MBS Plugins

New to Xojo - everyone seems to use MBS plugins, can I have some examples of usage so I can make some decisions please?

Their website is quite old fashioned and difficult to navigate.

I’m sure that I told Christian a few times that the website is terrible to navigate. He has a different opinion.

It doesn’t really matter what you want to do because the MBS plugin really does everything. Download the main file and have a look at the examples.

Maybe you watch a video first with a presentation about the plugins?

See videos

I can fill a whole page with examples of where MBS plug-ins saved my arse (I have Complete, SQL plug-in and Chart Director) but I’ll start with a couple that made the biggest positive impact for me:

  • Database plug-in … XOJO’s built-in database functions (at least pre-2.1) just don’t work, especially for MSSQL Server db. MBS made it a breeze! Never had a problem since!
  • RTF … using text areas with RTF in XOJO is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW … MBS solves all of that.

And the list goes on and on (e.g., uploading/downloading files from FTP, SFTP, etc., creating and managing Excel files, working with images, etc. etc. etc.) Other than Jim McKay’s piDog DataView (replacement for XOJO listbox), MBS should be your first investment to supplement XOJO’s functionality.

Sorry, Christian … the product you sell is unmatched in the XOJOsphere … but I’m with Beatrix on this one.

@Don Lyttle, @Beatrix Willius and @Rod Pascoe you are all welcome to email me directly with what changes you’d like to see. Maybe I can improve something…

[quote=464510:@Rod Pascoe]New to Xojo - everyone seems to use MBS plugins, can I have some examples of usage so I can make some decisions please?
[/quote]

First make sure you need it!

If you need it, depends on what you need to do… You can do a lot without plugins but not everything.

For somethings plugins are a necessity to do reasonably, and for some things they may just be nice to have time savers, and for some things not needed at all.

In recent years outside of ChartDirector I’ve found that i could get by with the significantly less expensive (though less extensive) Einhugur plugins (https://www.einhugur.com)…

For example, the Einhugur PDF and Excel capabilities don’t come close to the MBS products, but they do all I need. The Einhugur compression and encryption plugins do what I need as well. There are also some basic controls that Xojo should have but does not includes as well as things like barcode stuff and some graphics stuff…

But I am not a professional developer so maybe my needs are more modest than most.

I suspect some full time developers have plugin from all three major plugin vendors (MBS Complete + the individual DynaPDF, ChartDirector, SQL), Einhugur and Chilkat… but along with paying for Xojo, that is way more money to maintain than I could justify!

So basically it depends on what you need/want to do with Xojo… I think the best thing would be to just start using Xojo and look at the plugins when you start hitting limitations you can not deal with.

-Karen

totally agree with that statement.
I hav been a professional software developer for 40+ years, and using Xojo for 13+ years… and I do not own now, nor have I ever purchased a plugin package of any kind. Now for me that is for a few reasons. 1) I have the ability to write what I need when I need it 2) because of #1 I have full control of and access to the source code 3) I’ve been burned BIG time when 3rd party vendors vanish.

Others use them to save time/money or because they can’t come up with a solution otherwise. Those are decisions you need to make,

[quote=464510:@Rod Pascoe]New to Xojo - everyone seems to use MBS plugins, can I have some examples of usage so I can make some decisions please?

Their website is quite old fashioned and difficult to navigate.[/quote]

You’re not the only one, I gave up a long time ago.
The good thing is that my apps are 100% Xojo and don’t require plugins now.

Well, it’s always a decision between make and buy.
I am on one side as a supplier and try to provide best value for our clients.
And over the last 18 years thousands of Xojo developers decided it is a better choice to use our plugins.

[quote=464543:@Sylvain Guillemette]You’re not the only one, I gave up a long time ago.
The good thing is that my apps are 100% Xojo and don’t require plugins now.[/quote]

I was about to study using the MBS plugins, but since you can do your job with using any plugins, I’d like to do that too. I’m planning not to use any plugins for now because I’m still new to Xojo, just started using it a month ago. I want to do things in Xojo first before using any plugins. Is this a good decision for me? Or nah?

Time is the critical factor for me to use plugins. Sure I can do everything myself. But I’d rather pay the plugin authors some money before I waste days or weeks of my time for something that exists already. Or there is a bug in Xojo. When the same functionality exists in a plugin I simply switch over. That has happened for databases and sockets.

Yes, of course. Learn as much as you can about the Xojo language features as you can first, so as to later make the best of leveraging where you need Plugins. That way you’ll have a better understanding of when potentially purchasing a Plugin will save you time and add value.

If you need a license this week around ThanksGiving in the US, please try coupon code BlackfridayMBS for ordering.
Or email us directly for an invoice or Paypal link for the items you need.

What discount are you offering with the coupon, Christian?

Announcement is coming soon, but it should be 20% for new licenses.

@Rod Pascoe , lots of good advice here. I buy the Complete plugin set, the SQL Plugin and the DynaPDF plugin. I would highly recommend using the SQL Plugin if you are using MSSQL from the start. I spent a lot of time pushing the edges of the Xojo SQL Plugin and the ODBC plugin before settling on the MBS plugin for database access.

If you start to hit limitations in Xojo, your first port of call should be the MBS site to see if any of Christian’s plugins do the job. If you find that they do and you think you’d like to buy a plugin, don’t buy the individual plugin, buy the complete set (but be aware the SQL and DynaPDF are NOT included in the complete set)

The DynaPDF plugin is relatively expensive and I would investigate other simpler and cheaper alternatives like wkHTMLtoPDF for producing PDFs. But, if you are doing hardcore, PDF manipulation and/or complex PDF generation, then DynaPDF is the way to go.

@Dave S is right about concerns with using 3rd party plugins, but Christian has been doing this for years, and the support he provides is exceptional.

The MBS site can be tricky to navigate but it’s because it’s so extensive. Persevere!

As a newbie at Xojo I also studied a number of Plugins but to me it was quite difficult to figure out what I really needed. I’ve bought a few plugins, but then didn’t end up using them as a found a workaround directly in Xojo.

For the MBS plugin, the major issue I have is that I can’t seem to figure out which functions that Xojo already is covering. As Xojo developed some of the ‘needed’ features in MBS is now directly in Xojo. So if MBS could make a “Complete Plugin” only containing the features that is not directly supported by Xojo - That would make the choice of whether to buy a Plugin much easier… For me anyway. :slight_smile:

You can connect to database with MBS or with Xojo’s built-in plugins.

Built-in is fine for 90%, but the 10% who need more go with the plugin.

Same for various PDF tools. The 10% who need more go with our DynaPDF plugin.

@Christian Schmitz i use mbs plugins and i love it! but i agree the site navigation is no easy
please, look at this site. It looks organized, neat and easy to navigate.
https://www.chilkatsoft.com/refdoc/xojo.asp