Is web use down?

The WebSDK examples are on a “hello world” level. There is only “// Use this method to serialize the data your control needs for initial setup” and the like in the example “SDK Examples”.

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That’s different from “examples aren’t working”. I’ll check if there is a Feature Request to bring more examples to the WebSDK project, I’ll open one if not.

You know what’d be really handy would be to see inside WebButton. It’s stylable, receives property updates, and sends data to the server. It covers tons of basics without being a complex control. It’d be a far better example than the Gravatar one.

Also, if you get the chance, please make the WebSDK documentation not suck. It’s so hard to use, it’s blinding to those of us who need dark mode, and it has holes that were never filled even though the tickets were closed.

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The Feature Request:
Add more WebSDK examples

Please add there any example idea that could help you understand how the WebSDK works and improve the examples :pray:

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Our Board made the decision to ride out our Web 1.0 app and develop a replacement in a different environment. Primary reason was not difficulty of transition to Web 2.0. But rather the availability of programmers in our area. The local college kicks out programmers we can hire and put immediately to work. Not have to retrain. I have been watching Web 2.0 and it is going in the right direction. I wish Xojo much success with it!

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Almost all my FC about web 2.0 are private. Those were on the beta tester channell.

Web 1.0 received very few bug fixes and features in the las years of its life because Xojo take time from it to web 2.0, I was one of the many people exited about the new Web framework, and was really disapointed with what they deliver.

But yes, after that, looking the amount of unsolved bugs and the need to upvote to fix a very basic control not working, looking those reports verified and not fixed for various releases, yes it feels like a waste of time to keep the beta tester work and keep waiting for the produt to achieve a functional level.

Take for example this, almost a year to fix a control not working: Web 2.0 date picker on WebDialog problem - #9 by Ivan_Tellez

“it works” as a hellow world, but not as a full control example. Those are really basic and dont cover much. The documentation is scarse, and the IDE sucks for this job.

And yes I did a Feature Request to improve that last one when trying to do use the SDK to cover the big holes in the framework and before realizing that redoing most of the controls to have a working tool was not wort it.

Again, Im glad web is moving forward, but beetween the Web 1.0 stop being actively updated and now that web 2.0 is improving were like 5 years, people cant just wait.

A full control that uses all the features of the WebSDK and heavelly commented on why that feature is used.

Another tool that I use, is making their controls open source in their own SDK, maybe Xojo could port one or more of the internal controls to be written on the SDK and made it open source, this way you have a good example, and you can inprove the SDK

Maybe another Feature Request to improve the documentation also

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Great unraveled the mystery! Well if they don’t contain sensitive data I’d say you can make them public if you’d like so we can vote/ test them etc.

If you mean working as in “run” then yes sure it runs.

But Web control example that has no UI and does nothing at all is not even close to useful. Web 1 at least had example how to do control displaying its UI, talking to its Java script etc etc.

Example that does nothing is just wasting everyone’s time.

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The Gravatar example is a visual control. We’ll add more though.

It would be great having a sample application that gives beginners a ride across the gamut of Web 2 capabilities. Code snippets can be hard to understand for beginners.

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Björn is one of the oldest and most experienced Xojo users. He has been designing powerful Xojo/Realbasic plugins for a very long time.

If he finds the webSdk documentation and examples unconvincing, you really have to take his feelings into account I think, because 99.99% of Xojo users are less experienced and competent, and will therefore have a much harder time than he did.

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The Gravatar example works here:
ezgif.com-gif-maker (5)

Another example can be downloaded from:

this is an updated ChartJS library (ver 3.x, Xojo uses 2.x)

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Anybody willing to help to improve the examples is invited to comment in this Feature Request:
Add more WebSDK examples

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Just adding my two cents here: I’m building a bigger Xojo Web app and find it generelly joyful to do so with Xojo. It helps me to get from Idea to Production in hours, not days or weeks.

However, there is a major downside to Xojo Web: most of the important components are buggy. I filed 8 bug reports over the course of only a few weeks, all of them confirmed (for a moment it felt like I was the only one using Xojo Web). Most of them are concerned with the WebListBox. It is the most important component for me but barely useable beyond the most simple use cases. So I purchased Graffitisuite, which adds another $399/year to my bill - just for a working Grid.

Then there are the WebPanel, WebPagination and WebCharts. All of them are buggy, as soon as I want to use them seriously. Sometimes there are workarounds, sometimes there aren’t, which is very bad when you are in the middle of a serious project and have no way to fix:

  • WebPagination doesn’t behave at all as it should
  • WebPanel shows the wrong content in the wrong tab after a page switch (I think Ricardo fixed that but it is not yet released)
  • WebCharts do not display the labels in hover anymore (which makes them unusable), also a confirmed bug, open now for 9 months

While I am still generally happy, these issues throw a shadow over Xojo Web, a product that is costly for exactly one reason: to provide a smooth experience for developers who don’t want to struggle with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Webpack, Node.js, Webservices etc. and so on.

I hope that @Ricardo_Cruz will speed things up at Xojo Web and will fix not only the low-hanging fruits but all those dealbreakers which drive people away from Xojo Web.

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I guess this is case #66052

Can you try: this WebSDK ChartJS

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Amazing! I just tried that project and noticed it already uses Chart.js 3.x, which is great. You probably saved my day @AlbertoD . Is this your project?

@Ricardo_Cruz created the project, I just added a couple of things.

I want to learn WebSDK to do things like that but I haven’t looked into it (no time).

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Well then, thank you @Ricardo_Cruz !

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Yup. We need to clone @Ricardo_Cruz. He is an exterminator extraordinaire in a target rich environment.

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