FWIW, we agree that web apps made with Xojo should have a more modern look and feel. We started out with the goal of making them look indistinguishable from desktop apps. What has happened over the years is that users have grown accustomed to web apps looking and feeling more like websites than desktop applications. It is already possible to achieve that (for the most part) but it takes more work than we’d like.
Our ultimate goal is for Xojo web apps to look and feel modern without sacrificing interactivity.
So in short, this is something we are very interested in and spending a lot of time thinking about. We don’t go at this without a lot of time spent up-front thinking about the long term ramifications of whatever direction we choose. We want to make sure we can confidently move in a particular direction before we take that first step.
@Geoff Perlman, thank you for your clarification. I am delighted to read that this is something what Xojo is considering. Indeed, like Michel said, implementing bootstrap or something in that direction would make Xojo a real killer RAD app.
Is this possible to do as a developer, do you have a workaround for this ? That would be nice, even if it takes a reasonable effort.
Of course, I can imagine that you can’t implement this overnight. The internet is changing rapidly, in that way that it is necessary that it can adjust itself constantly to state-of-the-art look and feel (quickly, without a lot of effort).
This is far too general for a simple workaround. But when I look at the demo Bootstrap sites, most of what I see is doable with Xojo controls. Of course, it does take a thorough knowledge of Xojo, and sometimes solid notions of JavaScript.
As often, it is far easier to start with a picture or a precise description of what you want to achieve in order to guide you.
The other approach I touched upon above is to completely do away with the Xojo UI, to design your app entirely in HTML/CSS/Bootstrap/JS, and take advantage of HandleURL to use a Xojo app for processing, not unlike a set of php scripts. Except Xojo is far, far more powerful.
Only downside to using Xojo like PHP via HandleURL is Xojo apps are only single core aware. You will have to load balance it to achieve the same number of users that PHP can handle. Lastly its ideal if you run it as a standalone.
Since the question was about a Xojo web app, my suggestion did not have as goal to replace php, but to offer a solution to design the UI with Bootstrap, while benefiting from the power of Xojo.
@Michel Bujardet Thank you, although that makes it more complicated. Even more when Xojo release a update it might messed up the design code.
Recently I have read a forum topic about Xojo made web applications (a lot of screenshots and URLs), which were pretty stunning by the way.
Maybe it is an idea to start a new forum topic to share best practices specifically for designing web applications with Xojo. I am sure many people has created something for this to design a layout for WE. Others can take advantage from that and maybe it is a source of inspiration for Xojo itself.
For me, looks in apps are as important as looks on the sales pages, as my competitors are often “real programmers” (compared to me) who can use Angular/Bootstrap natively without getting angry. My issue is I want to build solutions to problems, not programs per se, and often the problem is presentation of a solution.
What I wouldn’t pay for something that allowed me to build my apps’ pages in bootstrap (transparently whilst hiding the div-hell) so everything was “modern” looking and naturally responsive, attach BASIC-like code to buttons/whatever and decide if that code ran on the browser or the server, be able to access all elements/widgets without resorting to JS and have that all under one IDE. Add to that importing JS widgets (creating interfaces that allow you to use them within the ecosystem as if they were native widgets).
I see no reasons why an update should change anything. One of the best qualities of Xojo is consistence and legacy compatibility.
[quote]Recently I have read a forum topic about Xojo made web applications (a lot of screenshots and URLs), which were pretty stunning by the way.
Maybe it is an idea to start a new forum topic to share best practices specifically for designing web applications with Xojo. I am sure many people has created something for this to design a layout for WE. Others can take advantage from that and maybe it is a source of inspiration for Xojo itself.[/quote]
Start a thread in the Web channel, I and others will be glad to share and assist.
I don’t have the inside scoop on Blocs 2, but I’ve used Blocs before. If you’re no good at hand coding, or just want to get a prototype up quickly (I used it for the initial version of the new HTML Edit site) it is actually fantastic.
I would definitely recommend Blocs for your static website if you aren’t going to code it.
From Geoff’s reply above, it would seem Xojo is contemplating precisely something like that. I do believe, though, as I wrote it before, it is possible for third party providers to create the same kind of effects and controls as Bootstrap. Fact is, unfortunately, most of the current web products do require CSS, JS and HTML coding knowledge. Xojo is kind of an exception in the landscape.
I also strongly believe with some knowledge of Xojo, one can do pretty impressive stuff.
