Xojo's Feedback App - Not a Xojo Web App?

Xojo said that they would be dog-fooding their own web platform to make feedback. It seems to be running something else.

My hope was that Xojo would see the glaring bugs and issues still heavily prevalent in Web2.0 with making the Xojo Feedback WebApp. And then maybe we might actually have a WebPlatform that functions properly and has responsive design, etc…

I’m concerned that once again Web is being left too far behind and doesn’t have enough resources or expertise into getting this right. I waited many years for Web2.0 only to find that it missed addressing so many necessary components. You shouldn’t have to javascript the hell out of the webpage to get layouts to be responsive and it also makes the designer pretty useless as you have to do most of the positioning in code.

I’m just curious why this choice was made and why they aren’t dog-fooding as promised, and when can we actually expect Web2.0 to address all these issues when Xojo can’t even use it themselves for a fairly simple web app

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I don’t think I’d call that simple, but anyway, this was announced by Geoff with details about the reasoning:

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Brock, I feel your pain. I was disappointed when they abandoned the Xojo-made Web Feedback, and made my feelings clear to the team at the time. I believed in the dog fooding argument. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t already said they were going to make it in Xojo. The decision to “abandon” it made me think that they tried, and just couldn’t get it to work well enough. That remains my opinion. I wanted a big, robust, large-scale Web project to point to clients and say “look, it can be done, we can do this in Xojo!” Unfortunately, I think the whole episode makes for bad optics.

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Inexperience, bad desing, worst execution, Not a single answer there.

Web2 is like a “proof of concept” state, Not ready to serious development.

Designer cant even preview nested containers 2+ years after release :sweat_smile:

Have you tested the eddies electronics example? AWFUL and nothing close to be a “complete app”

Me too :frowning: After the fiasco when released, I didnt touch web2 for 2 years, this month I saw a new release and the bug bash, just doing a simple mock up, reported like 20 bugs :roll_eyes:, maybe another 2 years?

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or excuses.

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Xojo is only good for Desktop & Console Apps. Rest are a marketing gimmicks. Other wise prove it. If Xojo team cant use their product, how on earth can the customers do.

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This decision of not dogfooding a single app is not, by itself, some sort of damning indictment of Xojo’s web strategy. The app they chose is finished, affordable, industry standard, and does the job well. Even if they COULD knock it out in Xojo, I’m not sure doing so would be a rational decision.

However … it is clear to me even before actually experimenting with it that it is not ready for prime time. It just gives off that vibe. I probably should not have gone for the pro license out of the chute, but they cleverly bundle the command line / services targets with Pro [sigh].

Web apps are hard, especially if you’re gunning for desktop-equivalent functionality. If it’s been dragging on this long, they probably don’t have enough (or the right) personnel to do the web target justice. I think Android is sucking up resources too, as it’s clearly proven more time consuming than they expected.

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I have developed quite a few Web 1.00 apps that performed well. Problem is, Web 2.00 is a horse of a different color, mostly green (and tart). I remember the early days of Web 1.00. It was not that polished. It will probably take a few years for Web 2.00 to become palatable.

For years, Xojo iOS laged pitifully behind, until Xojo decided to put more love into it, and Jeremie Leroy demonstrated how a talented developer can create great apps from it.

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What I really want (and what I think Xojo is attempting) is a framework that abstracts away all the moving parts so one can concentrate on functionality. If I have to write a bunch of JS or CSS anyway to finesse / fight with it, then I might as well suffer with .NET Blazor or something like that. I will certainly experiment with Xojo though, and watch its evolution with interest.

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Chiming in here since I just developed and released a bigger web app with Xojo. This app is a client facing app, not one for public use.

Yes, Xojo Web has still many bugs and I was cursing many times during the project. Yes, you don’t really need Xojo when you have working knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, backend-dev, webservices and some kind of CSS and JS framework. And here also lies the problem: Xojo offers a one-stop shop for creating complex solutions and not having to worry about front-end/back-end, fiddling with HTML, CSS, frameworks, npm package hell etc. If you are ready to accept its limits.

@Ricardo_Cruz form Xojo is working hard to fix many bugs - I believe real improvements can be expected in the next releases. However, all these bugs aside, I was able to create a really complex app (and replaced a React app) within weeks. I’m still adding features on a weekly basis very quickly - my investment in Xojo paid off quickly.

I think the concept of Xojo Web is a good one, especially if you are a solo developer and want to focus on creating solutions for your clients instead of getting your hands dirty with a gazillion technologies.

I’m glad Xojo Web exists and Xojo is investing in it.

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My first attempt may be a web version of the internal administration app I’m writing for my own API service. Just to see what its limitations and strengths are.

I find Xojo Cloud rather pricey at $600 to $2400/year and my API is in C# on .NET 7 anyway so any Xojo Web app would have to deploy alongside it and have pretty bulletproof authentication. Hopefully that is not a terribly arcane thing to accomplish if one is not a sysadmin nor particularly interested in being one. Something about a reverse proxy relationship with IIS, I guess. “Sounds” easy enough, lol.

I hate to tell you, but CSS, and occasional JS remains necessary to go beyond the basics. Nothing as complex as some other tools, though. Xojo takes care of 98% of ancillaries, but there are always some edge cases where being able to go the extra mile with CSS and/or JS makes it real nice.

Sure, I don’t mind edge cases so long as they are not a gateway to a blizzard of hacks to prop it up.

Applying CSS was not as simple in Web 1.00 as it is in Web 2.00.

As for JS, it is convenient to add stuff that Xojo did not think about. Along the years I posted dozens of such tips. They are far from “a blizzard of hacks”, though.

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I’m wondering how you came up with this figure about Xojo Cloud pricing? However, you don’t have to use Xojo Cloud. I use $20/month instances on DigitalOcean together with LifeBoat to deploy and manage the apps. Even supports deploying your app on multiple servers and you have full control over the machines.

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The advertised Xojo Cloud pricing for 3 levels of hardware is $50, $99 and $199/mo. Round to the nearest $50 and multiply by 12 and you get $600, $1200 and $2400/year (50x12, 100x12, 200x12).

In fairness Xojo Cloud is a managed service and you’re not comparing apples and oranges if the comparison is to a self-managed service. To get to break even quicker one sometimes has to shoulder the system administration yourself.

Digital Ocean was just what I was thinking of for the general case. It might even suffice for my .NET API service although I’m probably semi on my own if I want to deploy that on Apache.

I am pretty competent in programming, but I refuse to waste time becoming an admin. I went with Xojo Cloud for the turnkey aspect of it. The price is nothing as compared to the cash my back office brings in. That is where I cannot afford any downtime.

From what I understand, Lifeboat is apparently the solution to make Digital Ocean simple to use, and Tim Parnell is real nice. I am convinced his support is great.

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Yeah once I have decent adoption it won’t take much to justify Xojo Cloud, so I’m not dissing it really. It is just a bit white knuckle when you’re doing a “build it and hope they will come” service that might break even much more quickly someplace like Digital Ocean. If it gets to a certain consistent revenue level, then absolutely a managed service is the way I would go, for precisely the reasons you cite.

@Louis_Brauer1 thank you for xojo web testimony, it’swhat i’m guessing xojo web would be, you make some rational points.

Xojo is also good for iOS development and I can prove it :slightly_smiling_face:
95% of my revenue comes from Xojo made iOS apps that are available on the App Store.
These apps are used daily by several thousand users and have been downloaded several million times. If that isn’t sufficient proof, feel free to PM me for more details.

:heart:

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