Xojo Web Application - Basic Questions

Targets Web
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If the standalone web app is set up right, yes they could. While one can write a reasonable web app in xojo with out knowing a lot about web stuff, I agree deploying it is another matter, and if one is not making money on it Xojo Cloud is expensive.

My only experience with a web app was writing and then deploying a standalone at at my company on a regular PC. That app was used by people in my department from their desks in a browser… Doing that was very simple… but then again it was not on the open web.

In any case stand alone is MUCH simpler than CGI from what I gather, but also has issues.

BTW why did you buy a new Pro license? They would they not let you upgrade your desktop one?

62

Karen - Thanks for the info - I am hoping that Brad will be able to help me.

Don’t get me wrong about the XoJo Pro License. I had a few months left on my desktop license it so they applied a portion of the remaining desktop license value to the Xojo Pro license. Still, the total amount I’ve put out is equal to the cost of a 1-year Pro license.

Xojo has been good to me, but their support people talk to me at a level that I can’t comprehend. Their documentation makes it sound simple… I’ll probably end up abandoning the Xojo project and just doing it all in PHP. I’m not really out the money all that much since I have ended up learning a lot along the way.

Besides, I can use the Pro support for some issues with the desktop application and get my $$$ worth with that.

I just wish they were more forthcoming about the difficulties in deploying a Web Application and admitting that getting your application on Xojo Cloud is the real motivation.

63

I hate to sound defensive, but I don’t think we’ve been less than forthcoming about the complexities of deployment. We’ve covered deployment in several places (and even provide sample apps for people to test deploying to their own server before they purchase):

64

[quote=86172:@Ron Bower]
I just wish they were more forthcoming about the difficulties in deploying a Web Application and admitting that getting your application on Xojo Cloud is the real motivation.[/quote]
Folks have been deploying to various servers for a couple years - long before Xojo Cloud came along
And it’s always been work to make sure the server is set up right, has all the security patches etc, has apache configured correctly and so on. But they have managed to do so BUT you have to do a LOT more work setting all that up.
You HAVE to learn about server admin etc.

Xojo Cloud is our answer to make it so you can avoid all that “server admin & config stuff”
And it’s only been around for < 6 months while web edition has been around for a few years already
Xojo Cloud is our answer to “why is all this deployment stuff s complicated” - exactly the issue you’re having

Search the forums for “nginx” (another web server), “apache”, or “web deployment” and you’ll fin that you’re far from the first person to have issues with deployment and one reason we decided that we needed to “do something” to make this easier.

The result - Xojo Cloud

65

[quote=86172:@Ron Bower]I just wish they were more forthcoming about the difficulties in deploying a Web Application and admitting that getting your application on Xojo Cloud is the real motivation.
[/quote]

Ehh, you probably just picked the peak weird time to start being a WE developer. Xojo is rightly proud of their Xojo Cloud offering. We’re all trying to figure out what it’s really good for and unfortunately finding version 1 limitations that aren’t cheap to shoehorn projects into. My working theory is it’s great when you have a customer who will absorb a line item monthly hosting cost of $50.

At the same time, not having native 64 bits takes a lot of existing affordable choices off the table. There’s one trend with hosting providers (large XPS shared drives) that’s taken 32 bit compatibility off the table in a way that few understand unless they’ve worked with Flash servers.

When you’re doing something for your club or family, just screwing around, prototyping, or in an extended development phase, it’s tough to justify $50/month when $5/month will do what you need AND security isn’t terribly important (or you can handle it or learn to handle it well enough yourself).

As a community, we’ve gotten away from discussing deployment issues and we really need to get back into doing that. The landscape continues to change, shutting some doors that worked well and opening new ones that are promising. So you picked a weird time to start, but we can probably get you on the right track.

66

Paul & Norman -

You have every right to be defensive - it’s your employer and I would not expect less.

The issue, as seen from my point of view is the lack of transparency. The Xojo Web Store lists:
“Xojo Web - Build web applications that can run on Linux, Windows or OS X servers and support Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.”

That sounds pretty enticing. So, once intrigued, the next step is to look at the documentation involved. There is nothing in the documentation (that I have found, anyway) that states that unless you are using a dedicated personal server that you have total control over, then this product might not be right for you. Instead, anyone without the in-depth detailed knowledge and understanding of the inner workings of a Linux Server is led to believe that they can build and test an application on their desktop that they can upload and run it on a server.

Maybe that was not the intention, but i can tell you that is what I was led to believe. Maybe a naive thought - but I’m sure I’m not the first to be fooled.

I stated very early on in this thread that I was concerned about being able to get the application to run on the server but was told to keep developing the web app on my desktop and not buy the Pro license until I was ready to deploy.

Didn’t that advice imply that getting the application to run on the server would be a trivial matter ?

I also provided a description of exactly what I was trying to develop and how our users would use the site. No-one mentioned that there would be a problem if it was a “Virtual Private Server (VPS)” - new term just learned today.

So I wasted a week getting the application ready to deploy when I could have spent that week learning PHP.

Lesson learned - even at my age.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think that Xojo is a great desktop development product and I will continue to promote and recommend Xojo for desktop application development. However, the Xojo Web Application development product is not, in my humble opinion, ready for prime time by the casual user. You can do whatever you like with that opinion - but I am entitled to an opinion.

67

I wish you the best of luck with PHP and any / all related issues that brings to the fore

68

I think you are being a little unrealistic in your criticism. I’ve been working with Xojo web since it was released. Each installation and server is different and I have dozens of client apps and apps of my own working out there.

Some installations have been super easy. Upload and boom, it’s done. Others have taken me days of banging my head against a wall. So even with years of experience every server is different and, as Brad said, the world of servers is evolving so what worked last year might not be a good solution this week.

You rightly argue that the docs could be better. I’m not sure how you’d document the thousand things that might cause deployment failures but that’s beside the point. These forums, historically, have talked about the biggest issues. There’s even a rather detailed document floating around for IIS deployment (never had a need so I have no idea how good it is). This community will help you.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Lord knows I have plenty of my own. :slight_smile:

69

Well, this thread seems to have taken a turn - maybe my fault.

I do not mean to criticize Xojo but can’t seem to get across the fact that not everyone has the same ability to understand and comprehend the information that is provided. The information presented makes it all seem very simple and easy.

I get a wish for the best of luck with PHP, but no alternative other than Xojo Cloud. Where’s all the “Priority support via phone and email” that’s supposed to come with the Pro license? I don’t want to spent months struggling with PHP and had hoped that Xojo Web would be the solution - I guess I’ll see…

70

You did make it sound like you had already made up your mind to dump WE and go with PHP. Not much support can do at that point but wish you well. Personally, unless you’re already comfortable with PHP, I would think that ironing out the kinks of WE deployment would be significantly easier than learning PHP and trying to code up the same app. Actually, you’ll need at least three languages: PHP, JavaScript, and jQuery. (I know that jQuery is an addon to JavaScript, but the approach is different enough to count as its own language.)

71

Well, I think the Deployment chapter of the User Guide covers all these topics pretty well. But then, I wrote it. :slight_smile:

A key quote from the relevant section:

[quote]Troubleshooting
Unfortunately, not all servers are going to be properly configured to run Xojo web applications. You may find that you have to change the configuration yourself. These are some common areas to check. Unfortunately, step-by-step instructions are not possible because every installation of Apache is different, having configuration files in different places with different web server users and different permissions. Use these tips as guidelines, but you’ll still need an understanding of Apache and how it has been installed on the OS you are using.[/quote]

Making web apps with Xojo is easy. Deploying web apps in general is not easy. Even ones not made with Xojo can be tricky to deploy if you don’t have server experience. This is why we created Xojo Cloud.

But even if Xojo Cloud is not an option for you, I think you have gotten some good suggestions here for what your alternatives deployment solutions are. Hopefully picking PHP isn’t the one you choose. :frowning:

72

If the only motivation of that company was to sell Xojo Cloud, they would not have released Web Edition years ago.

Fact is, Linux is not as simple to use as Mac OS and Windows. Just read the adventures of users trying to run Xojo under Ubuntu 64 bit. I personally tried and simply gave up.

Desktop is already not a piece of cake, but server is yet a horse of a different color. To start with, pardon me, but you need some serious catch up when in previous posts you tell us that you have no idea what accessing the server through a line of command is. Telnet or SSH are just as necessary to run a server as the terminal is for Linux Desktop or burning a DVD under Windows 8.1 with native commands.

In fact, deploying a web app is not simple at all, and to make things worse, not all servers run them correctly. Even the most competent of us experienced that. It is not because you know how to upload an HTML and PHP site through FTP that you can deploy a Xojo CGI. Especially not on an out of the mill shared host. No more than a walkie talkie user could easily master the art of Ham radio. QRM happens in the world of Linux too.

Unless the site of your club absolutely requires the power of Xojo, you are probably better off using a fair amount of HTML and some PHP which will run out of the box with a simple shared hosting and FTP access. You can have SQL as well. And you will stop spending time and money on a wild goose chase. Not to mention sparing your nerves from undue stress.

Easy does it. Good luck.

73

BTW, Ron : I read that you are afraid of PHP. Don’t be. It may not be Xojo, it is still fairly easy to learn, with a syntax often not far from Xojo. And a web site can have most of its pages in HTML, which is as easy as Wysiwig, and just a tad of PHP when it is mandatory.

74

Thanks, MIchel,

75

[quote=86272:@Paul Lefebvre]Well, I think the Deployment chapter of the User Guide covers all these topics pretty well. But then, I wrote it. :slight_smile:

A key quote from the relevant section:
[/quote]

An evolving landscape survey that looked at popular hosting options in an effort to cover what people are likely to run into would be helpful. If it had a few pictures, I’m pretty sure Ron could pick out something that looked like cPanel and see the relevant issues to consider.

Also, security needs to be demystified. I can’t believe there is a single person buying Xojo Cloud because they think they’re incapable of understanding what Xojo is doing. I’ll see my Mom for Mothers’ Day. I bet I can explain it to her. Let me try putting it another way here… The now ex-CEO of Target just got canned because he didn’t understand security well enough to lead his company around a ridiculously bad and expensive credit card data breach. I’m sure we’re all capable and interested in understanding just what Xojo Cloud security entails.

I linked to DigitalOcean’s intro docs above because there was a contention that nobody does that. At any rate, security related to Xojo Cloud looks purposely and awkwardly opaque, and that seems to have the side effect of confusing and annoying non-Xojo Cloud users rather than getting them to throw up their hands and sign up.

76

Going through this whole thread I now realize how important it is to stress to potential Xojo Web users that they need to pick a compatible VPS host before developing an entire application. Xojo Web will not run everywhere, and it’s easier to run some places then others.

Windows Azure is a little pricey ($15/month for 768 MB RAM and a “shared” core) but you get full GUI access to Windows with no cryptic command lines or control panels. It is trivial to run Xojo Web stand alone on Windows. You can shut down IIS or assign it another port. You can also install Apache to use Xojo Web CGI and benefit from some of Apache’s services such as SSL. (I do not recommend trying to run Xojo Web CGI under IIS, though others may have had more success then I have.) You can also install MySQL, Postgres, etc. Or at least I was able to do this when testing for a client who ultimately went with their own hardware any way. You just have to watch your RAM usage since that sets the price.

I’m going to play with Brad’s suggestion, Digital Ocean, just because the price looks unbeatable. I would like to be able to confidently recommend a low cost VPS host that I’m familiar with to clients who, for whatever reason, don’t want to use Xojo Cloud.

I run the Web Custom Controls site on dedicated hardware so I naturally don’t have the typical VPS issues there.

77

I started my first site in 1996. I have been operating automated credit card transactions and software delivery though my own system since 1998. Through the years, I had my content of hosts who broke down and went down without warning and could not even repair within a day or so. In general at the worst possible time. Would you tolerate a store where electricity goes down periodically ? It is not good for business at all and sheds a deplorable image on your company. It took some nomadism to find some reliable partner who did not cost a leg and the show attached to it.

I started my adventures with WE with a VPS I had been renting from since the early 2000 and was lucky enough to see my first program run immediately. That did not spare me from having to configurate things, though, and it meant research and some doing. Far from being as simple as shared hosting, WE requires a good familiarity with SSH command line access. I would not recommend it any time for virgins to Linux. Even if the program worked fine, I ran into a problem with the host which truncated files downloaded with ShowURL. That is when the real problems started. The VPS provider technical support did not even know what Xojo was and could not understand what I was talking about. Turns out they had the same problem with PHP, but that’s another story. Would you seriously have you car serviced by a mechanic who does not even know how it works ? I could not have my business depending on people who could not help even if they wanted to.

I have been using http://www.1701software.com for soon a year now and enjoy a pleasant experience. I did not have to go through hoops and bounds : cgi ran immediately. And if needed, I know it is managed by a distinguished member of this forum who uses and practices Xojo everyday, provides advice and pieces of code. It is not $5.00 much, much less than Xojo Cloud. At any rate I consider renting back office engineering a critical piece of my business worth making sure it is up to specs and responsive enough to insure a high degree of reliability and support.

I consider myself lucky to have found a suitable service almost immediately, after asking in this forum for advice. I would advise anybody who envision to run web apps and has limited engineering experience not to venture into picking a VPS they do not know without making sure that it actually works before signing up, and that support know that Xojo does not mean “a place where judokas train”. First step would be to ask in this forum from people who actually run WE for a living. Ron’s experience is food for thoughts , as he tribulated unsuccessfully with two shared hosts who did not have a clue while Brad had advised a working partner. You refer me to a good shop, and I insist on going to John Doe Repairs ? Proceed at your own risks, mate !

I would advise immediately Xojo Cloud as the luxury cruise experience, in spite of its price and the quirks of version 1. It is a perfect solution for people who do not want to endure the Linuxian headaches and the Aspirin budget. All you need to know is Xojo, the rest is a matter of click in the IDE. Peace of mind costs, sure, but it is like plugins : how much time and frustration are you ready to invest in BYO ? Not to mention loosing money over non working situations. In my case, a day of business lost easily could have paid for six months of XC.

For those who already enjoy a good level of comfort with Linux and VPS, WE is probably no more of a pain than anything that environment can throw at an aficionado. But I would not recommend it to any beginner !

78

I’ve posted the beginning of my brain dump in my shiny new forums. Here’s a view of the hosting landscape relevant to us:

http://forums.studiostable.com/t/web-host-landscape/14

@Phillip Zedalis, I’d like to include a mention of you in that paper. Hit me up somewhere (anywhere) about how you fit in or if you’re a different part of the landscape I missed. @Michel Bujardet brings up an important point, and I know you’ve been there for a mutual client as well.

I’ll be doing more of these over the coming days/weeks. But I feel they need to live in an independent place. My hope is to make them and keep them accessible to newbies like Ron, yet informative for seasoned veterans trying to keep up with the latest options. Hosting is a fast moving streams that takes weird turns in price and features quite regularly.

79

Philip Zedalis offers cubesql as a database option. Very interesting for anyone who tries to find an easy way to bring his SQLite app online.

80

99% of WE hosting problems are due to Xojo still being stuck in “32bit” userland. How long has 64bit linux been around?