For a while now, I’ve been trying to make Xojo my first programming language because it claims to compare itself to modern Visual Basic, but the documentation assumes you’re already coming from another language. The initial steps focus on using the IDE, but not the language itself. Fortunately, I found the “Introduction to Programming with Xojo” book, but it’s too outdated. Most of the projects no longer work due to changes in the API and the language. The minimum version that aligns with the contents of the book is Xojo 2015, but logically, it can’t be used for learning.
Another issue that I believe is not being handled fairly is the license pricing. It doesn’t seem fair to me that Xojo hasn’t adjusted the price of the license after making Linux compilation free. I find it unfair to pay the same price, considering that the desktop license is no longer the same as it used to be. Not everyone wants to create commercial software—some people, like me, just want to create free applications for personal use. I don’t think it’s fair that we have to pay for this when other platforms, like Visual Studio and Delphi, offer free versions.
Another major limitation is the inability to test Android applications. The emulator is useless if you’re trying to create applications that utilize a device’s sensors. It’s also useless for applications that use networking because the emulator is too slow. But the worst part is the high price, especially considering that you can’t even create your own libraries or add-ons without resorting to C++, whereas Visual Basic allowed this. In other words, on top of the $799, you have to spend additional money on external add-ons.
At no point do I mean to sound hostile. I’m choosing Xojo because it truly is a multiplatform solution. Visual Studio and Delphi can only create applications for Windows, Android, and Mac, but not for Linux. However, I feel that Xojo needs to improve its flexibility, as well as the way user interfaces are created. The current capabilities remind me of 16-bit applications. It would also be nice if they allowed payment via PayPal directly without having to contact Xojo.
As I understand it, you can use Xojo for free running the applications out of the IDE. If you are using an application for your personal use, you can open Xojo and the app that you have worked on in the IDE and click Run. Most applications that one might create for your own use will run quite satisfactorily.
I am not a commercial developer and most of my apps are for my own personal use. I often don’t even bother to build an application. I just run them out of the IDE. Then if I run into bugs I can fix them. If I am inspired to make some change, I can just do it then and there.
If you want to build an application for your use then you can pay $100 for the version that runs on your particular computer (Desktop version). In my view, that is a very low price for a piece of very sophisticated and powerful software. It is not even a subscription, you can use that $100 application for years if you do not want to get the latest features.
Most people, if they are only creating applications for “personal use” do not need to run it on multiple types of computer. (PC, Mac, Linux). If you really need all three, that would be $300. Just two would, of course, be only $200.
Introduction to Programming with Xojo is a free book. It is not too hard to find in that it is featured on the Xojo website and can be downloaded from there.
This is not aligned with Xojo 2015. It incorporates the current API (API 2). If there is content in the book or there are projects that will not run in the current version of Xojo, then I would consider that to be a “bug” and Feedback should be provided. Do you have specific examples where the content of the book is outdated and will not run?
There used to be a “User Guide” that was very useful. I think the same information is all still there, but now scattered around under various sections like “API” and “Learn object-oriented programming”. You have to dig around.
Thanks for responding so quickly, the lite version is not enough, as it does not support all the features, for example it does not allow connections to mysql databases. I do know that using the run button you can run the application, but I do not feel like having to compile it every time I want to use it. Maybe I am a weirdo for not wanting this. Under these restrictive conditions it is better for me to use python with tk. As for the book, the book I found refers to older versions since it makes references to events such as action and to text field properties that are not in the current versions.
I downloaded the book from here Iniciación — Xojo documentation
Yes, I know that Xojo allows you to debug android apps on the emulator but as I mentioned the emulator is really slow.
Yes, I sent him an email in July but I didn’t receive a reply, I assume he abandoned the book, that’s why I can’t follow the documentation in English.
the device debugging you refer to is the adb debugging but this is not viable since it is an application that uses the location sensor to map the distance between various points and measure the time it takes from one point to another, then the application would send the data to a mysql database
The community is really friendly, I appreciate that, but Xojo seems like a project in its infancy, and I say it seems because I was able to investigate and I saw that Xojo has been active since 1998.
Xojo administration is not very flexible for modern times.
That is a Spanish version of the documentation. I cannot find a modern Spanish one.
On the off-chance it might be useful, I created a Spanish version of the up-to-date documentation using machine translation. I don’t know Spanish so I have no idea of whether such a thing would be of value.
Of course since the code itself is in English, a pure Spanish speaker would have to have the English PDF also to deal with the code snippets themselves because the machine translator just goes to town making everything Spanish including the code.
You are not a weirdo. It is just that what you want is not free.
Under these restrictive conditions it is better for me to use python with tk.
Tkinter? For me, I would pay many hundreds of dollars not to have to use this for the GUI of applications that I was building for myself. For me, there is a HUGE gap between Python/Tkinter and Xojo in terms of ease of creating a GUI application.
I mean - that’s 26 years, right? Not too shabby for a commercial language (i.e., not open source) not subsidized by a major OS vendor. Python didn’t even reach version 1.0 until 1994, so it’s not that much older.
I have good news for you regarding fairness: no one is making you use Xojo. This community is very friendly and we’ll do our best to help you, but in the end you can always choose a different tool.
If you want to pay for your license via PayPal, you can contact hello@xojo.com and request it. Then the fine folks at Xojo will send you a PayPal link to do so. It’s an alternative to credit cards. It is mentioned on the Store page, near the bottom.
As an ex-employee of Xojo, I would like to point something out here, in terms of how viable it is to create commercial products with Xojo… The Xojo IDE is written in Xojo and they don’t use third party plugins to make it work.
For me, there is a HUGE gap between Python/Tkinter and Xojo in terms of ease of creating a GUI application.
This community is very friendly and we’ll do our best to help you, but in the end you can always choose a different tool.