the engine team provides ways of handling scaling more easily, us developers use them sparingly, so apps made with LiveCode make smart use of available screen space which would reflect well on both us and our toolkit.

As a side note, I have a question: I've been following the discussion on LinkedIn and elsewhere about Director 12's new licensing requirement, that devs making more than US$20k per quarter from iOS will have to pay Adobe an additional 10% royalty on top of the $999 license price. What I've found most surprising is the number of Director fans who don't seem to mind this. This may be because so few apps in the app stores make that much money, but I'd be interested in hearing your views on this new royalty requirement.

Hi.

(only just saw your reply ForthWorld)

The scaling setup issue was a nag because I was very keen to block out the main cards in the simple app I am trying to develop. So I was held back at the very start from diving into development. Seemed a bit arcane having to go find libraries and tools. Anyways - look forward to a future implementation by the Livecode team.

RE: Director 12...
Well it's interesting you say many Director developers are not fussed by this outrageous licensing nonsense from Adobe. They certainly are on DIRECT-L! (the ancient Director mailing list). Developers there are furious and considering it a final nail in the coffin. I was interested in the iOS publishing features of Dir12 for doing 3D-specific work (I use 3D for everything in Director nowadays) and I was also interested in the new 3D features. All great until the bombshell about the licensing - imagine paying over £800.00 for a tool to create iOS apps only to be told that if you make over 20K on it that you have to pay the toolmaker? Unity do this? Nope? Livecode? Nope. If Director was somehow openSource or cost £69.00 then I could understand. But it's an expensive production tool developed by a software giant. However, not everyone who develops for iOS wants to make a zillion bucks! But it would be a deal breaker to have to explain this to a client regarding the amazing 3D game they want you to develop for them...

I still use Director for all multimedia development I do for museums, installations and public spaces. It's quirky and ancient but I having been using it since it was called VideoWorks and was made by Macromind (later Macromedia) so I'm used to it. It's very powerful in its own ways.

But I'm using Livecode for the first time because I need to develop a cross-platform card-based app pronto and Director is not the tool for this job!

Kind regards, Paul.

Just a note to mention that resolution independence was one of the stretch goals for the Kickstarter, and since they have all been met this is now on the short term development roadmap for Livecode and should be available in the fall (or so...). Not an immediate solution, but it lets you know that it's an issue they are aware of and working on.

And this article explains Resolution Independence for LiveCode 6.5.x

http://newsletters.livecode.com/septemb ... etter1.php