Xojo for iOS Tip; Where are the iOS docs.

When your in Xojo for iOS and click on the toolbar help icon. The iOS help docs are not accessable, The Help button bring up the Docs for Mac, Windows, Linux and the Web.

There two ways to get it. One is to just use your web browser. And go to this web page: http://xojo.helpdocsonline.com/home

The other is to go to the menubar / help and select iOS Language Referance, which opens it it in the Xojo help viewer.

Adventures of iOS with Xojo Part 2 Tab Bar Now Working

If you been following along the first part I had a hell of an time figuring out the Tab bar set up. Well after a good night sleep and a good tip from a beta user,who had more info than me. Now it works and did another video showing how it does work.

When the help docs are vague it often seems harder than it actual is. Since I do not work for Xojo I can not help document for them but I can make a video like this in no time flat.

Adventures of iOS with Xojo Part 1 Tab Bar Blues

I was super happy to finally have a chance to work with iOS for Xojo. I knew there would be a learning curve. However never thought the would be a learning curve to just add user interface element like a tab bar.

Xojo included example project of a tab bar however that example has no code. It was done some way by the IDE. Trying to figure out how is the topic for this first part of the Adventures of iOS with Xojo.

I feel this is fitting for the first part because Xojo for iOS is not as easy as Xcode without better help docs. Would have thought it should have been, but its not. Since this has taken up hours trying to understand how Xojo for iOS works with just adding tab bars. also hearing other are experiencing about the same thing. Its fitting to start this series off this way.

Part 1; Xojo iOS Tab Bar Blues (in full motion color)

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Xojo for iOS is here, a first look.

Xojo for iOS is here, a first look. I have some screenshots and basic info. Later in the week maybe a video.

Xojo has a pricing change so depending on what you need. you maybe paying less or if your like me you be paying more. Xojo has a blog post on this info.

Above is a screen of one of the included example apps in the Xojo IDE. (One of those annoying and reject-able noise apps.)

Above is a iOS simulator view of a date picker running on the iPad. This uses declares.

Above is the example notes app running in the iPad simulator.

Xojo for iOS is done very well. I have used several development platforms for iOS over the years (including such; Livecode, Unity, Cornia SDK, Phone Gap, Ruby Motion and a few others) And to be fair when I compare Xojo for iOS Xojo is one of the best I seen.

However Xojo does not have a full out of the box feature set at this time. It is a little limited what you can do without writing declares. However declares are pretty simple to understand and use, that it not that bad. However for the price some may think some of these things should be added out of the box and I would agree.

One thing xojo does that basically no one else has done besides Ruby Motion and Xcode is have Native iOS controls built in. Corona & Livecode has no native controls and was one major reason both tools are a disappointment.

iOS Xojo control palette

Another awesome feature is the code signing is built in to Xojo so we do not need to sign it ourselves our pay some other app developer some huge overprice license to do it either (like you do on mac).

One of the neatest but confusing features is the auto layout. What cool is it has auto layout, however it works no where close to Xcode and swift in ease of use. here a image below.

Auto layout palette

Xojo for iOS gets a thumbs up from me. However It still needs work to be a really contender to several other iOS toolsets for its cost. Consider that iOS for Xojo is at 1.0 I say its pretty good. It still has much more it needs to do to get many to switch however. I still think its worth checking out. 

More info at Xojo.com

Look at Livecode 6.7 & 7.0

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.... Many many users submitted bugs for Metacard / Revolution/ and now Livecode that went unfixed for what seem like forever. Well the new versions of Livecode which have been in the works for well over a year have fix many of those old time bugs in versions 6.7 and 7.0.

I knew what your thinking? Why two versions. I asked several times myself and no one would tell me either. However after the actual release it became clear that 7.0 is the full unicode version which does break backward compatibility with any apps that accessed text, image data, and arrays. That where version 6.7 steps in its the backwards compatible version without the new unicode.

I decided to do a little video overview Editorial of the new Livecode versions. If you like check it out, below.

I should also note when I went to Livecode web site to download the new versions of Livecode, it does not have a link anywhere for the actual versions 6.7 or 7.0. Instead it gives you version 6.6.5. I tried to ask runrev where the new versions where, but I guess there to busy to tell us where there open source stuff actual can be downloaded from.

After a week of asking anyone I could find, I finally found out from another Livecode user where this secret download web page was at that has all of Livecode downloads. I will share that with you here. Because we all just want to know http://downloads.livecode.com/livecode/  Link Here



Have fun :)

Jumping into swift for iOS

5 years ago I started making iOS apps. I started out using Livecode where I made 13 iOS apps and games. I also tried Corona Sdk where I made two more games and also Unity where I made one game. I then stopped for a while to focus on desktop apps again. Something I favor more that mobile because desktop apps make more money and have way more users (at least for my products). 

Another reason I stopped iOS development for a while was the development tools I where using had issues. Many where buggy and did not have full access to very much. 

When swift first came out I focused on it for Mac OSX but recently I decided to jump into swift with iOS. I am shocked just how easy it is over Objective-C. Actually I find now swift is actually easier than using Livecode or Corona to make iOS apps. And that is the truth

I was waiting around for Xojo to release its iOS version, which made it self into beta last week. However I just wanted to see if swift could be the answer. I am still interested in Xojo because of the cross platform aspect.

I started by making a simple photo app with swift for a simple benchmark test. That imports a photo from a album adds some core image effects and exports the altered image back to the photo album. I had made a similar app with Livecode back in 2012 and that was a month of programming. With swift the same type of app tock 3 hours from start to finish. Yes, Wow! I never knew I could do something that fast.

The coolest idea for learning and using swift, is swift has more widespread work available world wide than with another tool. 

I highly suggest checking out swift, it is a lot easier than it looks. 

I sure this blog will see some more Swift post with some code examples soon.

Xojo on Mac OSX Yosemite.

This is a basic preview of the basic gui from Xojo on Mac OSX Yosemite, for those not on this OSX version yet. I have not notice any issue with any control that comes built in with Xojo (xojo 2014 r2 or higher) Also all MBS controls also work without issue. 

The full screen button is now the green button. Also the toolbar tabbed button looks more like linux now. Actual the whole interface looks linux like.

The only known issues are the Social Sharing and Notifactions (plugins or declares) no longer work in OSX 10.10. However this is not a Xojo only issue, its a 32-bit vs 64 bit built application issue. As these two frameworks are now 64 bit only changed by Apple without warning. They now require a 64 bit build for OSX app to work. 

Xojo has anccounced that in 2015 that they will be adressing 64 bit on all platforms. Starting with iOS and Linux, followed by OSX and Windows. 

An apps perceived value, Choosing the right tools.

With the update to Mac OSX 10.10 Yosemite, Xojo Native UI is updated without doing one thing or updating apps based upon appearance. However with Livecode the UI is a mess on this new OS version. If your forced into using custom controls to get a mac like appearance, like many Livecode developers do. Then there forced into updating apps with a new custom UI or worst just using the old non updated user experience (witch can be the case, because the app could have been made on a Windows or Linux machine. And that developer does not know any better because that.)

This all boils down to customers perceived value. If the customer sees a UI that old out of date and broken the perceived value of the finish product is not great and it equals lost sales. A customer will decide in a split second based on the appearance of your product if its worth there time. If you lose them in that second because of appearance and user experience, then you have a very hard sell in front of you.

In todays app market there several apps that do similar things. While one app could actual be better in functionality if it looks bad and has no pride of ownership it will fail vs an similar product that deliveries the perceived value the customer is looking for. 

When I personally used Livecode for Mac OS, iOS and Windows software 80% of the year was spent updating apps to work with a new OS release, 75% of that was based of user experience. (because Livecode does not use native UI and your forced into building a custom UI to just make a app look better than out of the box.) Now using Xojo and Swift the time I spend updating apps on appearance is zero. That means I have 100% of my time to focus on new products or adding new features to existing products. 

Example:

One application that I made since 2003 is called File Mutation Pro (from 2003 - 2012) This Application was made with Livecode. Since 2013 Its been remade with Xojo. 

Since moving to xojo with this product I was able to add many native platform user experiences and Native API's including adding AVFoundation, AudioToolbox, CoreAudio, CoreVideo, CoreGraphics, NSText etc etc. Things that can be done with Livecode using C++ but not as easy as with Xojo and not as robust. 

Since moving over to Xojo the product also has seen better overall success. The overall sales boomed since switching to Xojo from Livecode. Many of the long time customers that used both the Livecode built version and the Xojo built version actual wrote us, thanking us for the great improves that the Xojo version gave. Many thought the app (built with Xojo) was worth more money, even if it did the same things (as the versions built with Livecode).

The First Picture Below Is the last Livecode built version of my app File Mutation Pro. It using a full custom UI because the Livecode UI did not look like a mac app made in the last decade.

The Second Picture or the one below Is the Version of File Mutation made with Xojo. I can see why customers prefer it on looks and user experience alone.

One really needs to consider the end product these cross platform tools make. Livecode maybe fast to code with. However if your spending ever year updating a product X% of the time because of a new OS update its not really saving time or money like Xojo does in the end.

Xojo is not prefect either, but its 100 times better to actual gaining the perceived value and increasing sales. I still a fan of Livecode and I like to see them improve there tools. The thing is Xojo does most of this stuff now and can turn you and your products into a star now. 

I talked to some developers the other day that seem to not care what the app looked like, I believe that is a mistake on there part. Would you want a rust bucket car or a brand new car, if both cost the same price and did the same thing? There a reason why there thousands of rust bucket cars sitting in junk yards all over the world.

Even if your not a fan of Xojo, perceived value is a important thing to embrace. It will allow you to gain more value for your products in the end. Specially in a marketplace that has competitors to your products. If you take pride in your products appearance and user experience then your customers will open there wallets.