I want Xojo to succeed. My living relies on it. This is the same for others I talk with. We all NEED Xojo to succeed. For us it needs to do more than just survive from day to day. We need it to grow. Our businesses depend on Xojo. We need it to be stable. We need it to be dependable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recent API changes seem to ignore the concerns of those businesses that need to support customers that may be using legacy OS versions and legacy hardware. Some of the API changes have spawned their own new bugs that make adopting it problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2019r2 makes it harder to go back and forth between versions. We all realize that Xojo never guaranteed that this would work well; but until now Xojo never deliberately made changes they knew would break this ability. We dont do this because its fun. We do it because our customers demand it as they run older versions of Windows & macOS. Xojo used to make this a simple matter. Now its not so simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’re put in the position of either rewriting code or leaving it with tons of deprecation warnings for no gain in functionality*.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the changes may silently break existing code. A third party supplying a control to a customer can be broken when that customer simply adds the Opening event. This may silently render the control non-functional. This is a support headache for all vendors of third party controls with no real means to fix the problem AND still attract and sell to a wide audience of Xojo users; some of whom are still using older versions. It would be nice if Xojo’s third party market was large enough to not have to cater to old versions; but it’s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of us are very OCD and all those warnings drive us all crazy as something really important could be hiding in there. So we examine all this code and IF we rewrite it we can’t go back to old versions at all. Certainly not if we use the renamed events. Thats a problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some cases the code that now has deprecation warnings may be many years old. In some cases more than a decade. And if we have to rewrite it there’s no reason not to look at other tools and technologies for those rewrites. I’m not saying that this is what we want to do. We’d rather not. We like Xojo which is why we have used it – but the issues going back and forth between versions make it sufficiently difficult that if we’re going to have to rewrite we might as well look at what other tools exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I’m hoping for is for Xojo to give me, us, a reason NOT to have to even think about such a move. More a direction that says “we value these full time developers” as that seems to have been missing lately which is why I’m even writing this. Full time developers feel like they are simply ignored, their concerns not understood, and generally that we’re just around to pay for Pro licenses and nothing more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More targets isnt what many of us are looking for. We need a tool that is reliable, eminently capable on the targets it has now & in the projects we use it for, and mostly bug free. We need targets that are capable of taking on real world significant applications on the day we get them. Not ones that require a significant number of declares for basic functionality. And ones that can scale well and handle many users without having to resort to some of the issues that arise with web apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Professional level features will retain existing users and still help the citizen developers that find Xojo. A better reporting tool, PDF export, built-in Date and Date Time controls, and a better grid component, are just a few of the items that would add real value to the product that everyone can use today and keep users from outgrowing Xojo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a number of existing users that are already phasing Xojo out of their businesses and some are actively looking at alternatives to Xojo. Many of us feel that our needs are being purposely ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we knew that Xojo was intent on becoming more than a middle tier tool and dedicated to being a truly professional tool we’d be happy to pay more. A lot more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our livelihoods depend on Xojo and if that meant we all bought Pro+ licenses I doubt any of us would lose much sleep over that price tag. Its the price of doing business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please give us that reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*Most of 2019r2 did not improve functionality. macOS for folderitems got warranted updates along with fixes for the the select color panel. Generate and parse json were added and a few url connection fixes. But most of API 2.0 made few other must have changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Update Oct 29, 2019<\/strong> : I made this post available to Xojo Inc prior to removing the password protection. So far I have had no reply or comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want Xojo to succeed. My living relies on it. This is the same for others I talk with. We all NEED Xojo to succeed. For us it needs to do more than just survive from day to day. We need it to grow. Our businesses depend on Xojo. We need it to be stable. We … <\/p>\n