Is Xojo the right solution?

Targets iOS
22

[quote=424709:@Geoff Perlman]We don’t have new iOS features planned for r1. However, if you could tell me specifically what things you feel are missing, I’d be happy to review them
[/quote]
What would be super useful would be the ability to zoom out in the IDE when desingning the UI. I find it really challenging to layout an iPad app simply because the device is so large and I constantly have to scroll around to get a feel for what the view looks like.

Like others have echoed, some more simple control property controls exposed would be helpful.

Finally, for the love of all that is good, please add RegEx support to the iOS framework. It’s a core language feature that’s been requested for over 4 years.

23

their main competitor has a web service that simulates iOS. but it’s a paid service. don’t know if it’s really usable?

24

That’s a nice thought, but the whole reason for using the simulator is quick debug runs. A web service doesn’t give you debugger support.

25

that’s what I said, I highly doubt (I’ve never used it nor their dev tools) it’s really a workable solution.

26

[quote=425069:@Garry Pettet]What would be super useful would be the ability to zoom out in the IDE when desingning the UI. I find it really challenging to layout an iPad app simply because the device is so large and I constantly have to scroll around to get a feel for what the view looks like.

Like others have echoed, some more simple control property controls exposed would be helpful.

Finally, for the love of all that is good, please add RegEx support to the iOS framework. It’s a core language feature that’s been requested for over 4 years.[/quote]
Agreed on all counts.

Until they finally add it, Regex is available in iOSKit.

27

True, the competition’s offering doesn’t support full debugging to your iOS device from their Windows IDE.

But it does offer a Log() function that prints to their IDE message queue (just like Xojo IDE messages), plus it supports a type of hot-reloading so you can use your iPhone or iPad as a live designer surface while you visually work the UI in the Windows IDE - than their Hosted Mac Builder can reload your app almost instantly. All from Windows, no Mac required.

The only real downside, IMO, is that the competitor doesn’t offer a macOS IDE (only Windows). But I guess that’s what Parallels and VMWare are for :wink:

28

Actually I write iOS apps for 2 years WITHOUT having to touch a Mac nor using a simulator. Limit the iOS proyects to just Mac is only a policy/decision

Maybe not talking about the same competitor but the one that I know has a web service for compiling, not for simulating.

It can be done with a phisical device and a web service

There is allways the other option, using a mac in the local network to do the compilation while working on a windows PC and a physical device for debug

29

iOS or Android doesn’t matter, the Xojo development team is so slow that you always will be lagging behind. This also is true for the competition despite the fact they are faster.

If you can develop in Swift for iOS or Java for Android, you are always a few steps ahead. Only following this path, you go on a hard road because from that point on, there is not really an “easy” way any longer. That is where Xojo and the competition comes in, they make it easy for you at the cost of flexibility.

I took a Udemy course about Android Studio and just develop in the native environment. The same is true for Swift on iOS. it is indeed a harder road but you have much more control (and responsibilities) over what you are doing.

For desktop solutions, Xojo is an excellent choice to make and I do recommend it. For mobile, better to choose another solution in my personal opinion.

30

WIth this I 100% agree, but I disagree that the learning curve is steeper… it is different, ObjC IS steeper, but Swift is actually quite easy, and Xcode helps ALOT when you make mistakes