Book Image

LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide

By : Colin Holgate
Book Image

LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide

By: Colin Holgate

Overview of this book

LiveCode is a tool for developing mobile apps designed for those who don't want to use Objective-C, C++ or Java. Although it is a tool full of rich features to create apps it can be challenging to get beyond the basics and build interactive and fun apps. Using this book, you can develop various apps and this book guides you through "till you upload the apps in the appstore."LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide" will explain how to create applications with the easiest, most practical cross platform framework available, Livecode Mobile and upload the apps to the appstore with minimal effort.Throughout the book, you'll learn details that will help you become a pro at mobile app development using LiveCode. You begin with simple calculator application and quickly enhance it using LiveCode Mobile. Start by learning the interface controls for videos and images of LiveCode's environment. Dig into configuring devices, building user interfaces, and making rich media applications, then finish by uploading the mobile applications to App Stores. You will learn how to build apps for devices such as iPhone, Android with the recently developed LiveCode Mobile through sample applications of increasing complexity.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Learning the lay of the land


When you first open LiveCode you are shown a Start Center window, which functions as a way to open recent documents, a list of links to forums, and getting started information. It also provides a way to view promotional information. It does no harm to keep that window open, but if you do happen to close it you can reopen the Start Center from the Help menu.

As you look at LiveCode for the first time you will notice a toolbar along the top of the screen, just below the menu bar. Take note of the items on the right-hand side, User Samples, Tutorials, Resources, and Dictionary. These areas are filled with information that will help you to get started with LiveCode. The Dictionary is something that you will use a lot, and just browsing through the entries will either answer your immediate question or give you advanced information about issues you'll run into later.

The Help menu also provides access to a User Guide and several release note files. Consult the User Guide to read in more depth about features mentioned here.

Tip

Online lessons

In addition to the resources you see inside LiveCode itself, there is a tremendous amount of information and tutorials on the RunRev website. A good starting point would be: http://lessons.runrev.com/

The following screenshot shows the windows and palettes that we're going to be using for now, as well as the document window, which shows a simple calculator that we will soon build:

Main windows

In addition to the document window itself, these are the main windows that we will need to be familiar with for now:

  • Tools palette

  • Inspector palette

  • Message Box

The upper area of the Tools palette shows all of the interface controls that you will need to create an interactive application. Below them are a set of tools for editing vector graphics, and a set of tools for editing bitmap graphics.

The Inspector palette shows all of the options for the control that you currently have selected. In the above screenshot nothing is selected, and so the Inspector palette is showing information about the stack itself.

The Message Box is a window that lets you try out either single or multiple lines of code. You will be able to invoke functions in your stacks too, making it a very handy way to test individual functions while you are tracking down issues. We'll use the Message Box in later chapters.

As suggested above, you should read the User Guide to get a deeper understanding of these windows, but let's try putting together something simple for now, to get you more familiar with using the Tool palette.