Cross-Platform – Xojo Programming Blog https://blog.xojo.com Blog about the Xojo programming language and IDE Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:01:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Year of Code 2025: October Project – Multi-Platform Communication https://blog.xojo.com/2025/10/13/year-of-code-2025-october-project-multi-platform-communication/ Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:01:53 +0000 https://blog.xojo.com/?p=15461 For October’s Xojo Year of Code 2025, I built MPACSocket, a tiny, reusable UDPSocket subclass that enables zero-config, local-network presence and chat across platforms. It wraps binding, broadcast, presence beacons, peer tracking, and JSON parsing into a single class with a clean event-based API. Drop it into Desktop projects and you’ve got instant LAN discovery and messaging.

What this project includes

  • A self-contained UDPSocket subclass (MPACSocket) that handles bind, presence broadcasting, peer pruning, and chat envelopes with versioned JSON (good for further updates to the protocol).
  • Simple API: Start(port), Stop(), Rename(name), SendChat(text). Everything else comes through events like Bound, ChatReceived, PeerOnline/PeerOffline, PeerUpdated, StatusChanged, and SocketError.
  • A sample DesktopWindow (wndMPAC) that wires MPACSocket to a transcript area and peers list.

How to use

  • Add MPACSocket to your project, drop it onto a DesktopWindow or instantiate in code.
  • Set DisplayName, call Start(62636), and listen to events to update your UI or console output.
  • Use SendChat to broadcast a message; presence beacons and peer tracking happen automatically.

Download

You can download the entire Xojo project from GitHub

This project shows how a small, well-scoped class can turn low-level UDP into a friendly, cross-platform building block. Feel free to adapt the events or JSON schema for your own protocols.

Gabriel is a digital marketing enthusiast who loves coding with Xojo to create cool software tools for any platform. He is always eager to learn and share new ideas!

Year of Code Project

How to Play:

Each month we’ll announce a new theme and share an example project of our own. Share your projects to the Xojo Forum thread for that month via GitHub (all the links you need are posted above ↑ ). Learn how to use Xojo and GitHub.

The Prizes:

Monthly winners get $100 at the Xojo store. Every month you submit a project is another chance to win the grand prize. The grand prize is $250 cash plus a Xojo Pro license and a year of GraffitiSuite and will be announce in December. Learn more about the prizes.

]]> Year of Code 2025: August Project, Console Apps https://blog.xojo.com/2025/08/07/year-of-code-2025-august-project-console-apps/ https://blog.xojo.com/2025/08/07/year-of-code-2025-august-project-console-apps/#comments Thu, 07 Aug 2025 13:30:00 +0000 https://blog.xojo.com/?p=15219 Welcome back to the Year of Code 2025 series! For August, I built a minimalist and fun Console Task App that allows users to add, remove, and list tasks interactively in the terminal. No graphical interface, just pure console magic that demonstrates the power of Xojo for CLI apps.

August Project, Xojo Console Apps

What this project includes:

  • Interactive command-line interface to manage tasks
  • Commands to add new tasks, mark tasks complete, list all tasks, and remove tasks
  • Simple file saving/loading to keep your tasks persistent between sessions
  • Clean and modular code architecture for easy customization or extension

This project highlights how Xojo can be used beyond GUI applications, making it ideal for automation scripts, tooling, or quick utilities you want to run directly in the console (Mac, any Linux flavor, Windows) without the overhead of a full UI.

You can check out the full source code and try it out yourself at GitHub: Xojo-Console-Tasks.

Give it a spin, modify it to suit your needs, and share your enhancements or questions with the Xojo community. This is a great way to get comfortable with console application design in Xojo and to stretch your coding skills in a new context.

Stay tuned for next month’s project as we continue our journey deep into the many facets of coding with Xojo!

Year of Code Project

How to Play:

Each month we’ll announce a new theme and share an example project of our own. Share your projects to the Xojo Forum thread for that month via GitHub (all the links you need are posted above ↑ ). Learn how to use Xojo and GitHub.

The Prizes:

Monthly winners get $100 at the Xojo store. Every month you submit a project is another chance to win the grand prize. The grand prize is $250 cash plus a Xojo Pro license and a year of GraffitiSuite and will be announce in December. Learn more about the prizes.

Gabriel is a digital marketing enthusiast who loves coding with Xojo to create cool software tools for any platform. He is always eager to learn and share new ideas!

]]> https://blog.xojo.com/2025/08/07/year-of-code-2025-august-project-console-apps/feed/ 1 Year of Code 2025: June Project, Cross-Platform Code Class https://blog.xojo.com/2025/06/10/year-of-code-2025-june-project-cross-platform-code-class/ Tue, 10 Jun 2025 18:00:00 +0000 https://blog.xojo.com/?p=14963 June’s Year of Code theme is about writing code that works in any type of Xojo project. To demonstrate Xojo’s powerful multi-platform capabilities, this month I’m sharing a practical example: a single data loader and search class you can use—without modification—on Linux, Mac, Windows, Web, Console, iOS, Android or Raspberry Pi!

Introducing dataClass: Universal Data Fetching for Xojo

Do you ever wish you could just grab some remote JSON data, search through it, and use it in your app, no matter what kind of project you’re building? That’s exactly what this little, pure-Xojo dataClass allows!

Here’s what it does:

  • Loads a list of posts from a web API (using standard URLConnection and Xojo’s built-in JSONItem).
  • Lets you search by any term within the post’s title or body – case-insensitive.
  • Works unchanged in all Xojo project types – all of them!

Why is This Cool?

By using only built-in classes and avoiding platform-specific quirks, you can build business logic and utility classes that drop straight into your app, whatever the deployment target.

The Complete Source Code

You can copy the full dataClass source from this GitHub repository.

What Will You Build?

Have a favorite cross-platform Xojo technique, class or code module? Show us your own! Share in this month’s Year of Code forum thread.

Stay tuned for more Year of Code 2025 examples, and happy coding!

Gabriel is a digital marketing enthusiast who loves coding with Xojo to create cool software tools for any platform. He is always eager to learn and share new ideas!

Year of Code Project

How to Play:

Each month we’ll announce a new theme and share an example project of our own. Share your projects to the Xojo Forum thread for that month via GitHub (all the links you need are posted above ↑ ). Learn how to use Xojo and GitHub.

The Prizes:

Monthly winners get $100 at the Xojo store. Every month you submit a project is another chance to win the grand prize. The grand prize is $250 cash plus a Xojo Pro license and a year of GraffitiSuite and will be announce in December. Learn more about the prizes.

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