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LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide (2nd Edition)
LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide (2nd Edition)

LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide (2nd Edition): Create interactive mobile apps for Android and iOS with LiveCode

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Profile Icon Colin Holgate Profile Icon Joel W Gerdeen
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3 (1 Ratings)
eBook May 2015 256 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Colin Holgate Profile Icon Joel W Gerdeen
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€22.99 €32.99
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3 (1 Ratings)
eBook May 2015 256 pages 1st Edition
eBook
€22.99 €32.99
Paperback
€41.99
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Free Trial
Renews at €18.99p/m
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LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide (2nd Edition)

Chapter 2. Getting Started with LiveCode Mobile

Before we can do neat things…

Creating stacks that do something useful or eventually become a mobile app that you can sell is a very gratifying process. Minute by minute, you can make progress and instantly see the improvements you have made. Unfortunately, there is a lot of less gratifying work to be done before and after you make your masterpiece. This chapter will take you through the "before" part.

LiveCode makes mobile apps by taking the stack you have made along with any supporting files you have added, and compiles the application file using the developer kit that you download from the mobile OS provider, Google for Android and Apple for iOS.

In this chapter, we will:

  • Sign up for Google Play
  • Sign up for Amazon Appstore
  • Download and install the Android SDK
  • Configure LiveCode so that it knows where to look for the Android SDK
  • Become an iOS developer with Apple
  • Download and install Xcode
  • Configure LiveCode so that...

iOS, Android, or both?

It could be that you only have interest in iOS or Android. You should be able to easily skip to the sections you're interested in unless you're intrigued about how the other half works! If, like me, you're a capitalist, then you should be interested in both the operating systems.

Far fewer steps are needed to get the Android SDK than the iOS developer tools because for iOS, we have to sign up as a developer with Apple. However, the configuration for Android is more involved. We'll go through all the steps for Android and then the ones for iOS. If you're an iOS-only kind of person, skip the next few pages and start up again at the Becoming an iOS Developer section.

Becoming an Android developer

It is possible to develop Android OS apps without signing up for anything. We'll try to be optimistic and assume that within the next 12 months, you will find time to make an awesome app that will make you rich! To that end, we'll go over everything that is involved in the process of signing up to publish your apps in both Google Play (formally known as Android Market) and Amazon Appstore.

Google Play

The starting location to open Google Play is http://developer.android.com/:

Google Play

We will come back to this page again, shortly to download the Android SDK, but for now, click on the Distribute link in the menu bar and then on the Developer Console button on the following screen. Since Google changes these pages occasionally, you can use the URL https://play.google.com/apps/publish/ or search for "Google Play Developer Console". The screens you will progress through are not shown here since they tend to change with time.

There will be a sign-in page...

Becoming an iOS developer

Creating iOS LiveCode applications requires that LiveCode must have access to the iOS SDK. This is installed as part of the Xcode developer tools and is a Mac-only program. Also, when you upload an app to the iOS App Store, the application used is Mac only and is part of the Xcode installation. If you are a Windows-based developer and wish to develop and publish for iOS, you need either an actual Mac based system or a virtual machine that can run the Mac OS. We can even use VirtualBox for running a Mac based virtual machine, but performance will be an issue. Refer to http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/63147/is-mac-os-x-in-a-virtualbox-vm-suitable-for-ios-development for more information.

The biggest difference between becoming an Android developer and becoming an iOS developer is that you have to sign up with Apple for their developer program even if you never produce an app for the iOS App Store, but no such signing up is required when becoming an Android...

Before we make our first mobile app…

Now that the required SDKs are installed and LiveCode knows where they are, we can make a stack and test it in a simulator or on a physical device. We do, however, have to get the simulators and physical devices warmed up…

Getting ready for test development on an Android device

Simulating on iOS is easier than it is on Android, and testing on a physical device is easier on Android than on iOS, but the setting up of physical Android devices can be horrendous!

Time for action – starting an Android Virtual Device

You will have to dig a little deep in the Android SDK folders to find the Android Virtual Device setup program. You might as well provide a shortcut or an alias to it for quicker access. The following steps will help you setup and start an Android virtual device:

  1. Navigate to the Android SDK tools folder located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ on Windows and navigate to your Documents/android-sdk-macosx/tools folder on Mac.
  2. Open AVD Manager on Windows or android on Mac (these look like a Unix executable file; just double-click on it and the application will open via a command-line window).
  3. If you're on Mac, select Manage AVDs… from the Tools menu.
  4. Select Tablet from the list of devices if there is one. If not, you can add your own custom devices as described in the following section.
  5. Click on the Start button.
  6. Sit patiently while the virtual device starts up!
  7. Open LiveCode, create a new Mainstack, and click on...

Time for action – adding Kindle Fire to ADB

It only takes one line of text to add Kindle Fire to the list of devices that ADB knows about. The hard part is tracking down the text file to edit and getting ADB to restart after making the required changes. Things are more involved when using Windows than with Mac because you also have to configure the USB driver, so the two systems are shown here as separate steps.

The steps to be followed for adding a Kindle Fire to ADB for a Windows OS are as follows:

  1. In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Users\yourusername\.android\ where the adv_usb.ini file is located.
  2. Open the adv_usb.ini text file in a text editor. The file has no visible line breaks, so it is better to use WordPad than NotePad.
  3. On the line after the three instruction lines, type 0x1949.
  4. Make sure that there are no blank lines; the last character in the text file would be 9 at the end of 0x1949.
  5. Now, save the file.
  6. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver...

Time for action – using the iOS simulator

The initial steps are much like what we did for Android apps, but the process becomes a lot quicker in later steps. Remember, this only applies to a Mac OS; you can only do these things on Windows if you are using a Mac OS in a virtual machine, which may have performance issues. This is most likely not covered by the Mac OS's user agreement! In other words, get a Mac OS if you intend to develop for iOS. The following steps will help you achieve that:

  1. Open LiveCode and create a new Mainstack and save the stack to your hard drive.
  2. Select File and then Standalone Application Settings….
  3. Click on the iOS icon to select the Build for iOS checkbox.
  4. Close the settings dialog box and take a look at the Test Target menu under Development.
  5. You will see a list of simulator options for iPhone and iPad and different versions of iOS.
  6. To start the iOS simulator, select an option and click on the Test button.

What just happened?

This was all it took...

iOS, Android, or both?


It could be that you only have interest in iOS or Android. You should be able to easily skip to the sections you're interested in unless you're intrigued about how the other half works! If, like me, you're a capitalist, then you should be interested in both the operating systems.

Far fewer steps are needed to get the Android SDK than the iOS developer tools because for iOS, we have to sign up as a developer with Apple. However, the configuration for Android is more involved. We'll go through all the steps for Android and then the ones for iOS. If you're an iOS-only kind of person, skip the next few pages and start up again at the Becoming an iOS Developer section.

Becoming an Android developer


It is possible to develop Android OS apps without signing up for anything. We'll try to be optimistic and assume that within the next 12 months, you will find time to make an awesome app that will make you rich! To that end, we'll go over everything that is involved in the process of signing up to publish your apps in both Google Play (formally known as Android Market) and Amazon Appstore.

Google Play

The starting location to open Google Play is http://developer.android.com/:

We will come back to this page again, shortly to download the Android SDK, but for now, click on the Distribute link in the menu bar and then on the Developer Console button on the following screen. Since Google changes these pages occasionally, you can use the URL https://play.google.com/apps/publish/ or search for "Google Play Developer Console". The screens you will progress through are not shown here since they tend to change with time.

There will be a sign-in page; sign in using your usual...

Becoming an iOS developer


Creating iOS LiveCode applications requires that LiveCode must have access to the iOS SDK. This is installed as part of the Xcode developer tools and is a Mac-only program. Also, when you upload an app to the iOS App Store, the application used is Mac only and is part of the Xcode installation. If you are a Windows-based developer and wish to develop and publish for iOS, you need either an actual Mac based system or a virtual machine that can run the Mac OS. We can even use VirtualBox for running a Mac based virtual machine, but performance will be an issue. Refer to http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/63147/is-mac-os-x-in-a-virtualbox-vm-suitable-for-ios-development for more information.

The biggest difference between becoming an Android developer and becoming an iOS developer is that you have to sign up with Apple for their developer program even if you never produce an app for the iOS App Store, but no such signing up is required when becoming an Android...

Before we make our first mobile app…


Now that the required SDKs are installed and LiveCode knows where they are, we can make a stack and test it in a simulator or on a physical device. We do, however, have to get the simulators and physical devices warmed up…

Getting ready for test development on an Android device

Simulating on iOS is easier than it is on Android, and testing on a physical device is easier on Android than on iOS, but the setting up of physical Android devices can be horrendous!

Time for action – starting an Android Virtual Device


You will have to dig a little deep in the Android SDK folders to find the Android Virtual Device setup program. You might as well provide a shortcut or an alias to it for quicker access. The following steps will help you setup and start an Android virtual device:

  1. Navigate to the Android SDK tools folder located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\ on Windows and navigate to your Documents/android-sdk-macosx/tools folder on Mac.

  2. Open AVD Manager on Windows or android on Mac (these look like a Unix executable file; just double-click on it and the application will open via a command-line window).

  3. If you're on Mac, select Manage AVDs… from the Tools menu.

  4. Select Tablet from the list of devices if there is one. If not, you can add your own custom devices as described in the following section.

  5. Click on the Start button.

  6. Sit patiently while the virtual device starts up!

  7. Open LiveCode, create a new Mainstack, and click on Save to save the stack...

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Description

The ideal reader for this book would be someone who already knows LiveCode, is interested in creating mobile apps, and wants to save the many hours it took for me to track down all of the information on how to get started! Chapter 1, LiveCode Fundamentals, will help those of you who know programming but are not familiar with LiveCode. The knowledge you've acquired should be enough for you to benefit from the remainder of the book.

What you will learn

  • Create a simple sample application and build its interface
  • Write code using a multimedia scrapbook as an example application
  • Make a "To do/reminders" application
  • Upload your final app to the app stores
  • Create a jigsaw puzzle app that takes advantage of several mobile device features
  • Make standardlooking buttons and fields and programmatically create the screen layout
  • Preview LiveCode version 8 Widget and Builder capabilities

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : May 29, 2015
Length: 256 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849699662
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Product Details

Publication date : May 29, 2015
Length: 256 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781849699662
Category :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

9 Chapters
1. LiveCode Fundamentals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Getting Started with LiveCode Mobile Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Building User Interfaces Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Using Remote Data and Media Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Making a Jigsaw Puzzle Application Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Making a Reminder Application Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Deploying to Your Device Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Extending LiveCode Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Bernie Jul 25, 2016
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If you want a proper Livecode reference, don't bother with this.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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