3 for 2 Deal Featured on LiveCode.tv
Cast your vote for which addons you want to see reviewed this saturday

by Björnke von Gierke

RunRev sells a lot of nifty add-ons to LiveCode in their online store. Currently you can get three add-ons for the price of two in a special three for two offer. The add-ons are great tools, capable of increasing the productivity of every LiveCode user. Most tools are low-cost already, and this offer makes all of them an even better deal!

The LiveCode.tv Event

Don't know which tools to buy? The community project over at LiveCode.tv is making it easy for you. This Saturday, they will review some of the most popular tools in the next edition of the LiveCode.tv event. It will start at 19:00h GMT, and last about 2 hours. You can vote for the add-on that's the most interesting to you, and increase the chances that your favourite tool will be covered.

Livecode.tv is a weekly live webcast, where everyone (including you) can show their projects or thoughts about programming, and they are always looking for presenters! If you would like to do a show, please head over to the blog for ideas. An easy way to contact one of the organiser is this web form.

The event will be conducted through ChatRev. This Livecode based chat is always open for everyone. Only by joining ChatRev will you be able to participate in the discussions and ask questions during the LiveCode.tv events. Download ChatRev here, or enter the following into the message box:

go stack URL "http://bjoernke.com/chatrev/chatrev1.3b3.rev"

Timezone information:
22:00 in Moscow
20:00 in Paris
14:00 in New York
11:00 in Los Angeles
04:00 (Sun) in Sydney
03:00 (Sun) in Tokyo
2:00 (Sun) in Beijing

Some selected add-ons

Let's look at some of the add-ons that the people from LiveCode.tv especially like. All of these and more are available from the RunRev store.

Datagrid Helper

While the palettes of the standard LiveCode IDE give access to only a part of the Datagrid properties, Datagrid Helper contains one interface for all properties. In addition to this nifty palette, it includes default scripts that make common tasks much easier, for example rearranging columns. Once you have it all set up, Datagrid Helper will create the necessary scripts and properties into a datagrid group, ready to use.

How to set up a Datagrid in seconds

Animation Engine

Animation Engine extends your toolkit with numerous graphics-related commands and functions. You will want it for common tasks needed in arcade games, presentations or spicing up your interfaces with bouncing animations. With this add-on, implementing asynchronous animation becomes really easy, and it has various collision detection approaches, optimised for high precision and quick speed.

Cool animation examples

SQL Yoga

SQL Yoga is an add-on that eases working with Databases considerably. It allows you to interact with databases, without ever writing any SQL, by using arrays and an object oriented approach. Keep your database needs as easy as native LiveCode script, and never be tormented by the SQL externals arcane functions again. But then, if you want to, you can go deep into the SQL Yoga API, to forfeit ease of use for even more raw power.

Some of the commands from the SQL Yoga API

Quartam Reports

Quartam Reports transforms your data into forms, delivery notes, statistical reports, tables and printouts. You can assemble the reports easily with the visual tools in the Quartams Layout Builder, or use standard LiveCode syntax to create and populate them by script. It also references data from almost any source, like stacks, URLs or databases. If you ever are in need for any form of printout, this will help you immensely.

Business app creators do need this

MobGUI

MobGUI is a LiveCode plug-in for creating iPhone apps. More specifically, while LiveCode enables you to compile apps for iPhone, it doesn't contain a complete set of interface objects for this platform. MobGUI fills that need with a collection of native iOS objects, implemented as vector graphics, because they are much smaller then bitmap based approaches. It also offers a very easy to use palette, enabling you to create complex interfaces in minutes.

It doesn't get easier

WordLib

WordLib brings MS Word and Open Office document import to your LiveCode desktop or mobile apps. All you need to do is specify a file and a field. WordLib will translate practically all modern word processing features, if they are supported by LiveCode fields. This includes styles and colours, images and links, borders and footnotes, even tables and much more.

One line is all you need

FMPro Migrator

FmPro Migrator can generate a full-featured LiveCode front-end application from FileMaker Pro, Microsoft Access and Visual FoxPro database files. It converts layouts, scripts, relationships, and value lists directly into a fully functional LiveCode stack, or a php based website. Never before was database migration this simple.

Filemaker database has become a LiveCode stack

Make sure to vote!

Please cast your vote right now. And remember, this Saturday LiveCode.tv will showcase some of the products you have voiced most interest in, so see you then!

About the Author Björnke von Gierke is a software developer, long time LiveCode community member and likes cats almost as much as charts.