Xojo it makes you feel like XOXO - New Features

Want to create applications for the desktop and mobile devices? Many developers are looking at that but the problem is that there isn't one language and framework that makes this task easy. The reason for suggesting that Xojo should be renamed as XOXO is that it actually makes you feel that way. The only language that can offer both Mobile and Desktop with an easy to use language is Swift.

Let's look at how much work is needed with Xojo in building an iOS application?

Step 1

Start a new Xojo Project of type iOS

Step 2

Click on the View section to see the device

Step 3

Drag a Label, a TextField, a Button and a Table onto the device. Tap the edit (pencil icon) to change the text of the Label to 'Name :', edit the text of the Button to Add. Refer to th image for more details.

Step 4

Double Tap the Button. Choose Action from the list of options for EventHandlers. Type in the code

Table1.Addow(0, TextField1.Text)
TextField1.Text = ""

Double tap the device and select Open from the EventHandler options and in the editor, type the code

Table1.AddSection("Names")

That's all, now if you run the application, you can type a name in the textfield and press the Add button and it gets added into the TableView. No creating Delegates, DataSources, etc. You have actually written just three lines of code.

You can also add another label at the bottom of the table and edit the text to "0 Record(s)". In the Action code of Button1, after the TextField1.Text = "" you can type

 Label2.Text = Table1.RowCount(0).ToText + " Record(s)"

That simple and easy. While majority of the iOS classes are available via Xojo. Not all the iOS SDK classes are available in the same fashion as you would expect (if you have worked with the iOS SDK).

Press run and your code is run in the iOS Simulator. This can be set via the iOS Settings option. InclInclude like iOS Team, Entitlements, Bundle Identifier and other details like is this build for the App Store.

In Summary

It has been a long wait, there was talk about adding iOS functionality to Xojo. It is finally here and it works quite well. Building non-game applications are surprisingly easy and fast. It is worth giving it a try. Admittedly it does not support cross platform at this time. This is the first release, so definitely there will be more iterations which could bring more features to Xojo.

More details on Xojo can be found at http://www.xojo.com/ and you can download it to try for free. You can get a Xojo license that develops iOS apps for $299 or if you have the Pro license, you can add iOS for $199. If you have an Enterprise license, then iOS is already included in that.