Xojo
Lifeboat Has Finally Launched!
2021-03-10
The day has come. I am so very excited to announce that Lifeboat has finally launched!
Under development for the last year, Lifeboat is finally ready to help developers deploy Xojo Web applications. I built Lifeboat to help developers with all levels of need. I wanted it to be easy to use, but also have the features I need myself to serve multiple clients.
Public pre-release testing began in November, and to my surprise people were interested in supporting it financially even before it was completely ready! I am so very grateful to the early faith and for everyone's continued support. Together we've made over 1200 changes and personally logged more than 315 hours working on Lifeboat.
It's here. It's ready. It rocks. Read More…
Under development for the last year, Lifeboat is finally ready to help developers deploy Xojo Web applications. I built Lifeboat to help developers with all levels of need. I wanted it to be easy to use, but also have the features I need myself to serve multiple clients.
Public pre-release testing began in November, and to my surprise people were interested in supporting it financially even before it was completely ready! I am so very grateful to the early faith and for everyone's continued support. Together we've made over 1200 changes and personally logged more than 315 hours working on Lifeboat.
It's here. It's ready. It rocks. Read More…
Send Transactional Email in Pure Xojo Code for Free With Mailjet
2021-02-07
Sending transactional email is an incredibly common need in many Xojo apps. There are a handful of providers out there with easy to integrate APIs, but the other day I came across one very appealing to me, Mailjet (https://mailjet.com). I've written an open source class that integrates easily with any Xojo project... Read More…
The Secret of the ARGen Sidebar
2020-09-25
The interface-lift for ARGen had been in the works for a few months prior to the announcement of the transfer. I had mentioned to Bob that I wanted to make ARGen simpler if we had the time. I knew I wanted to change the PopupMenu / Step design, but hadn’t solidified any mockup designs then.
As time progressed the idea grew to having the steps on the side of the window, akin to an Installer Package. This would give users an overview of every step (which was important to me), but it introduced a new challenge. The installer paradigm was designed for navigation sequentially – or one step at a time – and users would have to click next continually.
I didn’t need to build that design to know it was going to be a poor user experience. It was obvious the user would need to be able to navigate the steps in any order using the control. Naturally I thought I’d go for the source list approach. However there wasn’t any up-to-date source list available for Xojo. The closest thing was FGSourceList, a now outdated look. Read More…
As time progressed the idea grew to having the steps on the side of the window, akin to an Installer Package. This would give users an overview of every step (which was important to me), but it introduced a new challenge. The installer paradigm was designed for navigation sequentially – or one step at a time – and users would have to click next continually.
I didn’t need to build that design to know it was going to be a poor user experience. It was obvious the user would need to be able to navigate the steps in any order using the control. Naturally I thought I’d go for the source list approach. However there wasn’t any up-to-date source list available for Xojo. The closest thing was FGSourceList, a now outdated look. Read More…
Appception: Helper Apps
2020-06-24
Very recently I needed to improve the generation tens of thousands of images with a Xojo Desktop project. The image generation code had already been written, and takes advantage of several desktop specific features (custom font activation with MBS most specifically).
The process took minutes originally. It was so bad that the initial author of the code stuck a confirmation dialog to the user prior to running the batch. Now, because of the world events, the batches were larger than ever. On a whole it had to be improved.
Obviously the best way to speed this up was to split the batch into chunks for helper processes. This was going to be a new adventure in Xojo for me, and I was ready to take a bite. Read More…
The process took minutes originally. It was so bad that the initial author of the code stuck a confirmation dialog to the user prior to running the batch. Now, because of the world events, the batches were larger than ever. On a whole it had to be improved.
Obviously the best way to speed this up was to split the batch into chunks for helper processes. This was going to be a new adventure in Xojo for me, and I was ready to take a bite. Read More…
Xojo Web: What to Do After You Click Build
2020-04-07
Deploying a standalone Xojo Web app for the first time may look unfamiliar or confusing. One might look at the built product and wonder where the files are. None of this ends in .asp, .cgi, or .php; and where is index.html?
I promise, this whole package makes things easier for developers. With a Xojo Web app, the built product is the web server. Once it’s running, the web app handles everything for us.
So how does a Xojo Web app get running? There are a few “easy button” solutions. One is, of course, Xojo Cloud the built in service. Additionally, there is at least one third party hosting service dedicated to Xojo Web apps. These tools can simplify deployment, but require that a developer relies on customer service when there’s a problem.
For mission critical applications, DIY-ers, and cost conscious developers the option to deploy to a Linux server might be a more appealing choice. Read More…
I promise, this whole package makes things easier for developers. With a Xojo Web app, the built product is the web server. Once it’s running, the web app handles everything for us.
So how does a Xojo Web app get running? There are a few “easy button” solutions. One is, of course, Xojo Cloud the built in service. Additionally, there is at least one third party hosting service dedicated to Xojo Web apps. These tools can simplify deployment, but require that a developer relies on customer service when there’s a problem.
For mission critical applications, DIY-ers, and cost conscious developers the option to deploy to a Linux server might be a more appealing choice. Read More…