LiveCode 5.0.1 Released
We've been working hard since the release of 5.0, to bring you this even more polished version, with some bonus new features as well!

by Heather Nagey

Between you, me and the bedpost, many developers don't rush to buy a major version initial release. MySuperSoftware 10.0 is released? It's got Brand New Features A, B, and C? Great, I might say, really pleased to hear about those features, I'll wait for version 10.0.1...

Why is this? It's fairly obvious. A major version change means major changes have been made to the software. Major changes mean greater potential for issues, gremlins, and unexpected behavior. Bugs, you might say. A nice .01 release cleans up these little issues, making the software ready for my serious attention.

So here it is folks. LiveCode 5.0.1, fresh from the developers ironing board, where they've been busy ironing out all the little gremlins reported against 5.0. I wouldn't want you to think that's all they've done however. They've worked extra hard to bring you some much desired feature additions, all included free if you already own 5.0.

What's new?
Firstly, on all platforms we have implemented improvements to the Accelerated Rendering which was introduced with LiveCode 5. No fewer than 35 bugs were squished, many on desktop/all platforms (see below). Generally, this is a fairly Android centric release in terms of features. We've added:

Open GL support on Android

As well as the new graphics architecture introduced across all platforms in LiveCode 5.0, you can now use the Open GL features on Android as well as iOS. Get the fastest possible performance out of your animations!

In App purchasing for Android

This important feature allowing you to earrn more money from your apps now works on Android as well as iOS, and you can find out how to use it by following our hands on lesson. Start adding powerups to your Android games to boost your user engagement :)

Support for the hardware "Menu" key on Android.

A simple but important feature. Use this with the following syntax:

on menuKey
   answer "You pressed the menu key" with "Okay"
end menuKey

This allows you to handle the menuKey message to perform an action when the menu key is pressed by your user.

Support for the hardware "Search" key on Android

Sent to the current card of the defaultStack when the hardware search button is pressed.

on searchKey
   answer "You pressed the search key" with "Okay"
end searchKey

Again, a very welcome addition to the Android features available to you.

Store on the SD card as well as device.

This is going to make your apps much more popular with end users - now you can store them externally, saving space on the device.

iOS gets some new features too:

Activity indicator

iOS provides a native animated activity indicator that sits above all other components and is used to indicate that an app is busy processing. Use the iphoneActivityIndicatorStart command to display a native iOS activity indicator on the top of the LiveCode stack that is running.

iphoneActivityIndicatorStart [type], [xposition, yposition]

Here, type can be one of:

• gray - default, displays a small gray spoked animation
  
• white - displays a small white spoked animation
  
• whiteLarge - displays a large white spoked animation

The xposition and yposition specify the location in pixels of the activity indicator. If a location is
not specified, then the animation is positioned in the middle of the screen. You can turn the activity indicator off by calling iphoneActivityIndicatorStop.

Media picker

You can present the user with the standard iOS media picker using:

iphonePickMedia [multiple], [type...]

Set multiple to true if you want to allow the user to pick more than one item.

You can specify the type of media item the user is to select from by passing one or more of the
following:

• music - Specifies that the user should be allowed to select music items.
  
• podCast - Specifies that the user should be allowed to select pod casts.
  
• audioBook - Specifies that the user should be allowed to select audio books.
  
• anyAudio - Specifies that the user should be allowed to select any audio item.

If no types are passed, all media items will be displayed. A return separated list of all the media items the user has picked will be present in the result. A media item can be played back using the play command.

We've also updated the play command to support playback of files in iPod
library and updated native browser control to send a new message "browserLoadRequested".

What's Fixed?

We've ironed flat no fewer than 35 bugs in this release, many on desktop, a large number on iOS and a handful on Android. To list them all here would be tedious, but some noteworthy beasties were:

• Visual effects now working when transitioning from card to stack (iOS)
  
• Export snapshot no longer produces inverted images in landscape mode. (iOS)
  
• Launch image is displayed with the correct orientation (iOS).
  
• PDF printing now works on iOS4 (iOS).
  
• Date picker permits the selection of dates before 1970 (iOS).
  
• Updated template plists to remove deprecated entry CFBundleIcon. (iOS)
  
• Device builds no longer confused by externals built for 5.0 simulator (iOS)
• opaque graphics render correctly using OpenGL compositor (Android)
  
• No black screen when switching between OpenGL and Bitmap modes ( Android)
  
• Visual effects now work in OpenGL mode ( Android)
• Focus correctly revoked when object hidden using 'hide ... with visual effect' (desktop)
  
• Redraw issues fixed with QT players on Mac (desktop)
  
• New objects redraw correctly when created (desktop)
• Toggling 'show invisibles' now redraws bottom-most stack (desktop)
• Focus border is included in redraw when hiding field (desktop)
• Posting to HTTPS URLs now works (desktop)
• Now able to set blendLevel of stacks with a windowShape that contains alpha (desktop)

For a full listing of fixed issues, please check the release notes for each platform, available under your Help menu in 5.0.1, or downloadable here:

iOS release notes

Android release notes

General release notes

If you already own LiveCode 5, you will find 5.0.1 is now available for you to download from within your account, log in here.

If you'd like to purchase a new license please go to our store, or if you have a license already you'd like to update, you do this from within your account.

About the Author Heather Nagey is Customer Services Manager for RunRev Ltd.