Good idea presented by Chris in this reply…
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Notarisation? Notarisation!
Yeah I’m not surprised no one will do that for him
Someone should post that “Hey you could use AppWRapper to do this for you on a Mac” 
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unbelieveable…
ppl still trying to ride a dead horse…
I would call it denialism
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$100 is a small fee and he can pay that to Apple without putting another developer’s reputation at risk.
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This! I saw that and found it pretty sketchy. I was frankly surprised that Xojo would accept that to post as a “consultant request”.
Edit: I had a client of my own who asked me about that. I had the source code (some of which was indeed mine), but politely demurred. Instead, he bought AppWrapper on my recommendation, and I walked him through it.
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@thommcgrath Can’t say I’m thrilled with what you wrote on TOF. Not only because it felt like myself and my work were being discredited, but also because it felt like Xojo staying the course was the recommend action.
If Xojo does everything you want and could possibly need right now, that’s fine. Just that I have it on good authority (with corroboration from multiple source) that Xojo’s market share has been decreasing and it is expected from people close to the know, to continue so.
Xojo is falling further and further behind in the x-plat space. There’s a reason why Electron and other Declarative UI languages are becoming more popular. I don’t expect Xojo to suddenly pivot and reverse their x-plat strategy, but they could at least try and compete in other areas.
I don’t do Windows, as you made of point of stating in TOF, but I added value to Xojo’s Mac target (albeit I felt dismissed when you said that was the domain of MBS). Xojo could easily buy OAK and integrate the missing Mac controls and capabilities (it is pure Xojo code and already included the new controls they announced in 2022).
I recently had a conversation with a Xojo dev who’d bought a x-plat rich text editor for his Xojo app. He didn’t know that there’s already one in the macOS. The Xojo TextArea is a NSTextView, which includes all the power of Apple’s “TextEdit” and it’s very easy to expose (it’ll even provide the editing controls for you). I’m 100% certain that there’s such a thing on Windows, maybe with OLE (if that’s still a thing).
Another example is building a SwiftUI app in a certain way, includes automatic “Undo” and “Versions”. Which works across Mac, iPad, Android, iOS, Watch and visionOS, maybe even tvOS (if it is has such a concept).
It feels as if Xojo is wearing blinkers right, it doesn’t seem like they’re aware of what is happening in the x-plat market. I honestly feel like I have tried to help Xojo grow (no denying my own income at the same time), but if they stay the course, not only myself, but others (with access to more data than me) are pretty certain it will be the end of the company and the product.
Yeah, I’m whining, but I am sad at the prospect of Xojo dying, even if I don’t use it anymore. I spent 25 years building Mac applications in Xojo, and I intend to maintain Sleep Aid until I’m confident I can re-write it in the language I’m learning. Where, yes, there are actual benefits to doing so.
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I apologize for making you feel that way. I’ve known you in this community for a long time and I respect you and your work. My entire point was that App Wrapper isn’t something I see Xojo purchasing. I also said:
platform-exclusive features tend to stay in the department of third parties such as MBS
I did not say it was MBS’s domain, but I wasn’t going to list off every third party developer. MBS is simply the largest.
I also never said that I think Xojo shouldn’t have these features. I’m saying they don’t have the resources to build them into Xojo. App Wrapper is a partial solution. If it were cross platform, I’d feel more confident that it is something they’d want to bring in house. But as I said, it doesn’t send a good message for them to have a solution for one platform but not the others. This has absolutely nothing with the quality of your work, but the imperfect match of markets. Xojo is a cross platform tool, and yours isn’t.
I agree that Xojo needs to do something because not only is their market share slipping, it was never big enough to begin with. Xojo future bothers me too, but I can’t find a better path forward.
I want App Wrapper to find a good home. To be frank, I contemplated making an offer. But I’ve not only done the Xojo third party thing, I also just don’t have the time.
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iOS ?
For years it was a Mac-only thing
I get that its a tricky balancing act but AppWrapper could be called & used by the IDE via cmd line IF you’re on a Mac
And not on Windows
Absolutely agree here
Given other things I’ve heard it worries me perhaps more than it ever has
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It came across to me as saying it something that Xojo shouldn’t purchase, and at the time, I was in discussion with Xojo. Discussions appear to have ended now, and it appears it is not something that Xojo wishes to pursue at this time.
I think this where you and I (and Xojo) feel differently, I believe that adding some of these features now, even if it’s only for one platform makes the product more attractive than it currently is. Perhaps it will be enough to not only encourage some older customers to renew, but also to bring in some fresh blood, giving them some breathing room to work on adding these features for other platforms.
I have also thought it’s a pretty dumb move to say, “we’re not going to support X on platform Y, because platform Z doesn’t have a similar feature”. It did not feel like Xojo had this mantra until maybe a decade ago, I remember in the early days of Mac OS X (even with Windows support) they were still adding Mac only features.
I didn’t realize it was small before. I mean, I’d come to the conclusion that APIcalypse was a response to a decline, which I remain steadfast, was the wrong move to make.
Right now, and not because I’m trying to sell products, they need to move forwards and I would think that would come not only fixing bugs and improving performance, but also making their toolkit as more powerful, with minimal effort. There are a ton of examples, where this LCD mantra and lack of knowledge of the targets is clearly illustrated.
You and me both man. I want it to find a good home.
Oh… Like what?
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Reading your stories and experiences makes me sad and happy at the same time. Sad about another chapter to add in Xojo track record of mismanagement and decline. Happy 'cause I’ve never been solely dependent on it. I do consulting, IT- and Project-Management aswell. Xojo “only” enabled me to create more value. For my customers and of course for myself. But this story is over now.
An aged stubborn Genius will keep his fatal course, driving the wagon for a few more years before retiring.
The last one turns out the lights.
Xojo will end up like Power-BASIC.
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Welcome to the club, my friend. Many (most?) of us here really wanted Xojo to succeed. And for various reasons (bugs, API2, low market share, no upgrade path, platform features, etc) we have moved on to something different.
The crazy thing is now I know how shitty Xojo is since I’ve gone outside the Xojo ecosystem with Go. The Xojo language is outdated and API2 didn’t help it at all. Its documentation is, at best, subpar. Its IDE is old, slow, and obsolete. Their marketshare is minuscule and showing up in sales and consulting leads.
I don’t see how they recover and grow their base. Even with a change in management and strategy I don’t see people coming back. Once you get a taste of the bigger development world Xojo looks bad.
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Geoff once told me they never managed to move out of the startup phase. API2 was unquestionably the wrong move to make. It was a waste of time, and if it converted even one potential customer, I’d be amazed. As I’ve said time and time again, API2 is definitely better and (for the most part) how things should have been done from the beginning, but its changes aren’t so much better to be worth the cost. API2 was a hobby project, not one designed to sell more licenses. If anything, it had the opposite effect.
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Aren’t they working on some Windows specific controls, I don’t use windows but something about XML islands not available for Mac/Linux? So I agree with you not having the modern Mac only features is a no-go for Mac developers and even X-plat developers as Mac users want those features. This from someone not using Windows or Mac as targets.
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Yep
Windows XAML controls wont work on MacOS
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The way I heard it from them then what we have now is first test.
Later it would be seamless you Drag in a button, you get a button. (You don’t care if its a Win32, Xaml or Cocoa button you just drag in button).
For them to make it seamless is very possible. So I think the discussion on the Xaml islands in Xojo has often been a bit unfair or misunderstood.
I personally think introducing it as is as first test is good thing since, its no easy thing to swap everything out and suddenly used it under the hood.
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Or a DesktopButton ? 
THATS fundamentally where API 2 went awry
They HAVE compatibility flags to avoid this kind of silliness
but …
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An accumulation of things I’ve been told privately that lead me to believe that business has not remained as robust as Xojo might like to say publicly
And since its a fairly consistent set of statements from several sources I tend to put credence in them
The general silence on the Xojo forums seems to be just one manifestation of this downturn
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Oh, I was under the impression that XAML controls could give the option to build complex controls and not only have what Xojo (all Desktop targets) offers.
Karma
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