Today RunRev Ltd announced the release of LiveCode 7, a major new revision of their multi-platform app development environment. Full, seamless support for creating apps that work in multiple languages has been added to this version. Additional benefits include support for teaching programming using the Raspberry Pi platform, support for Cocoa on Mac OS, a more powerful way to display web pages within apps and enhanced Linux support, including 64-bit Linux. With the addition of Raspberry Pi, LiveCode 7 now supports 7 platforms: iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, Server and Raspberry Pi.
International App Support
LiveCode 7.0 has been rebuilt from the ground up to ensure completely seamless support for all the world’s languages. This means that developers can create international apps which work with all languages including Chinese and Japanese. The ability to render right to left languages such as Arabic has also been added. In addition to the ability to display and edit text, LiveCode’s world class text and data processing capabilities have been redeveloped so that LiveCode automatically understands how to process text written in any language. This greatly reduces the amount of work the developer needs to do when creating an international app.
Kevin Miller, RunRev CEO, said, “In a global economy seamless support for app development for all languages is vital. We’re proud to have delivered this major rework of LiveCode, which delivers world-class support for building international apps. We know this release will help developers to increase the reach, downloads and revenues from their apps.”
Dr. Andy Parng, LiveCode China’s CEO, commented: “LiveCode 7’s full Unicode support enables us to promote coding as a new literacy in China. Now everyone in China can download the free open source LiveCode 7 community version to build apps that seamlessly support Chinese double-byte characters.”
Enhanced Native Experience on Every Platform
Apps with LiveCode 7 are now even better native citizens on all supported platforms. Highlights include:
– On the Mac the platform has been ported to use Cocoa. This brings a number of benefits to the usability and integration of Mac apps, including better window rendering and stronger support for Mac App Store sandboxing. Multimedia support has been moved to the faster and smoother AVFoundation, enabling richer and more responsive multimedia apps on the Mac.
– On Linux the platform has been ported to use GTK. This latest windowing system means LiveCode apps look and perform beautifully. Additionally the platform has been ported to use 64-bit Linux on both the client and server versions for Linux. This makes it easier to install on modern Linux systems and capable of working with larger data sets in memory. The 64-bit port was developed in collaboration with LiveCode’s open source community.
– Support on all other platforms has been enhanced and updated. Support for iOS 8.1 is now included.
Embedded Browser
The engine that LiveCode uses to display web pages within apps has been entirely replaced on Windows and Mac (to use WebKit). As well as providing better performance, it also creates consistent rendering on all platforms supported (including mobile). The new object is capable of communicating bidirectionally between the web page and the app. This allows the creation of better hybrid web / native apps.
Raspberry Pi
An enthusiastic open source initiative has led to the provision of a Raspberry Pi build for LiveCode. This build is the first entirely new platform added by the community and is community supported. LiveCode is popular with educators teaching computer programming. The provision of LiveCode for the Rpi enhances uptake in schools and the wider community.
This release, the largest upgrade in the company’s history, also contains over 1000 bug fixes and minor enhancements.
You can get LiveCode 7 here.
