WOHOO! "New" Xojo Roadmap!

I’m not sure i’d completely agree with that; i churned out a couple of apps for mac/win desktop, iOS & Android in LiveCode and it worked first time (cloud database connected apps for a vertical medical applications). Admittedly not complex interfaces and not deployed to app store.
Out of curiosity, what was it you found ‘almost impossible’ in LiveCode?

I’m not at all surprised that FileMaker has licensed liveCode for this… and while it’s removing a lot of focus from loveCode core development/bug fixes, it has greatly enhanced their android offerings.

More importantly the LiveCode forums are extremely responsive and populated by experts; and the LC devs are very responsive to bug fix requests - it’s a very common occurrence for them to a) acknowledge there is a bug, b) publish a workaround if one is available and c) fixing stuff (i have submitted 3 bug reports their latest, one of which was fixed and pushed out as a release candidate within a month).

Perhaps tellingly, there is no need for an ‘INN style’ forum and while you can’t please everyone all the time, the disgruntlement expressed in the forums is orders of magnitude lower thant XOJO or INN forums…

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As addendum: try to write an IOS App with Xojo and after that write one in B4I and on top of this: write one with GLUON mobile. You will finc out that Gluon Mobile delivers you an app for IOS and Android and - comparing to xojo - with a full set of features for IOS and the complete Set of Hardware abstraction to write IOS and Android once!

I agree with most of the replies to your post that I’ve quoted here. It’s ironic how you call names, come here to bitch about ‘bitching’, and suspect some sort of hate going on. I don’t know anyone here or in TOF that hates Geoff, Xojo, the “MVPs”, or “MVP wannabes”.

It’s about a decline in Xojo quality. I had no idea about the charts that Markus and Ivan shared but it doesn’t surprise me. The charts seem to match up with the decline in Xojo quality.

There’s different levels of pain. Some are still using Xojo, desperate for workarounds. Some are working to move away from Xojo but that takes a lot of time. And some have’t launched Xojo in quite a while except to look up a code snippet.

I’m in the latter group. I started using Xojo in the late 1990s. It wasn’t until I started using Web 1.0 until my troubles started. Desktop worked well for us for decades. I spent way more time chasing down bugs that were not my bugs. I’m no super genius but I make up for that in not giving up quickly. I tired and tried but gave up after I learned Web 2.0 was not ready at XDC Miami. It was then when I followed Tim Dietrich to PHP. PHP was fast and I still haven’t encountered a PHP bug. Fast forward a year when Xojo released Web 2.0. All the press releases make it sound like Web 2.0 was ready to rock until folks started using Web 2.0. That’s when I was ecstatic about following Tim to PHP as the reports from Xojo devs was that Web 2.0 was essentially an alpha. Lots of stuff broken AND Web 1.0 was guillotined at the same time. Xojo said Web 1.0 would be supported but I haven’t heard about any fixes yet. There sill isn’t feature parity between Web 1.0 and 2.0. The BIGGEST feature I wanted from Web 2.0 was Responsive pages, but that was skipped for now and it’s not even on the road map.

Just about all of us have spoken to Geoff on the phone. I’m pretty sure all of us were talked off the roof only to see the same problems occur again and again. Nothing has changed.

The kicker is that we want Xojo to rock, but knowing about the core issues makes that close to impossible. I’d like to hear, from Xojo, an apology and detailed plan how quality will be rectified. That could bring me back if it was serious with evidence to back it up.

I hope this helps you understand.

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:thinking: I think the replies were too considered and contrary to expectations, which gave DaveK a headache, so he needed a lie down … :sleeping_bed:

But seriously, I’d be interested in his reply - just not sure we’ll get one. Might have been a poop-and-run …
:policeman: :poop: :policewoman: :police_car:

:wink:

If you are speaking about web, do you really think they have the resources to provide a first class web (or X-platform mobile) solution?

I would like to see them refocus back on striving to make the most frictionless cross-platform complete RAD solution for desktop…

That is where their strength was. I do like the graphics capabilities they are adding, even through that should have happened a decade ago… Hopefully some of the new controls will be things that help desktop app RADness rather than just re-naming existing functionality…

While the mobile and web markets are bigger for sure, I think an excellent niche product for X-Platform desktop is more sustainable than a jack of all trades that produces sub-par applications for every platform.

But I don’t expect them to do that at this point…

If they had the resources to have a good chance of being able to do a good job on all platforms, and keep up with the rapid changes happening on all the platforms, it would be one thing… But it is obvious they don’t.

-Karen

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I also think the desktop (especially Windows) needs some serious care and attention.

As for iOS, the MBS plug-ins on iOS are a game changer and lift it to a whole new level, and in hindsight “plug-ins for iOS” should have been Xojo’s #1 priority as soon as they had released Xojo for iOS.

For Android, I don’t see such a saving grace, but maybe Christian hires an experienced Android developer (Erel comes to mind :innocent:) and creates MBS for Android …

Personally I don’t think so based on how long it takes to get bugs fixed quickly and production ready code out the door.

Hi Stam, LiveCode are a bankrupt company. They are operating under a creditors agreement. If they miss a single agreed payment from the schedule the administrator of the agreement can seize assets and close the business down.

They exist by raising funds from their loyal user base. They have done this multiple times - they cannot exist like this for much longer.

Doesn’t sound like a solid base on which to form an important strategic investment from FileMakers point of view.

Sounds more like a take-over target for FileMaker … we don’t know the details of the license agreement, but I would not be surprised if FileMaker can continue using (and developing) its own branch of LiveCode if LiveCode shuts down. Anything else would not really make sense.

That is actually a mechanism by which companies can swindle inventors and/or creditors, and I first encountered it at the end of the 90s. A US company “bought” a license to use the bacteriophage collection of a Belorussian company, got samples of every stock (that allows them to grow their own) - in exchange for a million dollar and the obligation to build a new modern Institute building. They US company sub-licensed to another US company (run by the same people I think), declared itself bankrupt, and never paid anything. The “new” US company marketed and sold the product. The Belorussian company sued in the US but was told it is all legal and they lost their case.

So I would not be surprised if the LiveCode creditors don’t see much when (not if) LiveCode shuts down.

Well OK, I can’t speak as to the financial state of the company. As I can’t speak to the financial status of XOJO which I imagine would probably be in a similar condition. With so many good free IDEs and languages, companies like this will never have a massive profit margin.

But none of this really relates to my previous comment.

You said you found it “nearly impossible” to create mobile apps with LC; I argued it isn’t, quite the opposite. You respond by saying the company isn’t in good financial condition.

Is this a problem for FileMaker? Assuming the product works, surely it doesn’t matter if the company is extremely rich or just getting by (arguably they’d get a better deal in the latter case).

The fact that FileMaker is investing in this should be a message to you that there is something good there, not the opposite…

I don’t need a forum feature to ignore it.

Which is great, or I should say it was great initially, but after watching many of the threads here turn into a spiral of complaints that repeat forever, all ending up exactly like this thread, I am not finding it so great anymore, but rather tiresome.

Just my opinion, of course, keep on if that pleases everyone here.

Julen

EDIT: I don’t mean the complaints aren’t well founded, only that seeing them repeated at each opportunity gets boring.

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Well, I think you are mixing up the chicken and the egg: if Xojo wouldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, we wouldn’t be complaining about Xojo over and over again - instead we would be rejoicing, hugs all around.

Do you mean we shouldn’t hold Xojo to account? We shouldn’t point out where they eff up? We should just be nice little soldiers and not rock the boat?

And in case you missed it: it’s the same complaints only if you ignore that it is about new things.

Hi @anon50707693 can you please share your source ? I did some Googling but could not corroborate.

Thanks,
Steve

Couldnt be
Apple literally didnt have a way to load a dylib for several releases of iOS
When they finally sanctioned loading dylibs etc it became possible
I dont recall when that did become possible

Do you know what Xojo’s current financial situation is ?

That they didnt pick Xojo for such a partnership says something

Is why I’d been writing tutorials & other content related posts

For dylibs as of September 22, 2017?

As of iOS 8, Apple decided to lift the dynamic library restriction and allow third-party dynamic libraries to be included in your app.

And seems static libraries since before Xojo for iOS was released?

It is a real shame that Xojo decided to follow that path for iOs and now for Android. Part of the sucess of B4X is how EASY is to use hundres of the available open source proyects (Java, Objective C or even swift) and use them with a wrapper. Or even use inline code directly mixed with B4X code.

Xojo for Android will be very limited as allways, they should at least make easier to extend the framework, but, another BAD choice to the pile… “they know best” :roll_eyes:

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Looking at your research it suggests to me that it might benefit Xojo to create an “Enthusiast” program. Whereby Xojo takes care of it’s more outward facing developers, and in return those developers do some promotion for Xojo. i.e. Linking back to Xojo or talking about Xojo in their blog articles.

As these enthusiasts build better, more reliable and more powerful products, helping to increase their own reputation and marketshare, they help to increase Xojo’s recognition in the industry. It wouldn’t take much effort on Xojo’s behalf either, just a reallocation of it’s priorities.

I also think Xojo should open-source some components. If I had access to the listbox source code, I could and probably would modernize it to suit my needs. As it stands right now, I need to write a large portion of it, before I can add elastic scrolling, wallpaper tinting, overlay scrollbars, height per row.

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