Hey All,
You know I’ve been learning SwiftUI for the last few months. I’ve also been debating about re-homing App Wrapper and potentially the Ohanaware App Kit.
This way, these products can stay relevant to a Xojo developers needs, which will become more and more difficult the further away from Xojo I get.
If anyone is interested in taking on either or both of these projects, then please let me know.
Yes, OAK does need some love to convert it to stupid API 2.0 and stupid DesktopControls.
Honestly, you should post this exact same thing on TOF. Xojo wouldn’t be happy about it but it would send a clear message that you don’t think the platform has long-term viability.
At the end of the day, Xojo has to provide answers to users. That includes to new and established developers.
Sad to see this come to pass
It doesn’t make sense to re-develop in Swift?
Once you’re in the Apple ecosystem a number of issues that make developing Apple apps harder go away. Signing and Notarization (if I understand things correctly) are easier. I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff that Just Work™.
The longer I’m out of the Xojo ecosystem the happier I am.
With Swift, signing is a no-brainer… and notorization doesn’t seem to be “a thing” or if it is, it is 100% transparent
A lot of things are just built into Xcode itself
It really would make sense for Xojo to adopt AppWrapper & integrate much of that into the IDE
I put my name in the Goblet of Fire back in November, but I really can’t pay Sam for the project. I can give it a new home and keep it maintained, but Geoff chased away most professional budgets from Xojo so I don’t make enough money to buy things.
Most of App Wrapper isn’t needed if you use Xcode. There are some QOL things in AW that’s missing from Xcode, but I’ve managed to solve most with the Xcode scripting system, you just have to disable “Sandbox build scripts” first.
When you export your build archive, it Notarizes as part of the process.
I absolutely agree.
At this point I am willing to consider any option, and I’m open to alternative payment plans.
Sorry that this has to happen. I really love App Wrapper and your support with it over the years.
You basically can’t publish Mac apps without your tool Sam. If Xojo Inc doesn’t buy your app they’re idiots.
Thanks Garry.
Sam, maybe pulling your products would be a wake-up call for Geoff?
Add a banner or whatever explaining the issue and suggest that users contact Geoff.
Let Geoff explain why.
If you don’t want to pull the products, you could ask your users let you know what Geoff’s response was and send a secret purchase link…
Geoff needs to be forced into fixing Xojo. Maybe not being able to publish Apps would do it?
And yes, I’m still bitter after wasting years and a ton of money on Xojo… I still cannot believe that Web 1.0 was thrown in the trash for the buggy mess of Web 2.0. Oh yeah, no upgrade path too…
I still cannot believe that someone feels like a genius while making those stupid decisions 
My guess would be that there’s no need to publish Apps if the target audience is the citizen developer. I’m not saying that is true. That’s my guess what Geoff is probably thinking.
No, that’s not it at all. When I talked with Geoff about this ages ago, it’s because everything after the build is outside of Xojo’s scope. Build processes can get extremely complex - just look at the fact that an entire app exists just for the signing stage for a single platform - and there’s just no way for Xojo to satisfy enough developers. Plus, with limited exceptions, you can only do these signing steps on the destination platform. It’s one of those concepts that is simple on the surface, but gets complex quickly. Again, Sam built an entire app around this complexity, and that supports just macOS. Code signing on Windows is so much worse. This is just not an area Xojo wants to deal with.
Seems lately there is a lot of things Xojo doesn’t want to deal with.
Things that would put Xojo closer to being on par with other developement tools
If the objective is for Xojo to create a complete application compatible with the target operating system as set forth by the developer of said operating system, then SIGNING IS part of the SCOPE that Xojo should be supporting.
The advertise that they ABSTRACT the user from the hard tasks, well except for these I guess
I don’t believe Xojo has ever claimed they get your app ready for distribution.
Even citizen devs need to notarize etc to work on the latest macOS/iOS
That is IF you expect to be able to distribute kind of painlessly to other co-workers
If its JUST for yourself then this need does subside
They could by buying AppWrapper and stuffing it in the Extras folder like many other items
I doubt they will