Beginner's Guide. LiveCode Mobile Development. LiveCode. Create fun-filled, rich apps for Android and ios with. Colin Holgate PUBLISHING

Transcription

1 LiveCode Mobile Development Beginner's Guide Create funfilled, rich apps for Android and ios with LiveCode Colin Holgate [ ] PUBLISHING BIRMINGHAM MUMBAt

2 it's making Table of Contents Preface 1 Chapter 1: LiveCode Fundamentals 7 Background history and metaphors 8 You do have LiveCode, don't you? 9 Learning the lay of the land 9 Main windows 10 a drag, but you'll like it! 11 Creating a hierarchy 13 Stack structure 14 Where code goes 14 making and navigating between cards 15 Making a simple calculator application 18 Inspector clues, oh the calculator buttons 19 Verbosity, synonyms, and "me" 20 Adding the card handlers 22 Variable types in LiveCode 24 Extending the calculator 27 Other interface controls 28 Video player control 28 Still image control 28 Rollover buttons 28 Many More Controls Debugging 30 RunRev's online tutorials 32 Summary 32 Chapter 2: Getting Started with LiveCode Mobile 35 ios, Android, or both? 36

3 adding Table of Contents Becoming an Android developer 36 Android Market 36 Amazon Appstore 40 Downloading the Android SDK 44 Installing Android SDK on Mac OS X (Intel) 45 Installing Android SDK on Windows 46 Pointing LiveCode to the Android SDK 47 Becoming an ios developer 49 Installing Xcode 57 Pointing LiveCode to the ios SDKs 59 Before we can make our first mobile app 60 Getting ready to test for Android 60 starting an Android virtual device 60 Connecting a physical Android device 61 Using a Kindle Fire 61 a Kindle Fire to ADB 62 Getting ready to test for ios 64 using the ios simulator 64 Appiness at last! 64 testing a simple stack in the simulators 65 testing a simple stack on devices 66 Further reading 67 Summary 68 Chapter 3: Building User interfaces 69 Setting up a test bed mobile app 70 making the test bed stack 70 Invoking the desktop application 72 calling the native application 72 Installing the test onto devices 72 trying test bed stack on devices 73 Opening a web page 75 calling the native browser application 75 Mobileonly, date picker 76 showing a date picker 77 Mobileonly, loading pictures 77 loading pictures 78 Making OS styled buttons 79 Using bitmaps 80 using Photoshop to prepare button states 80 MobGUI to the rescue! 83 getting started with MobGUI 84

4 using simple using adding making adding extracting setting Table ofcontents Test bed app, the MobGUI way 86 MobGUI to make a test bed app 86 MobGUI native controls 88 using native controls from MobGUI 89 Adjusting things for different screen sizes 91 Layout using a resize handler 91 code layout example 92 Layout using the LiveCode Geometry Manager 93 using the Geometry Manager to position buttons 94 Layout using MobGUI 95 MobGUI to remember layouts for us 95 Further reading 96 Summary 97 Chapter 4: Using Remote Data and Media 99 Stack structure 100 Code driven and manually created layouts 100 Locations for code 101 Loading and saving external data 103 Querying a URL 103 Reading and writing to a text file 105 Using another stack to store data 107 creating a data save stack 107 Creating a web "scraper" app 110 setting up tab navigation 110 The Browser card 112 the browser controls 113 The Links card 114 a links extraction function 115 The missing links 118 One more thing the Links card "init" handler 118 The Text card 120 setting up the Text card 120 The Media card 121 a list of media links 121 up the Media card scripts 123 The Keepers card 125 Time for Action setting up the Keepers card 126 What now? 129 Summary 129

5 testing making creating transferring setting Table of Contents Chapter 5: Making a Jigsaw/ Puzzle Application Image data format Mystery byte... Misusing imagedata! a getpixel function Simulating lots and lots of buttons a map of the United States Using maskdata for collision detection making a racecourse making a race car Making a jigsaw puzzle Going to pieces... the pieces and choosing an image Adding interactivity Summary imagedata up touch events Chapter 6: Making a Reminder Application 159 What is a "reminder"? When? Date and time pickers creating date and time pickers Where? trying out native location tracking Calculating the distance between two points on Earth What? Making the reminders app Laying out the cards creating the reminder app screens Stack level scripts adding Stack level functions Home card scripts Creating a location card Reminder entry form Summary making the Home card buttons work making the location card work taking in information about the reminder Chapter 7: Deploying to Your Device Standalone Application Settings

6 Table of Contents General 188 Stacks 189 Copy Files 189 ios 189 Build for 190 Basic Application Settings 191 Icons 192 Splash Screens 193 Orientation Options 194 Custom URL Scheme 194 Requirements and Restrictions 194 Status Bar 195 Android 196 Basic Application Settings 196 Requirements and Restrictions 198 Application Permissions 198 User Interface Options 199 Building Apps for Beta Testers 199 Sending an Android App to testers 199 Preparing an ios App so that it can work on someone else's device 200 Creating "over the air" installers for ios 202 AirLaunch 202 BetaBuilder 203 TestFlightApp.com 204 Creating an app store submission file 204 Finding and using the Android Keytool application 204 Creating a distribution certificate for ios 206 Uploading to the app stores 208 What's similar 209 What's different 209 Bottom line 209 Summary 210 Appendix: Extending LiveCode 211 The story so far Extending LiveCode 212 MobGUI 212 tmcontrol 213 DropTools Palette 214 mergext 215 Creating you r own addons 216 Custom controls 216 Externals 216

7 Table of Contents Pop Quiz Answers Chapter 1, LiveCode Fundamentals 219 Chapter 2, Getting Started with LiveCode Mobile 220 Chapter 3, Building User Interfaces 220 Chapter 4, Using Remote Data and Media 221 Chapter 5, Making a Jigsaw Puzzle Application 221 Chapter 6, Making a Reminders Application 222 Index 223