Xojo 2021 R1: Still no chance to import API1 Web projects

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Looking on the Development of Xojo 2021 there is still no ability of importing elements of API1 projects. Buttons had Mouse Down and now they have pressed event. Same thing with Canvas and so on. Most incredible in my view is the fact that there is no Style available. There has to be an editing of the Style elements in css. With Web 1.0 I have projects with more than 200 Styles. They are gone. To build this Project correctly there is the need of a rewrite.

Even more annoying is the fact that the flexibility of element sizes in API1 is almost gone in API2. That’s something we all have to live with. Or not.

When looking on this version I see, that my decision to go away from Xojo and take Cuba-Platform for my Web projects, Gluon for Mobile Development and Java Swing or even Java FX for my Desktop Development was the best I could do.

With this brand new Version of xojo there is no way to develop multi platform projects in a real professional way and hold them long time on market. And please: I don’t want to read from somebody which has A 2016 R2 project in market and updating it even whith 2016 xojo. That is not covered by any standard of Software industry and no Customer wants to have a Software where the Cyber-Security is made 2016!

The Market is to fast to accept this Ideas of making Software without the needed maintenance and guarantees for long therm maintenance. How I can say it? Simply: Cuba Project 10 years guarantee, Java until 2030, Gluon 20 years Guarantee. So I know that I can hold Software on the market because of the long maintenance time. Something what Xojo possibly misunderstood.

When releasing API2 they closed supporting API1. So, following to industry standards a not maintained compiler has to go. That’s it and there is nothing to discuss because that are Standards and not meanings. So in professional environments no usability at all.

Many will say: now we have API2. But what will come up after? API 3? 4? And what happened with the written Software under API2? Garbage? Rewriting? An alternative is needed for thousands of Developers to get secure that their Software can stay on market with a completely maintained IDE and Compiler. Otherwise there is a dead end the real basic fundament the Software is builded on.

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Another yawn inducing post. We understand you are ‘angry’. It is clouding your opinions. We get it. It doesn’t meet YOUR requirements. It meets mine and many others. Live with it.

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You can show that you are angry but this post has nothing to do with being angry. Maybe it is okay for your requirements. But NO really NO developer under authority can use it. And that makes it complex for the Developer which are in this trap. And maybe it is not convinient for you that xojo is not perfect but you want to have the world perfect: it is not.
I am not angry anymore, this phase is long time gone, something you maybe don’t understand. What I am writing is true and a problem for many developers. So what is your argument against the stuffs I was writing about? Do you have another things to say? Is there something where you want to say I am not writing trues? Do you believe that this Thread is ranting? Did I was not friendly in that what I was writing? Then write your arguments. In another words: if you have critics about the content itself then say it. But implicating that I am angry and trying to press me away will not work at all while I am not angry (1.!) and while I am writing trues (2.!) and while there are many xojo users I am in contact with which are really not happy with that behavior. And it will not change until they hear it often enough otherwise they may stand in their position and do nothing about.

I am happy for you that this is enough for you but you are deciding for others. That I am not doing. I think that is something you could at least think about before writing such ranting answer to me.

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@anon50707693,
You are aware that if the posts by @thorstenstueker bore you so much, you can simply mark the forum to no long expose you to his comments.

While he does get a bit passionate in his postings, for the most part they are totally accurate. Xojo IS doing a huge disservice to the industry that it purports to support, all fueled by the TRUMP-like ego of the CEO

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A new update always has two sides.

I am happy about performance improvements, the better temp file handling and the WebLocation class.

But I still wait for a proper style editor and a way to import web 1 projects and retain which control had which custom style.

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Performance improvements ?
I have noticed any
Where are you seeing things improved ?

But I still wait for a proper style editor and a way to import web 1 projects and retain which control had which custom style.

sounds like an opportunity for an enterprising person to write such a “converter”

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Under Linux the performance is a bit better. But still hundrets of miles away from IntelliJ Idea. And after an hour of working it becomes slower and slower like the last version. Only not that fast. But still. So there is a performance improvement but only for a short time effect

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The JSON processing is faster, which helps the web engine.

And yes, I would be happy if anyone writes some helper tool to convert old projects.

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And I hoped Monkeybread will write one…

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Xojo.Data GenerateJson & ParseJson was pretty darned fast already as it was done in C++ instead of Xojo
Thats mostly what they renamed / repurposed as far as I can tell

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When I read some of your posts I get the impression you still are angry. If it is not anger I don’t understand what your intention is with all this ranting.

Regarding the latest release, you knew it would not come with a converter/importing possibility, didn’t you? And official support for styles seems to be gone for now, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise if you have followed TOF. So, what is the point of this thread?

Personally I find your ranting has gone too far, but I may not be interpreting it properly.

Julen

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Maybe you see it as ranting. In my eyes it is not to far. I can see many of the people that need exactly that functionalities but it has in your eyes no need to speak about. That is okay. I have a different view on it. And I believe that it is not forbidden.

The next point is that I see also that xojo is starting to become a citizen developer product instead of a professional language. Snd stealing away features isn’t the right way. Ranting that somebody speaks about also not. And that’s the point of your Answer. More friendly than the most before but in the result the same.

If I would not speak trues: okay. If every word is true: where’s the problem. And if you don’t want to see me: block me.

I will when ever I want to say what I mean even if it disturbed you in your comfort zone. That protects from being a forum to provide further marketing.

By the way, after testing I wrote also sbout for example the improvements of the ide. Improvements which are only minimal optimization of the ide. I wrote also that it’s not enough cause it’s still becoming slow under Linux. You mean that’s ranting? I don’t think so.

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Ah and no. I did not know that there will not be a solution. The clue in it is that many people where asking about. Hope dies last.

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I’d have to go back through old conference videos as I seem to recall some presentation saying there would be a converter. But its just a vague recollection

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But it is said that. And that shows their policy.

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Ok, you are trying to help then? In my opinion you are not doing it in the right way (maybe there isn’t an effective way, that’s something I don’t know).

I have never said that and I don’t agree with it.

I believe what you will achieve this way is harming the company, not helping them improve thier product, and in the long run it will in turn harm those who stick to Xojo, i.e. the ones you are trying to help.

There is something you often do in your posts I believe is not true: you take your own experience and extrapolate it to everyone using Xojo professionally, which is not correct. And I know/believe you are talking about your own experience, but the way you write it anyone not following Xojo as close as we do will not know that you mean it that way.

I believe you are right and I seem to recall this was brought up in TOF and Geoff (or maybe Greg) replied that that was the initial plan but at some point during the development of the new framework they dismissed it because it became too difficult/costly.

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(1) In my eyes there is no effective WAY to explaine except this way.
(2) I did understand it different, sorry if I was wring.
(3) I don’t want to harm xojo. I want them to react for the developer. I lost nearly thre man years of development because of the change and I am not alone with this. That was harming me.
(4) No, I am not extrapolating my experience, I am extrapolating the experience peolpe have I am connected with including my own experiences. It may be that this is in your viewe not correct but under objectiv conditions it is so that it is not MY experience it is experience of MANY. I will not speak about my experience cause it was nearly costing my existence cause of corona the revenue was down and we had to re-develop and re-certificate the most of our products.
(5) There is no problem to write this converter for existing projects. It would be possible to do that, especially for xojo it would be possible. Also the Styles they could implement without to much time for it. It is a question of wanting it and having the chance of spending time. And there we are at the point: xojo has a to small development team. Even mine is bigger. So it is a real problem to do stuffs like this in development. It is the same with Android: they wrote before a long long time that it will come soon. What is soon. That has nothing to do with my experience. It has to do with the Behavior of the company. Maybe it is their right to behave so but I have the right to think different and to speak out loud.

When taking a look of development of 2020R1 to 2021R1 you may see and get that there where many steps back and many changes which are without a real sense. So: what is costing time, what not? That is development. But that has nothing to do with released Software, it has to do with Software in development. Incubating Web 2.0 for a longer time as Beta Version would help to improve before people working productive with it. It is my thinking and thats the following to the industrial standards.

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I dont think anyone, customer or not, is beholden to Xojo to always ONLY help them and say nice things
The dont permit much in the way of criticism or dissent on their own forums

But here you can disagree with each other and criticize Xojo when you think they have earned it

Around 23:00 in the 103_Web_framework presentation from 2018
Or 16:23 in the 2019 web framework presentation

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I believe generally people react better to constructive criticism than to attacks (and that is how I perceive your posts). But in this case I often see capable people trying to help Xojo with a very positive attitude and they are turned down, so maybe you are right to try this strategy (although I don’t think it’s a good one).

No need to be sorry, all good.

But I would think that’s mostly what you will achieve.

I know, and I wish you the best with your company.

I agree, and I am sure there are many more you don’t know who had similar experiences too. But I am sure there are many others who did not have such problems. So, since MANY is not ALL, your generalization is not correct. For what I read in Xojo Forum, many people still use WEB1.0 and some have made WEB2.0 apps already, despite current state of the new framework. So if you say Xojo Web can’t be used professionally you are wrong, in my opinion.

Probably just a matter of cost, but I have no idea.

Well, I find their transition from Web1 to Web2 (i.e. from a mature product to an incomplete product) to be unacceptable, cutting any maintenance for Web1, leaving people the choice of using an old version of Xojo or a buggy incomplete one. I find the decision of making the transition this way wasn’t the right one.

I would tend to agree with this but without I deeper knowledge of what is going on in the company …

Found the thread in the Xojo Forum (Kudos to Geoff and Xojo - #39 by Markus_Winter - General - Xojo Programming Forum):
Geoff:

I am nearly certain that we never promised code conversion from Web 1.0 to 2.0 as we have not done any code conversion in many years as we believe it has to be close to perfect or you’re better off not doing it at all.

What we talked about was converting the project itself so that you wouldn’t have to copy/paste between the old project and a new one.

Someone quoting Norman ( :joy:):

2018 Web Framework presentation @ 23:25 says

  • conversion “will be one way”
  • controls will use new API’s (but old apis will exist & old apps will run )
  • layouts will convert to fixed so controls will be roughly fixed in place

2019 says some of the same things at a different point in time
As does 2020

Geoff again:

You’re correct that in 2018 we believed that we could actually support both the old and new web frameworks within the same project. That turned out to not be the case and in 2019 at XDC we were exceedingly clear about that. We said we would not be supporting API 1.0 (that the new Web Framework would be API 2.0 only) and that while we would be importing projects, we would not be converting code because we have found in the past that unless you do it nearly 100% perfectly, it’s better to not do it at all.

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That’s not known on my side. As far as I was informed from marketing of xojo it should be possible. But anyway: it’s not done and that’s it. And yes, there is one point making me angry: that a really good product with a broad range of professional users in the iOt development scene was kicking itself out of this market. And yes: I know my market and my competitors, I know many of them as my customers. And yes: all xojo users suffered. Why? Becsuse of the Udo standards like 62304. standards mit letting you use a deprecated development toolchain. If it’s one component we could discuss. Is it ide then it is showstopping. I got directly within the fda audit order to change that cause it is not accepted to use deprecated compiler and language where api2 is another language than api 1 in their definitions

In the same moment api2 missed core features for development.

Exactly that was the end of the story in my and many other cases. And I have to agree: there was a wording on my side which is not acceptable: professional development has to be changed under all circumstances to professional development under control of authorities. Means medical, traffic, ships, dangerous industrial stacks. So you’re right in that point