Monkeybread Software and Christian Schmitz have organized an exceptional event in Germany taking place in just 2 months – April 22nd to 27th. Take this opportunity to meet and network with members of the global Xojo Community. Meet Geoff Perlman, Xojo’s Founder & CEO and Xojo Engineers, Javier Menendez and Ricardo Cruz.

This event includes:

• Keynotes from Geoff Perlman and Christian Schmitz
• Educational, Feedback and Q&A Sessions
• Web Lab with Xojo’s Ricardo Cruz
• Performance Lab with MBS’s Christian Schmitz
• Dinners, Networking and Sightseeing

Training, Sessions & Events

6 Day Schedule

Monday          22nd April        Welcome Event
Tuesday         23rd April         Sight Seeing Tour & Dinner
Wednesday    24th April         Training Day & Reception in Hotel
Thursday        25th April         Conference & Dinner at Baggerado
Friday             26th April         Conference & Farewell Dinner
Saturday         27th April         Geyser Tour

Einstein Hotel Am Römerpark

The event will be hosted at the Einstein Hotel Am Römerpark, a modern business and conference hotel with unique ambiance and modern facilities. Located in Andernach across from the river Rhine, the hotel features a garden, lounge, terrace and the Sky Bar & Restaurant.

Visit, Attend & Network

Location: Andernach

Networking is not limited to the event hotel! Enjoy the evenings with other Xojo users at casual get-togethers. Arrive a day or two before the conference or stay over the weekend and schedule time to enjoy the area. Join the group for sightseeing and a Geyser Tour. Andernach has much to offer visitors including the “Runde Turm” (round tower), Mariendom (Cathedral of Mary), the old crane on the Rhine River front, the Mikveh or the well preserved town wall.

Learn everything else you need to know and Register Today at Monkeybread Software.

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Now, please don’t worry, the Xojo Developer Conference in London is going to be an excellent event. Check out the growing list of sessions. And to keep XDC excitement high, we are releasing session videos from XDC 2022 over the coming weeks, watch them and get a feel for what a cool event a XDC is! That said, we don’t have plans for a XDC 2024. And that is why I am writing this. More than a few people have mentioned they plan to skip this event. But when attendee numbers aren’t growing like they used to, and the costs and logistics are increasing, XDC and many events like it may not be around next year. In the US, conference costs have gotten astronomically higher as hotels struggle to recover from the pandemic; this is in addition to general inflation and an increased costs of goods. Previous XDC hotels have seen more than 150% increase in cost per night. One hotel that previously hosted a XDC has seen a 300% increase in cost per night. XDC hasn’t ever been profitable, but we have always recognized its importance to the Xojo Community, and we also like it a lot ourselves. Dana works hard to keep the event big and cost low, but that isn’t feasible in a world where hotel costs are up 300%.

I’m not saying XDC is over. After all, we’ve taken breaks from XDC before. I’m saying things change and if you want to come to XDC, you should come to London. If you are thinking perhaps you will come to XDC in 2024, I highly recommend you come to London.

And for those of you who cannot be there, we are keeping an eye on all things conference related and we are listening to what the Xojo Community tells us. Currently, there is a huge demand for live webinars, Xojo has 2 planned for March, and training videos. And we may host more meetups like the one Dana hosted in London in November and the one Geoff hosted last month in California.

There is no shortage of things to see, do, eat, drink and experience in London. There is something to appease every interest – from history to food, fashion, music, the arts and everything in between. Having so much extracurricular options makes London the ideal city to host the Xojo Developer Conference.

XDC will take place from Wednesday, April 26th through Friday, April 28th at the Hilton Euston. With London being such a large city there’s no shortage of hotels. We chose this hotel because it had the right amount of meeting space and availability, is in a very accessible location and we’ve stayed there before (as recently as last week!) and it’s been positive, comfortable and the staff is friendly and helpful. There are a lot of options for food in the area, as well as coffee and breakfast, it’s just a 2 minute walk to Costa and Pret a Manger.

The rate the hotel is offering our group includes both breakfast and VAT, however, if this hotel is not in line with your budget, take a look on Google Maps- there are several hotels in the area. If you are traveling with kids, the Hilton Euston does offer family rooms, you can find those via their main booking site or on Hotels.com.

Many of you have asked for a blog post listing things to do in London and there are no shortage of those already in existence, I won’t reinvent the wheel:

• First time in London? Start here.
• Get Tickets to the London Theater
• London Hop On Hop Off Tour & Thames Cruise Information
• See what concerts are coming to London – The Flaming Lips, Blue October and Postmodern Jukebox are all performing the weekend after XDC
• 101 best shops in London
• Best day trips from London
• London Natural History Museum
• National Gallery – See Monet, Manet, Van Gogh and more!
• The British Museum
• Tate Britain
• Tower of London
• List of Museums in London
• London’s Parks
• Film locations in London
• List of guided walking tours
• Public transportation information – the stations close to the hotel are Euston, Euston Square and King’s Cross/St. Pancras

If you are a Harry Potter fan, add these to your list:

• Blog Post with details about the Harry Potter Tour
• Harry Potter Tour Information
• Tip: Check out the Harry Potter store and brick wall at King’s Cross Station

For something random, if you like optical illusions check out Twist Museum on Oxford Street. It’s not free, like many of the museums in London, but it is quite interesting and doesn’t take too long. A nice break if you’re visiting Selfridge’s for some shopping!

As you can see there is no shortage of activities and entertainment in London, this list could be so much longer! We have an exciting 3-day conference planned with great sessions and the whole Xojo Team is looking forward to seeing everyone. We hope you will join us – save on your registration when you sign up by February 14th!

William Yu grew up in Canada learning to program BASIC on a Vic-20. He is Xojo’s resident Windows and Linux engineer, among his many other skills. Some may say he has joined the dark side here in the USA, but he will always be a Canadian at heart.

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The environment at XDC is one of a kind. As Marc Zeedar said of the Nashville Conference in xDev Magazine, “Xojo itself is a unique product and the community is special; we really are a family. That’s evident at events like this and it’s a connection you just can’t form online as easily. I am looking forward to whatever comes next.”

Attending an XDC you’ll find everyone, including the Xojo Team, is approachable, willing to help and eager to hear about how you use Xojo. Karen Bintz has attended XDC multiple times, she said, “I’ve found this to be one of the most open groups of developers that I’ve ever encountered. At the company level all the way up through the CEO and the other developers who are attending are all very approachable, very willing to help and have discussions. It’s a great environment!”

Another multi-year attendee is Kem Tekinay, whose popular sessions range from MemoryBlocks to Text Encodings, said “The benefit of the XDC is not just in the sessions. Those are very valuable, to be sure, as you gain information and perspective from experienced professionals. It’s not solely in the unfettered access to the Xojo engineers who are eager to share their vast knowledge of the IDE, language, and direction of the product. Perhaps more important than these are the fellow attendees, your colleagues, who arrive as strangers and leave as valuable friends. The collective experience of these seasoned pros is unmatched and irreplaceable.”

Call for Speakers

We are now accepting session proposals for XDC London. If you have ever thought about presenting at a conference, this is your chance, plus all speakers get a 50% discount on their conference ticket! Send your proposed session topic and short description to xdc@xojo.com on or before January 10th, 2023.

Why become a XDC speaker?

• Boost your resume or CV with presentation experience.
• Share a tip or helpful topic that you think others can benefit from.
• Detail your experiences so others can learn from your success (or mistakes).

Pricing

Registering early has many benefits: it guarantees you a spot, it helps us with planning and it gets you the best price. For this conference we are introducing registration at our lowest price yet. All 3 days, including lunch, dinner, sessions, evening events, and session videos, is $475 now through December 31, 2022. After that time the price increases, full price is $700. Register now!

Accommodations

The conference will take place at the Hilton London Euston. This is conveniently located a few minutes walk from St. Pancras, so if you’re coming to London via the Eurostar you won’t have far to go. It’s also very easy to get to via the Underground from Heathrow and other airports. We have an arranged rate of £229/night, which does include breakfast, and though you do not have to stay at the conference hotel, we do recommend it. The booking link will be available soon.

Getting to London

If you’re coming from Europe, flights are affordable to get to London. To make it easy here are the flight prices during our date range from a few major cities:

• Amsterdam: $138
• Berlin: $102
• Frankfurt: $126
• Brussels: $113
• Paris: $85
• Dublin: $65
• Belfast: $45
• Madrid: $89
• Vienna: $109
• Salzburg: $113
• Rome: $101
• Stockholm: $84
• Prague: $124
• Lisbon $84
• Oslo: $67
• Athens: $120

To give you some idea, Eurostar (return) from Paris is $127 and from Brussels is $116.

From North America, there are many nonstop options. Austin, for example, now has two nonstop flights (on British Airways and Virgin Atlantic) that are around $700. Some North American options to consider:

• New York: $370
• Boston: $551
• Atlanta: $684
• Houston: $638
• Los Angeles: $620
• Chicago: $488
• Vancouver: $652
• Montreal: $593

Registration

Registration for XDC London is now open! There is a discussion on the forum about it here. We will be updating the schedule soon with more information once sessions are ready to announce, etc. In the meantime if you have any questions please write us and xdc@xojo.com. Hope to see you in London!

Last week while traveling in London I hosted a Xojo meetup. This was a social event where local developers could meet, share ideas, ask questions and get to know each other. Many of us who attended the Xojo Developer Retreat in Nashville were excited we got to see each other twice in such a short timeframe.

Though a small gathering, which was slightly affected by the possibility of train strikes, it was refreshing to get the opportunity to chat with everyone there. Most people were attending locally, but Xojo Engineer Javier Menéndez flew over from Valencia, Spain and MVP Jérémie Leroy attended from Paris, France. We got a lot of great feedback, the most popular being that there is a lot of enthusiasm to finally host a London Xojo Developer Conference. All I can say at this time is… we hope to! I had a great time getting to know everyone and hope to do another meetup again soon somewhere in the world!

Day one of the conference began with breakfast and Geoff’s keynote. He talked about many of the things that happened at Xojo since the last conference, such as 302 new features, 286 changes and 1400+ bug fixes. He also talked about Android and the Bug Bash, which are summarized below:

Android – When we showed Android at the last XDC it was essentially just a proof of concept. We had three possible routes we were going to take in terms of code compilation and had not even tried the first one. We ultimately went with plan B, which worked as expected. We are now feature complete for the first Android release and are rapidly fixing bugs. More on Android was discussed by Xojo Engineer Travis Hill during his session, The ABC’s of Android.

Bug Bash – We spent the month of August doing a Bug Bash and focused on different bug criteria than we usually focus on. We typically focus on the overall impact surface and bugs that we know will impact nearly everyone in a way that can’t be worked around get the highest priority. We realize that there are some bugs that do not affect many people but are very painful for those they do affect. And that is specifically where we wanted to focus our efforts with the Bug Bash this year.

The Bug Bash gave our engineers an opportunity to work on parts of Xojo they usually don’t work on making them more comfortable working in those areas. This increases our coverage in terms of who can work on what. In fact, today more of the team is comfortable working in different parts of Xojo than ever before. Most of the engineers have worked on the compiler, for example. We felt like this Bug Bash went really well and going forward we will dedicate 2 weeks per cycle to focus on fixing those types of bugs (mentioned above) when we look at what to focus on.  

Many other topics were covered in the keynote, like the Xojo community, Xojo’s participation in the GitHub Student Developer Pack, Xojo users, our design strategy and the Xojo product roadmap.

The rest of the morning continued with a session from Paul Lefebvre about how Xojo is made, followed by William’s session about the Xojo framework.

After lunch, we heard sessions from experts in the Xojo community. Always an interesting subject, Jim Meyer talked to us about using machine learning in Xojo apps. Kem Tekinay gave an interesting talk about using MemoryBlocks. Xojo Engineer Ricardo Cruz talked about the WebSDK.

We ended the day with two non coding sessions – Amy Barnes talked about the legal side of programming and Yousaf Shah discussed things you can do to improve your business other than coding. You can review the full sessions list and descriptions of all of the sessions here.

After sessions, it was time to go out on the town! We had a nice dinner at The Stillery, right in the midst of the craziness that is the Nashville Broadway area. After dinner a group headed out to one of the local honkey tonks to enjoy some live music!

Only morning sessions on day two when we heard from Christian all about MonkeyBread Plugins, his session gave some inspiration to Tim Dietrich, read about that here. Then Derrick Donnelly gave a very interesting talk about building digital forensic apps with Xojo (watch out for your fridge!) and the educational portion of the conference wrapped with Xojo Engineer Javier Menendez talking about integrating WooCommerce into Xojo apps.

We had lunch at a local diner, appropriately named The Diner. Then it was time for some fun – we visited an Escape Room (The Escape Game)! We split into three very competitive teams and entered the themed rooms where we had to “escape” by following clues and solving puzzles before the time ran out. Since we are all excellent problem-solvers, all of the groups amazingly made it out before the time ran out and none of the attendees or employees are still there. Everyone who particiapted really enjoyed it so we may do this type of activity at a future event.

It was really nice to get back to an in-person event and we look forward to doing more! Though we don’t have any plans to announce yet for the next conference, we are hosting a Xojo social meetup in London on November 9th, so if you happen to be there please come by and say hi!

William Yu grew up in Canada learning to program BASIC on a Vic-20. He is Xojo’s resident Windows and Linux engineer, among his many other skills. Some may say he has joined the dark side here in the USA, but he will always be a Canadian at heart.

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Through the years of XDCs, attendees expressed how the sessions are great, but said over and over again that the true benefit is the discussion over a meal, the quick chats in the hallway or what they learned while sitting in the hotel bar with a group of Xojo users. See our past conference highlights videos to hear what attendees said – 2019, 2018, 2016, 2015. After having to (sadly) cancel multiple conferences in recent years, we wanted to get something in-person on the schedule. Choosing Nashville again feels a bit full circle, since we were days away from hosting XDC there in 2020 when the pandemic forced us to cancel.

Some of you have asked why we’re calling this event a retreat rather than a conference. We decided to call it a retreat to signify that we are emphasizing the part that attendees over the years has told us was the best and most beneficial part of XDC, the time spent with other users – networking, troubleshooting and building relationships. We are still going to have excellent sessions from Xojo and the community, but we are also going to find ways to ramp up the “hallway talk” opportunities.

The Hyatt Centric hotel is higher priced than hotels we have held previous conferences at and there are a few reasons for that. First, we want to hold conferences at a location within walking distance to local attractions and restaurants so you won’t need to rent a car or rely on hiring transportation. Second, September is a beautiful time of the year to visit Nashville. And third, in general, hotel prices are higher as hotels try to recover from the pandemic. To counter the higher hotel price, we lowered the event registration cost. Plus, there are a number of lower cost hotels (or maybe AirBNB) in the area that you can stay at while still attending all the retreat events. You can always save even more by presenting, Xojo is offering free passes for conference speakers!

If you want to meet the Xojo Team and community members, attend some great sessions, network, collaborate, have fun and enjoy Nashville, please join us at the Xojo Developer Retreat. Tickets are discounted by $100 through May 15th. Register early to save money and help us plan the best Xojo conference! We hope to see you there!

If you have already registered, we will automatically move your registration to the new dates, but if you’d like a refund please contact Customer Service. The hotel has cancelled the hotel reservations that were made for the event, you will be able to re-book starting January 11, 2021 and we will get to keep our previously negotiated rate.

Those who have reached out with session ideas – we love your enthusiasm, please keep those topics in mind – we will open up the call for speakers in the new year. We are looking forward to seeing you all!

Let’s move forward with the idea that anything can happen and we’ll plan for the best – so go get your passport now and check the expiration date! If you need to renew so you can travel to London uninterrupted, I suggest you start the process now. The US Passport office is 1.2 million applications behind and processing times are months longer than expected. I experienced this personally when I had to renew my kids passports earlier this year – their applications were sent in late January with standard 6-8 weeks processing time. The passports didn’t show up until June (unfortunately our vacation was cancelled anyways).

Hope to see you all in London!

Join Xojo on Zoom today at 1pm to 3pm Eastern (10am to 12pm Pacific).

See you online!

Another reason this conference will be different has to do with the name change from The Xojo Developer Conference to XOJO.CONNECT. If you have ever been to one of our conferences before, how would you describe it? I guarantee one of the things you’d say is how important the connections you made and the conversations you had outside of the sessions were. The name change is to show that we do understand how valuable that aspect is to you (it’s extremely valuable to us) and we will be adding more opportunities to nurture those connections in Nashville.

The access you get to the Xojo Team is another thing that makes the conference exceptional. I talked to someone recently who told me one of the reasons he enjoys coming year after year is so he can give Greg his wishlist. Meeting the Xojo team in person is great for those who depend on Xojo. For example, we can arrange for you to sit down one on one and go through any issues you are having or talk about your specific feature requests. From engineering to marketing to support, we are all energized by the conversations we have with you at the conference, we love to see what you’re working on and we go back with so many ideas. One user said the week after the conference is the witching hour of Xojo developers, going home with tons of new ideas ready to implement into their projects, but for us — we have a conference post-mortem meeting where we share what we learned, what feedback we got — both good and bad — what new ideas we have. My to-do list triples, because I’m inspired by all of you.

Even though the conference is so much more than just the sessions, the sessions are still a very important part of it. We have a wide range of topics from a wide range of speakers. Many of the speakers, myself included, are first time Xojo conference speakers. New speakers, of course, mean new topics and fresh new perspectives. Some of the first-time speakers added to our lineup include Wayne Golding, who is joining us all the way from New Zealand, to talk about Windows service apps. Ryan Hartz of Visual Veggies Software who will talk about building and maintaining a software business. Ryan has been to several conferences and has been a guest blog writer on our blog, but this is his first time speaking. I heard Stefanie Juchmes talk about the MBS Plugins at the conference in Germany, and she will be speaking about SceneKit in Nashville. Zeke Burke attended his first Xojo conference last year (see him on our highlights video) and he will be talking about multi-platform web design. Our newest engineer, Javier Menendez, will be talking about Blobs – this will be his second US Xojo conference. We have a great lineup of sessions and no matter how much experience you have, we guarantee you’ll learn something new.

During the day, we have built more time into the schedule so you can have post-session conversations and the evenings will offer even more time to connect. It’s great to get to know one another in a more relaxed setting. With that goal in mind, we will take busses over to the new and highly popular 6th & Peabody where you can relax in a casual environment with a cold beer and tacos from the White Duck Tacos Shop truck. You can have a game of bean bag toss on the lawn or enjoy some retro games in the arcade! Plus there will be a Moonshine tasting for anyone who is interested…

The next night we will go down to the Honkey Tonk Highway (ye-haw) for some classic Nashville entertainment at Nashville Underground. After dinner, you can take our buses back to the hotel or explore the rest of the popular area and Uber back with your friends later. If all of this isn’t enough, we have a special treat for those staying Friday night – a pub crawl of the 2nd street district coordinated by a pub crawl professional. I said it before and I’ll say it again – this is where the “you-had-to-be-there” jokes get made. Remote Debugger!

Nashville is a new city for our conference, but one that has been highly requested. In fact, it has made our top 3 possible cities list for the last 4 years! Our conference has travelled to many different cities now, including (save this for trivia) Austin, Orlando, Las Vegas, Houston, Denver, Miami … and now Nashville. Nashville is one of America’s most popular cities, with so much to offer, even if you don’t like country music. I’ve watched the Bourdain episode, I’m ready to try some of Nashville’s famous hot chicken!

There really is no substitute for in person connections – whether it is something you decide to do to get out of your comfort zone or for new ideas, you will — as they say — be amongst friends. Last year a first time conference attendee said, “I decided to come because I really needed to connect with the developer community.” Agreed! For me, I love spending a week connecting with the Xojo community, having in person conversations, and seeing my co-workers (who I video chat with daily) in person! I love it!

We always try to pick a hotel that has about 400 rooms or less, so you will run into conference attendees frequently around the property. From the time you arrive you’ll see posts on the forum or on Twitter (also via the conference app) that people are hanging out in the lobby or restaurant or bar. Let us know when you arrive, Alyssa and I and other Xojo staffers will be around all week, and we will see you in the bar at 7 on Tuesday for early conference registration – if we don’t see you before.

If you’re not currently registered, we still have room and we have seen a number of flight deals recently from Frankfurt, London, New York City and more. Plus, you can still get our fantastic conference hotel rate though February 24th. This is going to be a great conference and a very exciting year for Xojo!

Of course, the Xojo Forum is a great place to do both those things! And if you have Xojo Pro or Xojo Pro Plus, then it is possible to regularly find some interesting projects under the Xojo Pro – Consultancy Requests section on the Xojo Forum.

Nevertheless, none of that is comparable with face to face interactions; that is, the personal interaction with other Xojo developers through any of the Xojo Events you can attend mainly both in the US and Europe.

The last one I had the luck to attend was the one convened by Xojo in London the last 23rd of November, where I met again with Dana Brown and Alyssa Foley (always a joy!) and other friends from the forum I wanted to meet in person … and I was finally able to “de-virtualize”, Gavin Smith and Richard and Trisha Duke. In addition, Jeremie Leroy was there  … who I had previously met at the last MBS Xojo Conference in Cologne and at  other Xojo events (he is one of the regular guys you can find in the Xojo Events). Of course, I was also delighted to make new friends in this event, like Visakan and Mario, among others at the Xojo London Event!

It doesn’t matter the city of the Xojo event, the feeling I get on my trip back home is always the same: attending this kind of event is really worth it and it is for a few reasons. Here are some of them:

• Getting out of the routine. Making a break from time to time is something needed; getting out of the day to day duties to oxygenate the brain is worthwhile. In addition, if this means visiting a different country, even better! You can combine spending a pleasant day, two days or even a week interacting with other developers, along with some tourism, a look into another culture and lifestyles apart from your own.
• Socializing. As many of you probably are, I’m the only employee in my company, and that means that I spend most of my days working alone (except when I have to visit my clients to talk about current or new projects). Thus, being able to join other people sharing the same interests is really positive and enriching!
• It’s not just about coding! Of course, at these kind of events you’ll spend time talking about code, projects, different approaches to solve a problem … and also get advice about how to deal with anything particularly difficult – it may be something technical or from the point of view of the software business, as an owner! Simply put: it’s something really brilliant being surrounded by developers contributing other points of view and developers who are so kind to share their experiences with you. However… is not just code! It’s also about socializing and establishing relationships. In fact, we usually end up talking about all kinds of matters apart from software development: family, cultures, travels, music … absolutely anything! You know what? At the end, you’ll probably interchange your phone number, email, WhatsApp to continue in touch!
• Making new friends! By itself, this should be the main reward. Having the possibility to make a phone call or send an email to any of the colleagues you met is something absolutely priceless.
• Creating new opportunities. And the opportunities start by exchanging your experience and also knowledge to solve the problems other colleagues are having; they also start by showing some of the projects/apps you already published or you are working on; and also by sharing your skills with other developers around the world. Believe me, it’s priceless being able to find other people that share a common interest, are applying their knowledge in other disciplines and projects so diverse. There is nothing more enriching that this kind of knowledge exchange. When you have the opportunity to join with an interdisciplinary group of people, you can be sure you’ll close some technical gaps where you may be less experienced, and vice versa.

At the end of these Events, you’ll be inspired by others … or even find work on new or current projects, besides that, you will do that with those who have already been able to put a face to the name and talk with you face to face.

I’m looking forward to meeting with you at the next Xojo Event! And if you are one of the regular attendants, I’d be glad to hear your point of view about the Xojo Events! See you in Nashville for XOJO.CONNECT!

Javier Rodri­guez has been the Xojo Spanish Evangelist since 2008, he’s also a Developer, Consultant and Trainer who has be using Xojo since 1998. He manages AprendeXojo.com and is the developer behind the GuancheMOS plug-in for Xojo Developers, GuancheID, AXControlGrid, AXImageCanvas, Markdown Parser for Xojo, and HTMLColorizer for Xojo among others. You can reach him on Twitter @aprendeXojo.

But maybe you want to jump right in. When I started programming that is exactly how I learned. I tried things to see what worked and what didn’t work. I also looked at and modified other programs I found.

You can learn to code if you just code.

So let’s kick off this summer’s Just Code challenge. The idea is that you try to make one app a week throughout the next 14 weeks of the summer. These apps don’t need to do anything fancy, although they should do something. Any type of Xojo-made app counts — desktop, iOS or web. No need to compile, you are only required to submit your project to complete the challenge.

This contest is a great way to show people new to coding what it takes to make an app, and to show how much fun coding is. Even if you already know how to code, you’ll find that this contest is a great way to bring some fun back to coding kinda like Gavin Smith did just last week in his personal 14 day iOS app challenge.

The Just Code challenge starts today, June 18 and ends Friday, September 21. Submit a project on at least 10 out of 14 Fridays to complete the Just Code challenge! Complete the challenge and you’ll get one of our super soft, new Xojo shirts (while supplies last) and you’ll be entered to win a Xojo Pro license plus $100! UPDATE: Because of growing interest, we’ll also be giving away a limited number of Xojo Lite licenses!

I’ve started a forum conversation called Just Code challenge. Go there for ideas, to ask questions and post your projects on Fridays. Of course, I’ll be doing the Just Code challenge too. Each week I will post my project to start the Friday forum thread.

Each Friday add your new project to the forum thread I started with that week’s app. Share a description of your project, a screenshot and a download link. Talk about your app and how much fun it is to #JustCode!

So what are you waiting for? Go on, just code.

• Week 1 project: Color Picker
• Week 2 Project: Password Generator
• Week 3 Project: Dogs Up!
• Week 4 Project: Mini-Golf ScoreKeeper
• Week 5 Project: Math Quiz
• Week 6 Project: Bubble Popper
• Week 7 Project: Pitch Tracker
• Week 8 Project: JumpStart App Launcher
• Week 9 Project: Quote Web Service
• Week 10 Project: NetTank
• Week 11 Project: Xojo Dojo
• Week 12 Project: MultiTemp
• Week 13 Project: Xojo Speed
• Week 14 Project: Marching Band ScoreKeeper

Check out this forum post for a list of 100+ projects submitted by Xojo customers:

Just Code Challenge Submissions

And find out the winners here:

Just Code Challenge Winners

After a brief intro and some bragging about how this XDC sold out faster than any XDC before, how 25% of attendees are first-timers and how Xojo is represented by users from 12 different countries – shoutout to Stephane Pinel Xojo’s French Evangelist and and Javier Menendez our Spanish Evangelist who is attending for the first time (don’t think he’s a newbie though, he’s been with Xojo for 10 years), Geoff discussed the Xojo Community. Our forum has grown over 20% since the last XDC, with 18,000 members and over 43,000 conversations.

Xojo Cloud

People use Xojo Cloud because zero-configuration is an obvious advantage – we install more than 100 software updates per year which is 100+ actions that protect your app and your data that you don’t have to manage or install yourself. But it’s the industrial strength security that adds the most value. Xojo Cloud servers have been scanned over 1 billion times with zero known breaches to date. While no one can make servers 100% secure, Xojo Cloud certainly has proved itself to provide best-of-class security which is absolutely critical in today’s always-on, always-connected world. Check out Xojo Cloud‘s bigger and better servers – now with monitoring and stats build into the Xojo IDE.

Platform Landscape

These apps represent the creativity, flexibility and diversity in the Xojo Community – support this year’s winners and the whole Xojo community by sharing and reviewing their apps on social media and app stores!

This year’s winners are:

Best Developer Tool: BKeeney Shorts

BKeeney Software

Best Specialty App: Curve4 

Steve Upton * Chromix

Best Consumer App: Alinof ToDo List 

Alain Clausen * Alinof Software GmbH

Best Mobile App: Packr

Jeremie Leroy

Best Utility App: Server Ranger 

Gavin Smith * LibertyApp Ltd

Best Cross-Platform App: LehrerOffice

Roth Soft AG

Congratulations to the 2018 Design Award Winners! If you are looking for more great apps made with Xojo, check out these featured apps and these growing lists – and add yours!

Even if you aren’t able to join us in Denver for XDC this year, there are still some ways you can stay in touch with attendees, hear major Xojo announcements and leverage the content from the conference.

Socia Media

Our social media team is very active during XDC week, you can often see Alyssa and Dana in the back of the room typing away on updates to the social media world. On Twitter we’re always sharing news, major announcements and interesting and funny moments from the conference. We’ve also compiled a Twitter List of XDC 2018 attendees, if you are on Twitter and aren’t on the list, please reach out on Twitter and let us know. On Facebook, we’ll go live as often as possible so you can see firsthand what is going on at XDC. You can follow our social media accounts here: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

Blog

We know many of you are eager to hear the major announcements that come during Geoff’s Keynote. We will post a summary blog post shortly after the Keynote so you can get the latest updates and feel free to Tweet us any questions you may have. Once the conference is over, we’ll post an XDC recap blog post that is always an interesting read, so be on the lookout for those.

Videos

Just like in the previous 2 conferences, all XDC 2018 sessions will be recorded and posted for sale after the conference, likely some time in early May. Purchasing the XDC session videos will give you access to all of the sessions both online and offline (individual sessions are not sold separately). With the XDC video package, you can rewatch the Web Framework 2.0 session or re-live the wonders of SQLite to your heart’s content!

XDC 2019

And just a reminder… it’s great to plan on signing up for XDC early. Not only do you guarantee yourself a spot, but you also get early registration discounts. So start planning your trip to XDC 2019 as early as you can!

You probably know Denver, Colorado is the Mile High City, did you also know it’s 19th largest city in the US and the fastest growing city the US? Here are our top 8 things to do in Denver if you like history or nature or music or art or shopping or beer or wine or outdoor activities or, well, you the picture…read on

1. Union Station: This renovated historic landmark built in 1914 is a transportation hub as well a fun space for people-watching, eating and shopping. Right in the heart of downtown Denver, you can eat at any of the 10 Chef-owned restaurants and bars or pick up something special at one of the boutique shops.
2. Brewery Tours: Sure, you can visit the legendary Coors Brewery, but don’t forget Denver is also home to a booming craft beer industry. Tour downtown’s breweries, or schedule a private tour of some of Denver’s most popular micro breweries. I read Denver makes pretty good wine too, see Mile High Wine Tours if you are into that kind of non-beer drink
3. Museums & Street Art: Enjoy the grandeur of the Hamilton Building at the Denver Art Museum. Or check out something a little more accessible, traverse the city looking for local color. Paintings and murals – some commissioned and others unsanctioned – are located all over Denver for you to discover and enjoy. Plus they make great photo ops! Maybe a day at a museum isn’t your thing – what about an evening at a museum? Check out Denver’s many Museums After-Hours events. I’m sad we’ll be 1 week too late for the Science Lounge at the Museum of Nature and Science but we can catch “Untitled Final Fridays” at the Denver Art Museum after XDC wraps up on Friday.
4. Neighborhood Music Clubs: Denver is more than just Red Rocks, Fiddler’s Green is a popular outdoor venue. On a smaller scale, there is the grand 1920’s art deco style Gothic Theater, Levitt Pavilion which promotes community by hosting free shows and the Ogden Theater hosts multiple shows a week so you should be able to catch something new. Have you seen a show in Denver? Tell us about it on Twitter.
5. Red Rocks Park & Amphitheater: I’ll keep checking for April 2018 events, nothing booked yet.
6. Nature enthusiasts and y’all outdoorsy types don’t even have to leave the city – run, bike or walk Denver’s 85 miles of paved trails! From Civic Center Park’s 25,000 square feet of flowers to  Confluence Park, lay beneath a panoramic view of the city skyline and watch kayakers brave custom rapids. While there, gear up for #8 and pick up some supplies at the REI Flagship store, right across the water.
7. 16th Street Mall: Not your typical American mall it was designed by famed architecture I.M Pei. It’s a mile long, walkable street lined with shopping, dining and stuff to do. Ramble and explore all you want, the MallRide shuttle busses are there to pick you up if you need them!
8. Only have a little time and want to see a little of everything? Try Civic Center Park & Golden Triangle Creative District: Jump on the free 16th Street Shuttle to its last stop at Civic Center Park. Stroll the Old West-themed statues among a backdrop of some of city’s most memorable architecture. While at Colorado’s gold-leaf-domed State Capitol, take a selfie at a point exactly 5,280 feet above sea level. From there swing past the Victorian home of “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, the gold rush millionaire who survived the sinking of the Titanic and the wonderful Michael Graves-designed Denver Public Library with a final stop at the Denver Art Museum. I’ve been told you can do this all in a single day if you are willing to stretch your legs a bit.

If you or someone you are traveling with need assistance getting around, see this helpful site about visiting Denver with disabilities. I hope these tips help you plan your Denver vacation around XDC.

Don’t forget to register for XDC now to save $200 – early-bird pricing expires October 1st!

The week started in earnest on the evening of Tuesday, October 4th as attendees joined us for early registration. After people registered and got their cool XDC shirts and Xojo water bottles, everyone migrated to the Revolve Bar at Hotel Derek for conversation and Xojo discussions.

The Keynote Starts

On Wednesday morning, the keynote started at 9 and Geoff opened with an overview of the conference and Xojo (see what we live tweeted). Highlights include:

• XDC 2016 had attendees from 12 countries, with about 45% of the attendees from outside the US. About 25% were first-time XDC attendees.
• There are now over 15,000 forum members, a 36% increase over last year, with over 276,000 posts.
• And yes, XDC sessions were recorded again this year! They’ll be made available for free to all attendees and for sale to non-attendees later this year.

To finish the overview, Geoff talked a bit about Xojo Cloud security. Web servers are constantly scanned for vulnerabilities at an alarming rate. Xojo Cloud is no exception; it is scanned about every 10 seconds with zero known breaches to date. Xojo Cloud remains a safe, easy and secure way to host your Xojo web apps.

Xojo Design Awards

After the conference overview, Geoff announced the winners of the 2016 Xojo Design Awards, which honor excellence in software design. Awards were given in five different categories and Best Overall, which was awarded to EverWeb. EverWeb is a website builder that allows you to build a website with no code at all.

The winners are:

• Best Developer Tool and Best Overall: EverWeb
• Best Business App: Light Blue
• Best Consumer App: Alinof Timer Pro
• Best Cross-Platform App: PubCoder
• Best iOS App: Studiometry Touch

Congratulations to the 2016 Xojo Design Award Winners! It is an inspiration to us all to see such powerful and amazing apps made with Xojo.

Xojo Recent Changes

Geoff next talked some of the changes to Xojo since XDC 2015. There were many, including:

• 949 bugs fixed
• 187 new features implemented
• HiDPI support added for macOS, Windows and web
• Raspberry Pi apps
• 64-bit apps using the LLVM compiler
• Addressed the top iOS requests

By the way, be sure to give Xojo 2016r3 a try as it dramatically decreases 64-bit compilation times.

Xojo Roadmap

Geoff then presented a roadmap for Xojo for the coming year. First up was Xojo 2016 Release 4, which is expected to ship in December. Notable new features include:

• Better Xojo Cloud upload speeds
• Windows HiDPI will be out of beta
• The Windows IDE will be HiDPI
• The Windows graphics framework is getting an update to switch to Direct2D and DirectWrite for smoother graphics and hardware acceleration

For early 2017, Xojo is expecting 64-bit to be out of beta, enabling things such as debugging, XojoScript, Windows manifest and other features.

Later in the year, we expect 64-bit to become the default build target. But don’t worry, 32-bit is not going away! We are also working on the 64-bit version of the IDE itself. The new Xojo framework will be expanded to have feature parity with the classic framework to make it easier for you to start using it in your projects. Lastly, we are also expecting the ability to write plugins for Xojo in Xojo (first announced at XDC 2015) to be made available.

Towards the end of the year, Xojo is working towards shipping an updated IDE with simplified project layout and management. We are also working on a new SDK Interoperability feature (Interops) that will make it much easier use your Xojo apps with standard app frameworks for iOS and macOS. And this new feature will be leveraged to provide an all-new Xojo project type: native Android mobile apps!

Geoff closed the keynote by talking about the history of Xojo, the team and how everyone can help spread the word about Xojo. Telling friends and coworkers about Xojo is a great way to help others enjoy its benefits and grow the Xojo community. Lastly, since Xojo turned 20 this year, Geoff talked a bit about what has changed in the development world since REALbasic 1.0 (the precursor to Xojo) was first released.

We also introduced limited-edition 20th Anniversary t-shirts, if you are interested email hello@xojo.com to order.

General Sessions

Following the keynote, Susan Fennema did a talk on Managing Your Projects. Susan did a podcast with Paul back in August and this session had even more useful tips to help anyone become more productive at just about anything. Her Smarties giveaway proved quite smart, indeed!

After Susan’s talk, Travis and Joe tag-teamed a presentation on the new Xojo framework and then it was time for lunch!

Sessions, So Many Sessions

After lunch the breakout sessions started. At this point there were always two sessions going on simultaneously and attendees often said they wanted to be able to attend both so it’s a great thing they were all recorded. There were sessions on a wide variety of topics, including iOS development, testing, databases, reporting, REST and so much more. With 36 sessions altogether, XDC truly is a “firehose of knowledge”!

Activities

Coming to XDC is not all about work and learning – you also get to have fun! This year’s evening activities started with a rockin’ night of live music with Skyrocket, a fabulous 70/80’s cover band. Our fearless CEO, Geoff Perlman, even joined the band on stage to play drums in a rousing cover of American Girl by Tom Petty.

The next night everyone headed across the street to Grotto Ristorante for conversation, drink and a fabulous Italian dinner.

What Attendees Are Saying About XDC:

“This was my first XDC. Almost overwhelmed with information! I definitely enjoyed meeting everyone and I now have real faces (and accents) to attach to the forum posts.” – John Knight, Jr.

 

“2016 was my first time attending XDC, and it was amazing. I learned a lot, and met so many incredibly nice, interesting, and brilliant people. I want thank everyone for their kindness, generosity, and for the laughs. I feel like I’ve found my “tribe.” – Tim Dietrich

 

“I felt the same way at my first XDC 4 years ago, and still feel that way every year. It’s a great event, with amazing people, and I’m already looking forward to next year!” – John McKernon

 

“It was filled with useful information, of course, but more importantly, the people from Xojo and the other attendees were passionate about the platform and willing to dive in to help a newcomer learn.  I even had the opportunity to spend a couple hours with the CEO and some others and have a great discussion!  That says a lot about a twenty-year-old tech organization.  We will be converting our systems to Xojo-designed apps and I’ll be going again next year.” – Bill Kapeles

 

“I was another first timer at XDC. In my 30+ years of involvement in the software industry, this was one of the best development conferences I have attended. Professionalism and willingness to engage with new attendees was evident at every level. Wonderful experience!” – Karen Bintz

 

“The presentations covered such a wide range of topics. It was really cool to see all the incredibly different ways people use Xojo and to hear the depth of knowledge each one has in their particular areas. I learned a ton, and it was a privilege to present as well….. plus it was fun! It was particularly great to meet everyone in person. The whole event ran smoothly, the food was great, the entertainment was great.” – John Joyce

 

“This. This is why I go every year. Renewing friendships, meeting with clients (both old and prospective), learning new things, and talking Xojo non-stop makes for an awesome experience.” – Bob Keeney

Thanks!

The Xojo Team wants to thank all the attendees of XDC 2016. We could not do XDC without you. And a special thanks to all the presenters helping to make XDC so valuable by providing wonderful, varied content. We can’t wait to see you next time!

From left to right: William Yu, Paul Lefebvre, Stéphane Pinel, Alyssa Foley, Greg O’Lone, Dana Brown, Norman Palardy (seated), Travis Hill (standing), Geoff Perlman, Joe Ranieri, Robin Lauryssen-Mitchell, and Jason Parsley

Download MP3

Show Links

• Xojo Users’ Group UK Conference 2014
• Xojo Developer Conference 2015
• OS X Public Beta
• Widescreen Displays

Send your feedback on the podcast to paul@xojo.com!

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