Years ago I set up a license key generator on our server to generate license keys for our products. I used a revolution standalone engine and a plain text LiveCode script that was processed using the engine. Recently, a server upgrade removed a file that was necessary for the old revolution engine to function so I was forced to update my setup. Below is a description of the solution I came up with after a few hours of trial and error.

LiveCode Community Standalone Engine

To process my plain text LiveCode script files I installed the 64-bit version of the community version of the Linux standalone engine on my server. I grabbed the file named Standalone from the Tools/Runtime/Linux/x86-64 folder of a LiveCode Community installation. I renamed the file to <code> on my server and made it executable (e.g. chmod 755).

Note that you need to use the community version as it doesn’t need to be licensed. If you grab the Standalone engine from an Indy or Business installation the engine won’t run because it is unlicensed. Licensing occurs when you build a standalone in LiveCode.

The Script

For the script I created a Script Only Stack which looks like this:

script "clarifykeygenerator"

on startup
   put generateKey(the commandArguments)
   quit
end startup

function generateKey pParams
   ...
   return tKey
end generateKey

The script generates the key, outputs it to STDOUT, and then quits. That’s it.

You can now test this setup on the command line. Assuming the lc-standalone-v8 engine and a keygenerator.livecode script are in the same directory the following call would work:

./lc-standalone-v8 -ui keygenerator.livecode theLicenseCount theLicenseName

Note that when processing parameters in your script, -ui and keygenerator.livecode would be the first two parameters. Actual parameters that your script is interested in processing would start with parameter number 3 in the commandArguments.

Calling The License Generator From PHP

The final thing I had to do was call the license generator from PHP. You can do that using the exec() function. Below is some sample code. Note that I am base64 encoding the name. If the name for the license has accented characters in it then PHP will throw an error if you try to include it in the exec() function. Just make sure you call base64decode in your LiveCode script that generates the license key.

$license_generator = '/usr/home/name/public_html/cgi-bin/';

$execStr = $license_generator . 'lc-standalone-v8 -ui ' . $license_generator .         'keygenerator.livecode ' . 
        escapeshellarg($license_count) . ' ' . 
        escapeshellarg(base64_encode($name));

$key = exec($execStr, $output, $return_var);

When writing a LIveCode widget the OnLoad handler is used to populate variables in the current instance of the widget with values that were stored with the widget. Version 1 of an OnLoad handler looks something like this:

public handler OnLoad(in pProperties as Array)
   put pProperties["text"] into mText
   put stringToColor(pProperties["text color"]) into mTextColor
   put stringToColor(pProperties["button color"]) into mButtonColor
end handler

Now assume that you released this widget and there are stacks using it. You then decide that you want to add some more properties to the widget. You make the necessary changes to your OnLoad handler so that version 1.0.1 looks like this:

public handler OnLoad(in pProperties as Array)
   put pProperties["text"] into mText
   put stringToColor(pProperties["text color"]) into mTextColor
   put stringToColor(pProperties["button color"]) into mButtonColor

   // New properties added in version 1.0.1
   put stringToColor(pProperties["border color"]) into mBorderColor
   put pProperties["stroke width"] into mStrokeWidth
end handler

You compile the widget and then launch your project. When your existing widgets are displayed on the screen they aren’t rendered. All you see is an empty area. You try to check the properties in the property inspector but no properties are set. What is going on?

Since your widgets created with version 1 of your widget they didn’t store any properties named “border color” or “stroke width”. When you try to access a key of the pProperties array that doesn’t exist LCB is unhappy and refuses to go on.

There is an easy fix, however. Whenever you release a new version of your widget with new properties you need to add a check to make sure the new properties are keys in the pProperties array.

public handler OnLoad(in pProperties as Array)
   put pProperties["text"] into mText
   put stringToColor(pProperties["text color"]) into mTextColor
   put stringToColor(pProperties["button color"]) into mButtonColor

   // New properties added in version 1.0.1
   if "border color" is among the keys of pProperties then
      put stringToColor(pProperties["border color"]) into mBorderColor
      put pProperties["stroke width"] into mStrokeWidth
   end if
end handler

Since I added “border color” and “stroke width” in version 1.0.1 I just check for the presence of one of the keys. If one of the keys is present then the other will be present as well.

With this change to the code, your existing widgets will still load when running with version 1.0.1 of your widget.

RunRev is offering their MegaBundle sale again this year. This is your best chance to get all of the tools you need for a great price.

If you just need to renew your revEnterprise license or have been looking at developing software with Revolution this is the best price you are going to get.

All of our products that are available through RevSelect are included with the bundle: SQL Yoga, Professional Application Development with Revolution training courses and ScreenSteps standard.

http://www.runrev.com/products/mega-bundle-09/

UPDATE: This plugin has been replaced by the plugin that comes with the SQL Yoga distribution.

SQL Yoga automatically generates SQL for you so you don’t have to worry about it. Sometimes, however, it can be helpful to see the SQL that is being generated. Database objects have a couple of properties that can automatically log all generated SQL to a field or file.

The SQL Yoga Log Field plugin is simply a stack that registers a field as the field to log all statements to. When you want to see the SQL being generated by the default Database object simply open it from the plugins menu. When you are done just close it and all logging will stop.

Download: http://bluemangolearning.com/download/revolution/plugins/SqlYogaLogField.zip