You may have seen this thread in the Forums, This is the farthest I’ve pushed canvases, showcasing Xojo user Christian Wheel’s use of the Canvas control from a custom animated GIF renderer built entirely in Xojo code, to slick audio production tools for radio and podcasting. Many people reached out and wanted to know more about this project and what else Christian has been doing with Xojo. As it turns out, he’s been doing quite a lot! In this post Christian talks about vibe coding, laser cutters and why Xojo’s “idea-to-executable” speed made it the perfect tool for getting things done, at Apple and beyond.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Windows & MacOS, I use both daily. I generally prefer Windows desktops and Mac laptops, even though I do have a Mac Studio and a Windows laptop too. I literally have dozens of computers, haha.

What do you wish more people would ask you about when it comes to your work? Is there an aspect of your work that people often overlook but you wish they were more curious about?

Honestly, nobody really asks me about my work! Most people know me from my work as a radio host and DJ, so that’s where the majority of my interactions occur with other people. My software development endeavors have always been my “side-gig” even though I’ve had some successes in that area too. Just the fact that I get to talk about computers with anybody is a breath of fresh air for me.

What software or skill is on your “Learn Next” list and why?

Last year I picked up a laser cutter and 3D printer and haven’t yet been able to explore them as much as I would like to. I’ve done some 3D modeling for use in animations and visuals, but that’s very, very different from modeling tangible objects, where there needs to be a lot more consideration for engineering principles involved. I also feel like it’s cliche in 2026 to add “AI” to a list of things to learn, but it’s genuinely true. I’ve been running some local models and while I’ve dabbled a bit, I’d like to dive more into training my own models, LoRAs, etc.

Between those maker tools and my UV Printer, I want to lean more into making aesthetic mods for PC hardware and getting more into exotic and custom PC builds.

Even though I’ve been a “content creator” on the radio for decades (including a “call for help” radio show about tech, software and hardware), I plan on going all-in on YouTube in the tech space shortly, covering everything from PC part reviews, unboxings, benchmarks, build guides, troubleshooting, homelab projects, creator gear, software tools, Apple, and extreme-themed PC builds. I’ve made significant investments in building studio spaces and an 8K cinema-grade production pipeline, so I’m taking this seriously!

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 5 years?

I definitely did not have the rise of Vibe Coding on my Bingo card. There are so many interesting aspects to it. At the end of the day, getting more people interested in software development is a great thing for the industry. There are lots of people in our field who enjoy gatekeeping it, and I understand that the industry was already fiercely competitive before the flood gates opened to everyone. But this is the new reality and everyone has to adapt. But on the the other hand, for people without a strong background in development, experience with security and proper testing, you end up with a lot of buggy, potentially dangerous applications created by those without the experience to put in the final 10% of every project (which, as we know, is what takes 90% of the time). This is all evolving so fast and there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to see some very high-profile embarrassments and systemic software failures caused by vibe coding. And in a way, we have to, that’s the only way things will improve.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is another piece of software more people should know about?

There are so many great third-party tools in the Xojo ecosystem. While I love learning new things, sometimes you just need to get something done and it’s faster to buy something rather than build it yourself. Shout outs, in no particular order, to Christian Schmitz/MBS, Anthony Cyphers/GraffitiSuite, Tim Parnell/Lifeboat+TPLM, Jim McKay/PiDog, Björn Eiriksson/Einhugur, Marc Zeedar/xDev, and so many more that really boost the Xojo experience. For testing, Parallels on Mac, and VMware Workstation on Windows, are invaluable to me. The ability to take and revert to snapshots in seconds is like magic. You also can never underestimate a good text or hex editor. For text on macOS I use BBEdit and on Windows Notepad3. UltraEdit is fantastic for hex on both.

How/When did you find Xojo? What did you first build with Xojo?

I discovered REALbasic in the early 2000’s when Microsoft made the decision to go all-in on VB.Net and away from VB6/COM. While it shared a lot of the same keywords and syntax, VB.Net is a fundamentally different language. So I figured if I had to learn a new-but-similar language anyway, I might as well learn something cross-platform. For much of the decade I was a DIY Windows snob though, and refused to spend on Apple hardware, which kept me using OS X on Virtual Machines and such. Once the iPhone became popular I finally gave in and bought an iPhone to complement my Android, and a MacBook Pro to complement my gaming laptop. Most of the things I built with Xojo were just internal tools, things that improved my own workflow in radio and DJing. Many of my tools proved useful to coworkers, and with the increase in Apple’s hardware market share, Xojo was instrumental in allowing me to create distributables for everyone.

What do you build with Xojo now?

Most of the things I’m building at the moment are audio related. I have a ton of legacy VB code that deals with audio on Windows, and I’m slowly Xojo-ing it to be cross-platform. One of my main apps I’ve been developing for 4 years now, is called PlaylistPal. It’s a playlisting app for DJ’s that basically lets them import playlists from any source, streaming service, or even a text request list, and load it into their DJ software. There’s a lot of work done under-the-hood to resolve songs into universal ID’s and let DJs match those playlist entries with music they already own.

I’ve also been building audio production software for radio shows and podcasts. As shown in the forum post, the Xojo canvas is a powerful tool. It actually reminds me of the old days of DOS programming when you had to draw everything yourself, handle mouse and keyboard input at a very low-level, and actually optimize your code to run fast.

It has been fun to create new UI elements in the canvas. Another Canvas-related project I’ve been working on is an animated GIF control, completely in Xojo code. It parses the binary image data of an animated GIF file and uses a timer for each frame’s duration. It can be a bit slow to load all the frames to memory, but it does so in a thread so as to not slow your app down. It supports transparency via alpha channel or color replacement. It’s containerized so you just drop it into a Window, set some properties, call some methods, and receive events. I still have some bugs to work out but it’s been a lot of fun to develop.

I also just recently fell into a project creating digital signage software, for billboards, restaurant menu boards, trade show screens and such. I needed software to control my own LCD panels and found the existing options lacking or overly complicated, so I decided to create my own in Xojo. The wonderful thing that Xojo brings to a project like this is I can compile for everything! The user can create their slideshow on Windows or Mac and run the project connected to their screens on anything from a Raspberry Pi to a Mac Mini.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

At the moment, no. I don’t have anything for sale. But eventually, once my software is at a point where I feel it’s marketable I’ll flip that switch. Until then, it’s test, test, test!

Do you use Xojo for any hobbies?

I find that Xojo, both Desktop and Web, makes GREAT frontends for AI applications. I have a great little AI stack for audio that I’ve developed on Windows. On Desktop I can build a UI to run the python scripts directly and capture their output, or I can build it into a Web App and create an API that I call from a macOS or Web app. The same python scripts can be Dockerized for Linux deployment when I want to put them on the internet and build a real web app to control them. I recently started playing with RunPod, which lets me load my Docker apps in their cloud and spins up instances on demand, so they can use cloud GPUs that aren’t practical to host locally.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

Probably using it at Apple. I worked for Apple for a few years and quickly identified the need for a few internal tools to make things simpler for our department. I used Xojo to create them and it was fast and easy to work with, simple to make updates, and it was just accepted. Nobody questioned what language I was using, they just cared about functionality. But Xojo’s rapid idea-to-executable workflow really worked in my favor at Apple.

Looking back, how long did it take for your app vision to evolve from a blank project into a working solution?

What I like about Xojo is that you can go from nothing to something SO quickly. It’s adding all the niceties that can take a long time. Little touches and details can all be accomplished if you’re willing to put in the work. Of course, not every project requires you to put in the work. You don’t need smooth animations and lots of options for everything you build. I think for most of us, we have an idea, spend some time in the code editor building out our algorithm, and then haphazardly toss a few buttons and textfields onto a Window to test things out. Only once we’ve got something somewhat-working do we refine the user experience and engage with the artistic side of the app. That means for personal tools, you can go from zero to finished in a few minutes or hours. But for a major project… I mean gosh, I’ve been building PlaylistPal for FOUR YEARS and still make updates constantly, but I had friends testing it by the end of the first week. Your app is really as good as the time you put into it, but the benefit of Xojo is that you’re generally free to pause and release at any point along the way.

How do you decide when to use Xojo versus another tool or language?

I think personally, these days I default to Xojo unless the project has a need that Xojo can’t address. For example, I recently had a Windows project that required a single portable executable with no accompanying libraries. I could, of course, use Xojo and wrap up the project in something like BoxedApp, but that can end up being problematic in other ways. So I ended up using .Net for that one. But other than exceptions like that, Xojo is my go-to these days. I have decades of classes and modules that already have a bunch of code that I’m used to including in every project, so I try to stick to it as much as possible unless there’s a reason to use something else.

What does Xojo do particularly well compared to other tools?

The basics between platforms is largely the same and the differences are insulated from you, for the most part. Obviously the more things you want to do that deviate from standard behaviors, the more work you’ll need to put in, but once you wrap your head around the way Xojo does things, there’s only a little bit you need to learn about other platforms in order to implement your vision.

Which three Xojo language features or framework capabilities do you find yourself relying/using on the most?

• Ease of cross-platform. Most things just work seamlessly across platforms and I don’t have to worry about it. Really intricate algorithms that I wrote for desktop can be literally copied and pasted into a web app. That’s just so… chef’s kiss.
• Canvases. They’re a blank slate that lets you create whatever you can imagine. If you want a button with a dragon on it that breathes fire when you click it, as long as you’ve got the time and the talent, you can create it.
• I’ve been diving deep into Xojo Web lately. I love that you can do anything from build a full web app with pages and controls or go really low-level to respond to individual HTTP requests. It’s really great.

How important has the Xojo community been in your development journey?

Absolutely vital. The community is a lifeline, everyone there truly wants to be helpful to others. You also never know when someone on the Xojo dev team may drop in to offer some advice too. I know this for sure, I would have never been able to create the things I have without the community.

Where do you typically go when you get stuck?

Depends on what I get stuck on! If it’s a language or framework question, it’s either the Xojo Documentation site, or Google to end up on a Xojo forum post. If it’s an approach or algorithm question, StackOverflow has a lot of answers. Chatbots are also getting quite adept at answering some of these question as well.

If you were introducing Xojo to a friend, which three words would you use to describe it?

I really only need one word: Versatile. I really believe that versatility is Xojo’s greatest strength.

What features or improvements would you most like to see in future Xojo releases?

Something I think Xojo could do better is to build in a lot of the controls or behaviors that we end up creating ourselves. Some control examples from .Net that ship with the framework include CheckedListBox, FileSystemWatcher, ListView, LinkLabel, PropertyGrid, SplitContainer, StatusStrip, TreeView, etc. These are all things that we could (and many of us have) build ourselves but it would be nice to have a larger collection of controls built in.

What advice would you give to someone just getting started with Xojo?

• Make sure you’ve got an open mind! The “Xojo way” of doing things is not always the same as the way you may be used to.
• Don’t use DoEvents! The temptation is huge, and I know it worked in VB, but there’s a good reason why everyone advises against it. There are a select few times when it’s appropriate and when you encounter one you will likely have enough experience with the language by then to know it’s okay. Until then, just say no!
• Have patience with folks in the forums. Everyone really does want to help, even when things get heated. There’s a wide mix of people with varying experience levels, spoken languages, neurotypical/neurodivergent, and varying stress levels, so keep in mind that everyone generally means well even if they may have a hard time expressing it at times.

Thank you to Christian Wheel for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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Stephen Dodd has been a Xojo developer since 2001. Over two decades, he’s seen Xojo evolve, and his work embodies the cross‑platform strength Xojo offers users. During his recent Xojo license renewal, he commented “See the beautiful cross platform app made with it.” We absolutely love receiving comments like this; they remind us why we do what we do and how our community uses Xojo to create remarkable projects. Immediately I shared Stephen’s app, OfficeTime, with the team and it didn’t take long before someone said “this deserves a Spotlight On!”. Fortunately, Stephen was kind enough to say yes and answer our questions.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac + Windows of course. Evaluating Linux demand.

What do you wish more people would ask you about when it comes to your work? Is there an aspect of your work that people often overlook but you wish they were more curious about?

I’m passionate about the user experience. The simpler the app, the more time is needed. OfficeTime came about when the staff at the agency I was head of hated tracking their time. Everyday I’d walk by graffiti someone plastered that said “Start writing. What’s stopping you?” Coding is writing. OfficeTime is successful because I’m not ‘into’ time tracking. I’m into something that does its job and stays out of your way.

I’m fond of hiding complication until it’s needed. For example, the user can change the rate of an existing category in OfficeTime. That introduces choices for what previously tracked time is affected. We hide all that interface until the user actually starts typing a new rate. Unfortunately for the developer, the simpler you make it, the longer it takes. 

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 5 years?

How fricking long implementing full featured, offline first cloud sync takes to get right. Cloud sync is deceptively hard. The majority of our bugs seem to revolve around timing issues of when data / UI is available or not.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

• OfficeTime to track my time!
• TextExpander to hot key in code snippets and customer support replies.
• Claude because it just has a more natural, intuitive output than ChatGPT or Gemini. 

Which three Xojo language features or framework capabilities do you find yourself relying/using on the most?

We hammer that listbox pretty heavily.  It’s core to all the views and reports.

What did you first build with Xojo? And when was that?

In the 90’s, using Xojo (then called REALbasic), I built a neural network (before AI was cool) to learn to play tic tac toe.

I originally took up Xojo because the O’REILLY book had a cheetah on it which meant it had to be fast. All the Microsoft books had bugs on them. 

What do you build with it now?

OfficeTime is a cross platform app to better track your time so you can bill more or be more accountable for fixed price projects.  The Mac/PC side is Xojo with a few custom written controls. It syncs with an iPhone/iPad app that was written in Xcode long before Xojo offered mobile development.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

Yes.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

OfficeTime

If you were introducing Xojo to a friend, which three words would you use to describe it?

Easy cross platform

Thank you to Stephen Dodd for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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Though he started his development journey on Windows machines, after a seven-year spell at SAIC Ltd. (Science Applications International Corp), Paul decided he wanted to move to Apple computers and started looking for a VB/Access replacement. That’s how he discovered Xojo and built a suite of applications that managed multiple aspects of his hire-boat business, overseeing 17 boats on the British Canal System. Even in retirement, he remains actively coding in 2026.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac.

How did you find Xojo? And when did you start using Xojo?

I started in 2000 with RealBASIC. I needed a database/programming combination to run my boat yard and hire boat business on the British Canal system. I went for RealBASIC and FrontBase database, it was fast reliable and very stable. It enabled me to create a suite of about 10 programs for renting the boats, doing the maintenance, tracking sales and running the cafe. The applications managed the bookings for 17 boats which operated on a varied pattern of 3, 4, 7 and 14 night holidays. The progams stored the bookings, printed the legal documents required at the start of each trip and logged the fuel usage and engineering routines.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

No, but my business would not have run without it.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

A good knowledge of a database which interfaces well with Xojo is useful. I interfaced my early applications with FrontBase but the plugin does not exist now. I moved to PostgresSQL, it was a bit different at first, but the new AddROW instruction in Xojo has really streamlined my apps.

Which three Xojo language features or framework capabilities do you find yourself relying/using on the most?

My three main items are Listbox, Graphics – items loading pictures and drawing on top of the picture, and the database plugins. Shame we lost FrontBase but PostgreSQL seems to suite me almost as well.

What do you build with it now?

I currently help a very good friend who owns a canal boat marina in the heart of the UK, sadly he uses Windows machines and some rather clunky Access database applications, I would love to get my hands on them!

How would you explain your most recent project to a new developer?

I wanted to maintain a visual display of the boats in a marina and track the ownership and movements of the boats. Initially, I created a Listbox to display the database table which allowed me to count and record vessel details. But I wanted to visualise the position and load it as a picture. Using the DesktopBevelButton, I recorded the position on the plan. They are the red and green squares along the edge of the piers and clicking on an individual location fetches the boat data. I am now looking to locate all the technical resources electric and water points and pontoon detail for our service and engineering crew.

Do you use it for any hobbies?

At nearly 80 I just enjoy the mental exercise, but I still build games for my granddaughter and things to help at the office where I do some administration. I retired and sold the business, but I do some part-time work at a canal marina where we live. Using Xojo and PostgreSQL I am developing a visual boat management system. We moor nearly 200 boats of varying lengths on pontoons of varying lengths! A real juggling job!

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

Sticking with it for such a long time, all through changing RECORDSET to ROWSET, and how simple INSTR grew. I mastered the new graphics methods after much effort – but I did it!

If you were introducing Xojo to a friend, which three words would you use to describe it?

Flexible, fast with great technical backup when you need it.

Thank you to Paul Garfield for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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The work Carsten does was brought to my attention when he replied to one of our posts on Facebook talking about Xojo’s SerialConnection. Carsten said he used SerialConnection to open and monitor cash drawers in his Xojo-written ERP, AWARD+. Read how Carsten has used Xojo alongside PostgreSQL, MBS DynaPDF, and other tools for the last 25 years.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

All of them.

How would you explain your most recent project to a new developer?

We often have to keep up to new legal requirements here in the EU, so the last part was the integration of electronic invoices. For doing this we had to gather information about the laws, do’s and dont’s and required tools. We had to build a parser and creator for the XML part (a colleague of mine did most of that job in Xojo) and to integrate that into our module for creating and mailing invoices (that is my job). To make things easier, we often accessed existing partial solutions like MBS DynaPDF and Ghostscript to build a required PDF/A.

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 5 years?

I am very surprised that still so many people insist on using C or C++. It’s like driving an old steam locomotive instead of a new truck. In our time, solutions have to be done very fast and they don’t last forever. So an IDE like Xojo is faster for prototyping or building. Especially for a small customer base or even individual development.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

The software we make heavy use of is PostgreSQL. And we use Git. Do not try to work in a team without having something like Git. Even a single developer benefits from versioning and backups when using a hub. We use every command-line program that may help us, to name a few: ImageMagick, SIPs, qlmanage, Ghostscript and curl.

Which three Xojo language features or framework capabilities do you find yourself relying/using on the most?

• PostgreSqlPlugin
• AutoComplete and other integrated help
• Navigation inside code editor like “Go to Function” using ContextualMenu

How did you find Xojo? And when did you start using Xojo?

I used GFA Basic on Amiga and was looking for something similar for Apple Macintosh. Maybe started with REALbasic using v3.

What did you first build with Xojo? And when was that?

My first job was importing foreign code from 4th Dimension into RealBasic. That started back in late 2000.

What do you build with it now?

ERP System AWARD+ including merchandise management, webshop, document database, cash register system, ticketing and much more.

Looking back, how long did it take for your app vision to evolve from a blank project into a working solution?

We moved from 4th Dimension to Xojo and SQL (including own PlugIn for PrimeBase) in about two years for the whole big main ERP module. Other tools took much less time.

What is something you worked on that you want to talk about?

As I mentioned it is of great help to have learned skills outside the world of IT. And don’t invent the wheel twice. Having tools like SIPs or ImageMagick i.e., there is no need to build up your own thumbnail generator.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

I earned my living for the past 25 years with Xojo. Not every day because I also helped as sysadmin. But my main occupation will soon end.

Do you use it for any hobbies?

Writing small tools for Windows that I am used to having on my Mac and vice versa.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

Every new app or module finished should be the biggest success. This is what I call motivation. Most proud moment? I remember installing “my” software in a German State Long-Term Archive. Running it started all those tape robots. What a feeling…

If you were introducing Xojo to a friend, which three words would you use to describe it?

• Cross Platform
• Easy to learn and use
• Start for free

Thank you to Carston Kobusch for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. 

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Aaron Andrew Hunt has used Xojo for over 20 years. Recently, he and Geoff Perlman got into a conversation about their shared love of music and coding. Aaron is a composer who uses Xojo (along with MBS plugins) to develop desktop apps for music and publishing. He also creates bespoke music-related apps, in fact, he has been collaborating with a UK-based composer since 2012 on an intensive music database app.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

I’ve been a Mac user since the 90’s, and Xojo lets me write software on the Mac, then port that with minimal effort to Windows. Linux has never held enough incentive for me, but Xojo works on that too. There are obvious differences between the platforms, but Xojo minimises them. Porting code from Mac to Windows sometimes includes a bit of tweaking on Windows, but in many cases it’s a matter of minutes. There have been a few times I’ve developed on Windows and then ported to the Mac. It’s a big plus that Xojo lets us use whichever platform we prefer, and switch platforms easily.

How would you explain your most recent project to a new developer?

My most recent project is protected under a strict NDA, so I’m afraid I’m not allowed to explain it to anyone!

What’s on your “Learn Next” list?

A large part of coding is fairly simple logic, but a project of any complexity is going to present problems that will lead to learning something new, or sometimes re-learning something long forgotten. That learning aspect is one of the most attractive parts of the work for me. I make task lists, but “learn this or that” usually isn’t on the list; I write down the goal, and if I’m able to reach that, it means I’ve learned what I needed to know.

How did you find Xojo? And when did you start using Xojo?

By my count I’ve been using Xojo for 23 years. I had just started a new job teaching at a University, and my mentor, a senior colleague in the department, introduced me to REALBasic. He knew I had been looking for a tool to write music software for the Mac, and RB was relatively new and gaining notoriety. A few years before this I had been using the quirky graphical programming tool called Max (which later became Max/MSP, similar to PureData) on macOS 9. I had learned Max well enough to do some pretty impressive things with it, but I didn’t like because there was no code! Or precious little. Once I started with RB, it took me a while to adjust my antiquated linear thinking to an event-driven object-oriented model, but once enough light-bulbs went off, I was happily coding away (and I never went back to Max).

What did you first build with Xojo? And when was that?

My first projects were ports of the apps I had written in Max, for microtonal music. I also wrote several apps to demonstrate things in the classroom, for example a sprite-based app with a video-game-like feel called The Tonal Solar System, where triads and seventh chords appear as planets orbiting around a tonic sun, and chord progressions happen by “activating” planets in a particular order. It supported inversions and alterations and had some pretty advanced functions. The graphics were nothing spectacular, somewhat similar to the kinds of games I had made as a kid on the Commodore 64. The more serious tools for microtonal music were the beginnings of what later became my business, H-Pi Instruments (https://hpi.zentral.zone) where software works in combination with microtonal hardware I designed with my business partner Jordan Petkov in Bulgaria. There was a microtonal keyboard I designed called the Tonal Plexus, and a micro-tuning device called TBX1, which later became TBX2, and TBX2b. These all worked with apps built using Xojo and the MBS plugins for cross-platform MIDI and audio functions. The Xojo / MBS combination allowed me to develop these apps relatively quickly and easily without getting bogged down with the kinds of management tasks other tools require.

What do you build with it now?

I still maintain and occasionally expand the capabilities of apps that have long histories going back decades. Some more recent projects include PDF Bookmaker a self-publishing tool, MIDI Router a tool for managing and scripting MIDI traffic on desktop macOS, and MIDI Tapper an assisted performance tool for making realistic-sounding recordings by “tapping” through MIDI files using just one or two MIDI keys rather than having to play all the right notes in the conventional sense. These are all apps I developed for my own needs, which I also use on a regular basis. Features are added at customer request, and also whenever I need the app to do something it doesn’t do yet.

MIDI Router is essential for my work – it’s always running in the background, with scripts that solve specific quirky hardware problems in my setup. I use PDF Bookmaker every time I publish a new score, and MIDI Tapper to make quick recordings for myself and for my students. The latter is a really powerful app with a small but enthusiastic user base, which deserves to gain a wider audience (marketing is not really in my skillset). The concept is based on the graphical music animation work of Stephen Malinowski https://www.youtube.com/@smalin.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

My focus at this point is on writing music and teaching private students, but software sales and hired coding work have definitely been an important part of my livelihood for a long time now, and Xojo is the essential tool for those things. It’s hard to imagine being where I am today without Xojo. I’ve stuck with it because of its consistency and reliability, its friendly management, and the forum, with its very helpful user-base. My licenses will continue to be renewed after retirement. I plan to keep on using it as long as I’m around.

Do you use it for any hobbies?

I use Xojo for all kinds of things for my own private use, not intended for sale (though sometimes such projects do develop into something I eventually offer for sale). Being able to try out ideas and solve practical problems by writing my own apps is a beautiful kind of private joy. An app for exploring Gematria? Prime numbers? Bit-shifted integer encodings? Why not? It’s all fun stuff.

I’ve written many apps to do specific things when I needed some problem solved. Others might search the app store to find a tool they need. Nerds write their own. I wrote my own password manager, for example (why worry about trusting anyone else’s tool with my passwords?) Xojo makes coding easier than any other tool I’ve tried, and for me that’s very important. I don’t want to be fighting with the tool I’m using to try to do something creative. I want to have a pleasant time working as quickly as possible, and that’s basically what I get with Xojo and the MBS plugins.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

An app called Universal Tuning Editor (UTE) is part of the biggest success I’ve had with my business, because it works in combination with all the hardware devices I’ve developed over the years, the latest being a mini-synthesizer I was able to make with the help of mitxela, called FLASH. This is the world’s smallest polyphonic microtonal MIDI synth, and it communicates with UTE over UART, using the Serial object in Xojo. I can use the UART port to communicate with the bootloader of the chip containing the synth firmware, or I can run that firmware and open the port at MIDI baud rate to control the synth through UTE. This combination lets users program their own patches and upload tuning tables to the synth, which they can then plug into any standard MIDI controller – without a power supply! UTE uses Xojo’s Object2D for scalable, rotatable vector graphics, with XML-based scripting so users can design their own interfaces. Xojo does an amazing job keeping up with the rapid changes in the industry, so I know as long as I do my part, my existing apps will continue to work. If I work on my coding as hard as they do, who knows, some new success could be right around the corner.

Thank you to Aaron Andrew Hunt for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. You can see all his programs at https://hpi.zentral.zone.

If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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Martin started using Xojo around the time he got his first MacBook. He was drawn to Xojo’s simplicity and flexibility. If you ask him, Martin will say designing clean, intuitive user interfaces is one of his favorite parts of development. Though he’s also a Xojo MVP, he’s probably best know as the developer behind Android Design Extensions.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac.

How would you explain your most recent project to a new developer?

The Android Design Extensions are a collection of enhancements for Android projects in Xojo, aimed at polishing the UI of your apps. This is the primary focus of the project. It addresses aspects that Xojo does not natively provide.

We live in a visual world—design in advertising and product presentation shapes users’ impressions of a company or product. The same applies to software. Is the UI user-friendly and visually appealing? Is it enjoyable to use the app? These questions have always been the guiding principles behind the creation of the Android Design Extensions.

What do you think Martin from 2020 would think about what you do now?

Five years ago, I could never have imagined that I would be a Xojo MVP and be able to make my own project available to other users. Android Design Extensions is the result of many hundreds of hours of intensive collaboration with the Xojo team, which has resulted in Xojo Android becoming more stable and, above all, enormously powerful. For example, in terms of declares, it’s really easy and there’s hardly anything now that you can’t implement in Android projects, as long as you know how to read the Android API and handle declares.

That’s almost the best memory of the last five years, that Xojo has listened to feedback from Android users and responded very quickly. It’s amazing how fast Android support in Xojo has progressed over the past two years.

What is on your “Learn Next” list?

Definitely delve deeper into Android APIs to explore the possibilities of Xojo Android even more.

How did you find Xojo? And when did you start using Xojo?

I first came into contact with Xojo around 2008. At that time it was still called Real Studio and I had found it on a DVD that was enclosed with a computer magazine. I was an active Delphi developer at the time and immediately fell in love with the simplicity of the language.

What do you build with Xojo now?

Fortunately, I have greatly expanded my programming skills thanks to Xojo. My focus is on UI development, controls, especially the TextInputCanvas, Android and desktop programs.

What is something you worked on that you want to talk about?

I became very friendly with TextInputCanvas (a free plugin) and together with Björn Eiríksson from Einhugur, we created an updated API 2.0 version of the plugin, which we still maintain today.

I used to work as a developer for Bob Keeney and was responsible for the Formatted Text Control, which is based on TextInputCanvas. There are several programs on the market that make intensive use of this control and I am still involved in some of these projects today, making the WYSIWYG experience even more pleasant for customers when entering text.

Do you use Xojo for any hobbies?

I also use Xojo to write software for genealogical purposes. From a young age, I developed a curiosity and desire to learn more about the history of my family and its members. That is how I came to genealogy. It is a kind of detective work that can lead to surprising family connections, secrets, strokes of fate, and even unknown relatives. Since I enjoy reading, I prefer to have such information in book form and written out, rather than in tables. A book with text feels more tangible to me—something the reader can engage with more consciously.

None of the genealogy software available on the market has ever met my expectations. That is why I wrote my own software in Xojo, which can process the standard format for genealogical data known as Gedcom. You can think of it as a database in plain text format. From this data, I can then generate—depending on what is desired—full biographies, ancestor and descendant trees, and more. The finished result is a Word document, complete with indices at the end for all people, places, professions, and so on—just like in a real book.

Thank you to Martin T. for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. Martin accepts donations for his work on Android Design Extensions. Download Android Design Extensions. Read more about Android Design Extensions on the Xojo Blog.

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We first met Mark Franken in 2016 at a Xojo Developer Conference in Houston, Texas. Today, Mark splits his time between writing software and caring for 40 acres of rainforest. But before he traded city life for the wild, he spent decades in film and television post-production. In 2003, while still working in post, he founded Sounds In Sync, a company born out of his desire to solve the problems he faced in the editing room. What started as a side project quickly grew in popularity, and eventually, Mark shifted his focus full-time to software development. As a sound editor, Mark worked on some iconic and award-winning films including The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Great Gatsby, Happy Feet Two, and Peter Rabbit.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Develop on Mac, build for Mac & Windows

How would you explain your most recent project to a new developer?

I’ve been working on a major update for my app EdiCue, scheduled for release as EdiCue v5 in June 2025.

EdiCue is a tool used by sound editors to “cue” dialogue that needs to be re-recorded in film and TV projects. Typically, this involves working alongside the sound editing application Pro Tools to place clips on the timeline, each clip aligned with a section of dialogue and named with the exact text the actor needs to re-perform (e.g., due to background noise, unclear delivery, or script changes).

For this release, I wanted to streamline the manual cueing process by integrating AI-based speech-to-text. Specifically, I’ve added a new feature that allows users to load a WAV file, transcribe the dialogue using Whisper AI, and then export a Pro Tools session with timeline clips automatically named using the transcribed text and timing.

The integration required wrapping whisper.cpp for use in my Xojo-based application. I worked with Christian from Monkeybread Software (MBS) to build a custom plugin that bridges between Xojo and the compiled Whisper Dylib/DLL files, enabling support for macOS and Windows.

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 5 years?

The biggest surprise for me has been how far AI has come in understanding, writing, and explaining code. While it still makes mistakes and doesn’t always produce perfect output, for me it’s now an invaluable tool, working in languages I hadn’t formally learned like Python and C/C++.

Thanks to AI, I’ve been able to build and compile C/C++ libraries and create my own shared libraries (Dylibs/DLLs). This has let me expose C++ functionality through clean C-style APIs, making them accessible from within my Xojo applications. It’s dramatically expanded what my apps are capable of.

In the past, I’d reach out to Christian at Monkeybread Software to write me a  plugin or port specific code to Xojo, something I’ve always appreciated. But for my latest project, I needed to navigate this myself as I wasn’t exactly sure what was required from the start.

With AI’s help, I’ve successfully compiled third-party libraries that use gRPC for both macOS and Windows, built a shared library layer, and exposed the functions I needed to call from Xojo.

I learnt a lot in the process, and now I’m confident in rebuilding and maintaining these libraries as updates are released.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

One tool I highly recommend is Hex Fiend – a hex editor for macOS. I found it especially invaluable while updating my Xojo WAV file classes, where I needed to ensure that I was reading and writing metadata correctly.

Hex Fiend’s main window displays the raw hex data of the file, while a side panel interprets the data for various file formats, including support for WAV files. It decodes the fields, letting you see exactly how your code is affecting the underlying binary layout.

This allowed me to track down a number of bugs in my metadata handling code which would have been hard to track down otherwise.

How did you find Xojo? And when did you start using Xojo?

I first discovered Xojo back in 2002, when it was still known as RealBasic. At the time, I was working as a sound editor on The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers in New Zealand. A fellow editor visiting from San Francisco introduced me to it, and I was immediately impressed.

I had been using Delphi/Kylix up to that point, but I was looking for a way to build cross-platform desktop apps for Mac and Windows. RealBasic’s ability to generate native applications for both platforms from a single codebase had me sold, and it fit perfectly with the kind of tools I wanted to create for audio post-production workflows.

What did you first build with Xojo? And when was that?

In December 2003, I built my first Xojo app ‘EdiTrace Auto’ for both Mac (OS9) and Windows. It was designed to load EDL (Edit Decision List) files generated by my online comparison tool at EdiTrace.com.

The app would parse the EDL events and convert them into keystroke commands that it could send to Pro Tools, automating the process of recutting sound edits to match the latest picture version delivered by the video editors. This saved sound editors a huge amount of time by eliminating the need to manually conform their sessions to match the new picture cut.

What do you build with it now?

My original app ‘EdiTrace Auto’ eventually evolved into a more powerful tool: EdiLoad. In January 2025, I released EdiLoad v6, which includes a major new feature: the ability to compare the waveforms of “assembled” WAV files against a guide track provided by the picture department.

This lets sound editors verify that WAV files recorded on set are assembling perfectly in-phase, down to the sample, with the guide audio, ensuring audio alignment is sample-accurate.

To implement this, I explored how Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) can be used to analyze the frequency content of complex waveforms. A helpful introduction for me was this YouTube video, which explained the core concepts.

After a fair amount of experimentation, I landed on a solution using an FFT function from an MBS plugin. I transform the two waveforms, sum them, and invert the result to obtain the sample-level offset.

In EdiLoad this processing is handled by a Xojo Worker, which was the first time I had used one. It was a great fit, as each alignment task just required two file paths, a time range, and a handful of user settings. The workers allow the app to access multiple cores while batch-processing all files in the assembly. You can see the feature in action in this EdiLoad v6 demo video.

What is something you worked on that you want to talk about?

One project I’m particularly proud of is writing a set of Xojo classes to read and write Pro Tools session (.ptx) files, despite having no formal software development training.

Pro Tools sessions store their data in a proprietary binary format, and there’s no public specification available. But to deliver key features my clients needed, I had to find a way to read and write these files directly from my Xojo apps.

To reverse-engineer the format, I built several test apps to see how the data was structured, and then modify known parts of the PTX files and compared results. By selectively changing binary data, I was able to track down how specific values were stored. It was a painstaking, months-long process, but it ultimately gave me the tools to read and write session data reliably.

These classes are now in used in three of my desktop apps. I also created a REST API that several online services use to convert marker data into PTX session files, allowing users to generate markers that can be imported directly into Pro Tools.

Do you earn a living with Xojo?

Yes. Xojo, and the supportive Xojo community gave me the opportunity to learn software development in my spare time while I was still working full-time as a sound editor. Over time, I was able to release my own apps through my website, gradually building up a sustainable software business.

After 20 years in post-production, I was able to transition full-time into software development. That shift also gave my family and me the freedom to leave the city (Sydney, Australia) and move to a quieter life in the bush, about six hours up the coast.

Now I work from home, doing what I love, and I’m incredibly grateful for the flexibility it gives me to be present while our kids grow up. It’s not just a career change, it’s been a lifestyle upgrade.

Do you use it for any hobbies?

Not really. When I’m not working, I try to step away from the screen. I spend my downtime in the garden, the bush, or looking after my bees. But I find quite often that I get my best code insights and ideas while I’m in nature.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

Without a doubt, it’s been getting my applications established across the global film and TV industry, and using my background in sound editing to develop cutting-edge tools that directly support my peers.

The highlight has been receiving not one, but two Engineering Emmy Awards, one for EdiCue and another for EdiLoad. These awards recognized the impact of my apps in setting new standards for technological excellence in television post-production.

Thank you to Mark Franken for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. Learn more about Sounds In Sync.

If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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When I started sharing Spotlight On posts last year, Alvaro Fontán was a Xojo developer that immediately came to mind as someone who should have a spotlight shone on their work. Alvaro has been to multiple Xojo Developer Conferences and is a great guy to get into a conversation with, whether about Xojo or a lot of other topics. His Offroad Portal project is a excellent example of an app that solves a problem and helps a community of people. This project continues to grow with 26 current administrators around the country distributing volunteers to all 50 states.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

I develop in a Mac environment but create applications for Windows, Mac, and Web using Xojo. I primarily use MySQL for all the apps I build and frequently integrate APIs into my projects. I also enjoy incorporating HTML and CSS into Xojo applications to enhance their functionality and user experience.

What do you wish more people would ask/talk to you about regarding programming?

I wish schools provided more opportunities for young minds to explore programming. Today, everyone carries a powerful computer in their pocket, yet most people have no idea how to create custom tools to truly harness its potential. I think Xojo would be an amazing starting point for them.

How would you explain your most recent project to a 5 year old?

Many people with little off-road experience end up getting stuck, facing technical difficulties, or breaking down. To address this, we’ve developed a web application that captures the incident location and allows users to share photos, notes, and contact information. Once a request is submitted, administrators verify the situation and forward it to local volunteers across all 50 states. Currently, we have 3 general administrators, over 26 regular administrators, and more than 13,000 dedicated volunteers. Additionally, we have the support of hundreds of thousands of extra volunteers from local off-road organizations we collaborate with. Our application enables real-time tracking of the recovery process, allowing all involved parties to communicate and coordinate effectively.

What’s next on your “Learn Next” list?

I’m exploring ways to integrate AI to streamline the work of our administrators, as much of their tasks are repetitive and time-consuming.

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

Sometimes, after spending hours developing a solution and testing it for days, a user will discover a bug by doing something I never thought to try in my own app.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

MySQL, CSS, HTML, Python, AppleScript, JavaScript. 

What is something you worked on recently that you want to talk about?

I received a request from an elderly person who had never used a computer and wanted to learn how to use a simple word processor. After searching for an option that was easy enough to simplify saving, loading, printing, and emailing, I couldn’t find anything suitable. So, in just a few hours, I designed a simple interface using Xojo, integrated it with a MySQL back end, and made it extremely user-friendly—with autosaving, non-destructive editing, and buttons to navigate through different versions. There’s one click to print and one click to send a copy by email.

It may sound simple, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how overwhelming it must be for someone who’s never used a modern UI to complete even the most basic tasks. Xojo turned out to be the perfect tool for quickly developing solutions like this one.

When did you start using Xojo?

1998/99.

How did you find Xojo?

Can’t remember.

What did you first build with Xojo?

Small apps for helping with things around the office.

When was that?

The first apps I developed were in the early 2000s. In 2002, with my background in graphic design and while working for a sales magazine, I created the software we used to produce the magazines, utilizing Xojo and AppleScript with Quark. In 2004, I was hired as a full-time developer for the first time, where I automated the creation of brochures and booklets using Xojo and AppleScript.

By 2007, I advanced further and was hired by a large corporation that owned 25 newspapers. There, I developed a photo database that managed and shared about a million photos using Xojo and MySQL. Later, I built an editorial system that automated newspaper design and managed web content for over 200 editors, reporters, and photographers, integrating Xojo with Joomla and later with WordPress for smaller sub-sites.

When the company was sold, I continued maintaining dozens of systems I had developed, working as a contractor for the new owners.

What do you build with it now? 

Our application for Offroad Portal is what consumes most of my time.

Do you earn a living with Xojo? 

Yes, absolutely. 

Do you use it for your hobbies? 

It’s a tool I use, much like someone would use a ruler or a calculator. For me, thinking about implementing solutions with Xojo comes naturally.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

The newspaper software was my proudest achievement. It was a massive undertaking with countless challenges, but also a lot of fun. I worked on that project for over 12 years, and I vividly remember the code reaching over 120,000 lines. I started as the sole developer, but eventually, I was able to build a small team. This allowed me to delegate parts of the code to other developers and get help with web integration.

Thank you to Alvaro Fontán for answering questions and sharing his Xojo experience with the community. Learn more about Offroad Portal.

If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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You don’t need to have “developer” in your job title to build apps with Xojo and this month’s Spotlight On highlights the work of Enrique Contreras, a high school teacher and Assistant Principal in Madrid, Spain who exemplifies this idea. Enrique is an educator first and foremost, he uses his enthusiasm for programming and Xojo to help his school, its professors and students succeed. With his Xojo educational license, Enrique created a planning and gradebook app for himself and other professors at his high school. His latest program builds upon that success, adding the ability to handle everything from documentation and printing to school management. When he’s not overseeing the studies of the students at his school or teaching French, he goes back to his favorite hobby: programming with Xojo.

Q&A with Enrique Contreras

Mac, Windows or Linux?

I’d rather say “Commodore Amiga” because I grew up with the Amiga computer. But soon after, my father bought my first PC, so my answer is Windows.

What do you wish more people would ask/talk to you about when it comes to what you do with Xojo?

I wish people ask me for Xojo itself: “How can you do this or that in Xojo?” Make it more known, because people who are not developers can create incredible things in very easy steps with Xojo.

How would you explain your most recent project to a 5 year old?

The same way I explain it to my secondary students; “Look, I am very proud of it: this is not an Excel spreadsheet. I’ve created my own app just for grading you in the better way!”

What’s next on your “Learn Next” list?

I would like to learn how to deploy my Xojo software in the administrative-secured server of “EducaMadrid”. This is specifically a closed-secured platform for teachers and students in the Spanish Madrid area.

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

In the last 10 years, or the last 20 I’d say… the basics of programming remain the same. Nowadays, you can do incredible things with a bunch of robust programming languages, but at the bottom of every single language, you always have the same logical sentences, same things under different names: if, then, var, for, loop, etc.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

IMHO, everyone must know the basics of databases, mostly SQL (or mySQL). Data is very precious, so is the way you store it, you search for it, and mostly the way you manage and use it.

What is something you worked on recently that you want to talk about?

Nowadays, as Assistant Principal of a high school, I’m working in new software capable of managing everything related to documentation, papers, documents, printing. My goal is to write a program very specialized for my school that combines all the current programs in one app.

When did you start using Xojo?

Almost 10 years ago, under the name of RealBasic. At the time, I was looking for a language- easy to understand and easy to deploy. And this is how I discovered such a gem as Xojo.

How did you find Xojo?

By chance: First, I learnt by myself a bit of Basic/TurboBasic on my old PC; then VisualBasic. But I was looking for something more powerful and easy at the same time. The “logical” answer was RealBasic at that time.

What did you first build with Xojo?

Good question! In fact, my first program in Xojo was a random number picker. At that time, my brother was the manager of a computer shop and he asked me if I could make a simple program capable of randomly picking a number among a short delimited range of numbers. It was Christmastime 2015 and he wanted to giveaway a small computer to his employees in a raffle.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

My best (and currently only) achievement with Xojo is my program “ACDP” (Agenda y Cuaderno del Profesor/Planner and Teacher Gradebook; PTGB in English) I have been using it since 2018!  And I’m very proud of it. Currently ACDP is a desktop Windows app that relies on the Excel interoperability provided by the Xojo classes in order to handle Excel documents. It relies on the provided SQLite class to store and retrieve all the information captured by the app.

What are you building with Xojo now?

Now, I have two projects in mind: one, easier and modest, which is a cooperative schedule program for my school. The second one, more complex and ambitious, consist of managing all the documentation of my high school.

Do you use Xojo for your hobbies? 

Xojo is ONE of my favourite hobbies, indeed! Many people like playing videogames … me, I love programming in Xojo. It is addictive, in the healthy sense of the word.

Thank you to Enrique Contreras for answering questions and sharing his Xojo projects with the community.

If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

Born in Slovenia, at the age of 6 Richard Klingler moved to Switzerland where he lives today. Richard started coding around 16, though he jokes whether what he did could be called coding, typing on an 8-bit computer called the ZX Spectrum. His first job was as an electronic department leader at a die bonder factory. Soon after, he started developing web applications then moved on to working as an embedded Linux developer making applications and kernel drivers for radio modem communication. His last job was as an embedded IoT engineer where he started to use Xojo for in-house development of testing applications.

For the last few years Richard built up a tool shop in his basement where he has started welding, wood working and growing his collection of machinery. For him, this work is a great way to do something with his hands and he finds pleasure in seeing immediate results. It is an added bonus if the stuff he builds can be used in his garden or be sold through his girlfriend’s online shop! When he’s not coding or working with his machines, he’s cooking. Special projects include his famous lasagne made with homemade, fresh pasta and his chocolate Christmas cookies.

Q&A with Richard Klinger

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac and Linux.

When did you start using Xojo?

April 2012 when it was REAL Studio.

How did you find Xojo?

When I searched for an uncomplicated platform for developing macOS applications instead of using Xcode.

Since this Summer you have been pretty active on the Xojo Forums. What do you find yourself doing while on the forums?

At the beginning I was mainly active to get back into Xojo programming as I hadn’t it used for a while. Sometimes I was even able to help out other people. The forum is very good reading material to learn how people implement the same thing differently.

In fact, it was because of a thread (asking about a Dynamic 2-dimensional array) on the Forums that another user suggested you for Spotlight On. Can you tell us more about this project?

Unfortunately, not much as it was a company prototype project which might go in production one day. But basically I was looking for a solution for how to control a CNC GCode interpreter from within a desktop application to test marking on stainless steel pipes with a felt pen. I ended up using snippets of GCodes for each letter/number. So in Xojo I just loaded the corresponding GCode for each letter/number, scaled it so it would fit onto the pipe, and sent the final code out via USB serial port.

In my last weeks at that company I did a touchscreen application for Raspberry Pi, which should do in the end the pulling in of steel pipes, cutting to the right length and labeling it for sanitary installation. I wanted to do it first with PyQt6, but very soon decided that Xojo is a perfect fit for this.

What do you build with Xojo now?

An IDE for macOS to simplify FPGA electronics development based on open source tools which are console applications only therefore simplifying the development process. As I wanted to have a more native macOS look I acquired the great NSToolbar plugin which has also an outstanding support from the author.

The progress can be seen on its website https://www.fpga.ch

Mostly I use Xojo for hobbies now as it is just a breeze to quickly develop something to verify an idea. Also, in combination with embedded electronics, Xojo is a perfect match to communicate with it via serial interfaces or IP networking.

Xojo isn’t the only tool in your kit. What is a piece of software more people should know about?

As I deal a lot with databases and REST API I use RapidAPI and Navicat Premium Lite on macOS which are both free tools.

Then of course for graphics the Affinity suite. And just recently I bought an App Wrapper license for distributing macOS applications.

But also don’t forget SF Symbols. I quickly built my own image scaler application with Xojo to copy/paste macOS icons from SF Symbols and generate automatically icons at a desired resolution with @1x/@2x/@3x scaling.

If it’s one of many things you use, what do you tend to use Xojo for?

To develop helper applications for electronics development, like controlling power supplies and function generators, grabbing screenshots from oscilloscopes. An idea exists for doing a combination of instrumentation control and test automation, sort of a poor-mans LabView.

What’s your biggest Xojo success?

Personally, my FPGA IDE for macOS. Not sure if it will be a success out there when once published in 2025. But during this project I learned a lot about the power of DesktopCanvas and DesktopListbox.

Thank you to Richard Klinger for answering questions and sharing his Xojo projects with the community. You can, in the words of Bart Simpson “Absotively posalutely“, find Richard on the Xojo Forums.

If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

For Geoff Haynes, his work as a developer started at home with BASIC on a Commodore 64, that led him to PHP and Microsoft SQL Server for some web development, which then lead him to traveling the US amusement park circuit to install the hardware and software for point of sale (POS) systems. Today, he is settled and running Raximus Studios, using Xojo and enjoying doing what he knows best.

Q&A with Geoff Haynes of Raximus Studios

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Windows for anything requiring a UI. Linux for everything else. Sadly, I do not own a Mac but my iPhone is my daily driver for most tasks.

What’s next on your “Learn Next” list?

I spent a couple months early in 2023 learning about electrical engineering and designing circuits. I started building an EEPROM bios programming circuit but did not have time to finish it. I would like to learn more about electrical engineering and circuit design in the future.

What programming moments made you think “Wow, I love my job so much.”

• The first time I used the Xojo crypto module to send encrypted data back and forth to an Android app written in Java.
• The first time I compiled a class library in C# and used declares in Xojo to access the functions inside of it.

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

The major shift to web-based cloud systems replacing software running locally on computers.

What is a cool piece of software more people should know about?

• I think SQLyog is a great tool for MariaDB. I tried many different tools used to manage MariaDB and SQLyog is my favorite.
• Voidtools Everything is a great program I use a lot to quickly find files on my development machine.
• By far, UnmanagedExports by Robert Giesecke is the most useful tool I use in every new software project.

What’s the most interesting thing you worked on recently?

Earlier this year I wrote a C# class library that can take image files and convert the binary data to work with ESCPOS commands to print perfect graphics using receipt printers in Xojo. That was really challenging and satisfying when I got it working perfectly.

Music or no music while coding?

The answer depends on what I am coding. If I am designing UI or server backend code then no music. If I am working on tedious tasks e.g. threading database queries then it’s usually Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool or the Tron: Legacy soundtrack playing in the background.

When did you start using Xojo?

In 2009 I was offered a position to develop different types of software for a local IT business that was interested in writing custom applications for their clients. This is how I started using Xojo (then Real Studio). For the next several years I wrote many different types of custom applications for local businesses in Real Studio. Some examples include an office check-in manager, a contest management system, I also developed a system that was designed to work with grocery store membership cards. In addition to Real Studio, I also wrote many different types of mobile Android applications in Java. In my spare time I worked on custom database report applications in Real Studio for clients that I met during my time working in the POS industry. 

What did you first build with Xojo?

In 2016 after I parted ways with the local IT company, I decided to start Raximus Studios when I had the idea to design an arcade debit card system in Xojo that could take advantage of the cheaper IoT circuit boards that had become available.
I integrated the arcade debit system with other existing POS systems that I knew from my years of subcontractor work in the POS amusement industry. A few other systems I have designed in Xojo that are currently in use at locations include:

•  An unattended gate access system that controls turnstile entry through barcode and QR scans as well as biometrics. 
• A media control system that uses IR scanning devices to control AV devices like the type of systems used to control multiple monitors in restaurants and bowling alleys. 
• A cloud-based gate security system used to design and create photo ID cards that are scanned and verified for gate entry. 

What are you building with Xojo today?

In 2023 I started work on my own amusement and entertainment POS system written in Xojo. This new POS system RAXPOS will be launching in early 2025 at the first location. 

Thank you to Geoff Haynes for answering questions and sharing his experience with Xojo with the community. You can contact Geoff at @raximusstudios and learn more about his projects at Raximus Studios. If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

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EKlectic Accounting is a new, full-featured, professional accounting application made with Xojo by independent developer Edward Kidwell. EKlectic’s user interface is “QuickBooks-like” and will feel familiar to users of other accounting software. All the code for EKlectic Accounting is “pure Xojo”, and uses no plugins. The application is cross-platform and supported on macOS and Windows.

10 Questions with Edward Kidwell

You mentioned your projects are “pure Xojo” and don’t use any plugins. Can you tell us about that?

I was originally drawn to Xojo by an open-source project that turned out to be heavily dependent on third-party plugins. Even after I had purchased a Xojo Pro license, I couldn’t compile the project without additional purchases. Furthermore, as I dug deeper, I found the functionality provided by the plugins was easier to write in Xojo than it was to implement the plugin. I decided at that point that I would strive for all of my projects to be cross-platform compilable without any third-party purchases being necessary. Several projects later, I have not had to compromise that decision.

Although Xojo is a RAD environment (Rapid Access Development), I’ve observed (on the Xojo forum) that many developers overlook the power that is available in the core language and built-in objects. Anyone using the forum will notice that many answers basically say, “Use plugin ABC for that,” when Xojo itself could often solve the problem without any plugins. For developers who are packaging and reselling their software, I think the less third-party dependencies the package has, the easier it is to maintain, support, and debug.

For example, without using any third-party software, I’ve created reusable Xojo objects for PDF (with both print and preview), ID3 audio-tags-reader (for MP3 files), and custom controls (database-enabled auto-completing dropdown fields, GUI panels, etc). Xojo really can stand “on its own two feet”!

Mac, Windows or Linux?

All of the above! My primary machine is Mac, with a separate Windows machine on a different HDMI channel, and I use various Linux VMs as needed.

What do you wish more people would ask/talk to you about when it comes to the software you develop? 

I wish more people offered criticism of the user experience. Only through critical feedback can you improve a software package, and I’ve learned to appreciate it when people complain.

What’s next on your “Learn Next” list?

In the context of computers, the Rust language has piqued my interest. Besides that, I’m currently studying Greek.

When do you think of solutions for stubborn bugs?

*Always* first thing in the morning. The mind seems to solve them overnight.

What programming moments made you think “Wow, I love my job so much.”

I felt that way when, using Xojo’s ServerSocket and TCPSocket classes, I was able to implement a bonafide HTTP 1.1 server written from scratch in Xojo. I packaged that code as a reusable object that I can plop in to any of my projects. For example, one of my projects uses that server to allow users to control the app remotely from any device on the same network (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android, and even Kindle tablets). So yeah … it is very satisfying to see my Xojo apps serving up their own HTML and JavaScript web apps, as well!

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

Two things: 1) How fast certain new languages are adopted (e.g. Swift, Rust), and 2) How indispensable some of the older languages have become (e.g. C++, PHP … they’ll never die! ).

What’s the coolest thing you worked on recently?

There are actually two very “geeky” things that come to mind: The first is a shell script I created on TrueNAS (FreeBSD) using rsync to *pull* scheduled (cron) backups of a remote Linux web server over an authenticated SSH connection. The core functions from the script are also used on my Mac to *push* scheduled backups to the TrueNAS. That made my “geek sense tingle” a bit. Secondly, I created a web-based VOIP phone system (like the automated attendants in a PBX) using a RESTful API on the backend, and a home-grown web-app-GUI on the frontend. It allows people to setup a complete phone system in one or more languages and with different voices, all through a web interface. Again, “geek-sense=tingly.”

Music or no music while coding?

I’m a multi-instrument musician of over 4 decades, so yes, always!

In addition to accounting software, Ed offers additional apps built in Xojo. EKlecticSong is a presentation program for song services, church services, or business presentations. EKlectic Find Duplicates is a duplicate finder with a fast duplicate algorithm. Dock Media is a full-featured yet minimalistic media player.

Thank you to Ed Kidwell for answering our questions and sharing his experience with Xojo with us. If you have an app, a project or a person you want to see featured in Spotlight On, tell us about it!

LX Aer is an AI-powered educational platform developed by student-turned-entrepreneur Leo Medvinsky. In 2020 as the pandemic forced schools to begin using remote learning tools, Leo, a student at the time, saw the gaps and the flaws in the tools he was offered and did what so many Xojo developers do, he decided to build something better. A quick view of LX Aer demonstrates it’s the solution someone who actually uses such a system would create. LX Aer is a modern take on the LMS with a user interface that centers the student and teacher. Currently, LX Aer uses Xojo Web for the backend and the project has 30,000 lines of Xojo code and growing.

10 Questions with Leo Medvinsky of LX Aer

Using Xojo Web for just the backend (web services) is somewhat surprising, tell us about that?

The LX Aer web app is designed to be the digital hub for students, teachers, and soon, administrators. The original web app was written in between 2020 and 2021 and used Xojo Web for some web service work but was mainly used the conventional way for Xojo Web pages. To increase speed and reliability as well as to improve performance, the decision was made that our next product (a standalone attendance tracking system) would be written using Xojo Web as a backend, with a Xojo iOS app and a standard HTML/CSS/JS web app to accompany it. We found that Xojo Web was a great way for us to have business logic on the backend, with great performance and amazing ease of management with Tim Parnell’s Lifeboat. When, in 2022, we were unifying this attendance system into the LX Aer suite, it was decided that the LX Aer suite would be combined into the attendance technology stack, rather than the other way around. This was a large time investment as it involved rewriting and rethinking significant portions of the existing product offering but has brought our software to a much stronger position.

What is your experience with Xojo Web performance for larger scale apps like LX Aer?

Up until recently, when we began self-hosting most things, we had two instances of the LX Aer Backend running on a Debian server in AWS with just 2 GB of RAM and performance was very good. We are actively developing solutions to allow for much greater scalability and distribution of load across not just instances (with Lifeboat), but across several different servers. Our database server runs CubeSQL, and Marco and I have been discussing ways to implement database sharding into CubeSQL to allow for greater scalability. While we are a startup without too many users right now, LX Aer needs to be able to support the thousands of users each school brings, along with all of their data requirements.

Can you tell us why Xojo was chosen as the backend and what other options were ruled out?

My first programming language was Visual Basic .NET. The original software I had was a simple quizzing application designed to help the user study for tests, but it could only run on Windows. This was a significant limitation. I (mostly) loved the syntax of VB compared to other languages I’ve worked with (Python, C++, Swift…), so I decided to try Xojo when I came across it in 2020. It was an amazing feeling to be able to write with the syntax I already knew to and make an iOS app, albeit a limited one, the same day I downloaded Xojo. Having experimented with Xojo, I started working on major projects in it very soon, and when a web development need came up, it was my go-to. Over the years, I have considered many alternatives, and many in the developer community (not Xojo’s) have discouraged me from relying on a proprietary language for such critical software, but I have never had any interest in switching. Every step of the way, Xojo has scaled with our needs.

Mac, Windows or Linux?

I flip-flop constantly between my dev machine, a Mac, and my business machine, a Surface. I tried many Linux distros on several occasions and have never been much of a fan of it as a consumer operating system.

What do you wish more people would ask/talk to you about when it comes to LX Aer?

Security. LX Aer’s tagline is “Security, Reliability, Innovation.” Notice how “security” comes first. While the Aer Intelligence platform offers incredible AI tools built into LX Aer to improve educational outcomes, and this is one of the largest attention grabbers, I would argue that security is our most interesting innovation. Having graduated from high school just over a year ago, I recall when I found my student data leaked online after a massive breach of PupilPath, a learning management system that my school used at the time. I also recall the school I transferred to for my senior year and the software they used, Genesis, which allows a user to view their own password in plaintext after logging on. This, among other things, motivated me to always put security first. In 2023, we launched LX SecurShield, which provides encryption for student data WITHOUT storing keys on the server, while still allowing a user to seamlessly log on from any device, without any of the hassle typically associated with client-side encryption. LX SecurShield is truly unique and is something I wish more people took an interest in.

How would you explain your most recent project to a 5-year-old?

LX Aer is creating an AI chatbot that will help teachers teach and students learn!

What’s next on your “Learn Next” list?

Tough question… maybe French?

What programming moments made you think “Wow, I love my job so much”?

I’ve always been technically minded, but I have seen it as a means to an end, rather than the end itself. I never wrote code for the sake of writing code. I always had a long-term project in mind. LX Aer has been a project of mine for over 4.5 years, and has changed immensely from March 2020, when it first began. Consequently, the programming moments that made me think how much I love my job were when I was able to finally push an innovation over the edge into a working state. When I was developing LX SecurShield, it required significant portions of LX Aer to be rewritten to support the new encryption. After developing a proof of concept, I worked almost nonstop for close to a week to develop it into a usable and stable state, with several all-nighters along the way. At the end of it all, I thought, “wow, I love my job so much, even with all the craziness associated with it!”

What is something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 5 years?

10 years ago, I was 8 and had no experience writing code (though I was still the go-to tech support for my friends/family). This is a tough question, but if I had to pick it would be the difference in writing code for someone else vs. writing code for your own company. Writing code for someone else is 1,000x more difficult than writing code when you’re your own boss. As for something in the industry itself, I am always surprised by the tendency of web developers to jump around from platform to platform… Angular, React, etc. It just fascinates me.

What is a piece of software more people should know about?

To those in the Xojo community writing a web service, I cannot recommend Tim Parnell’s Lifeboat and Marco Bambini’s CubeSQL enough. To anyone working with cryptography, Björn Eiriksson’s Einhugur plugins are just incredible! 

To people in general, I think it would be great if more people knew about Proton. They’re a Swiss company that develops mail, cloud storage, calendar, VPN, and password storage software, all of which uses client-side encryption and is easy-to-use. They were my inspiration for LX SecurShield. 

What’s something you worked on recently that you are excited about?

It would be somewhat cliché to say that I am excited about AI (Aer Intelligence), but I am. Especially in the EdTech industry, I see so much potential for it to improve educational outcomes and make lives easier for overworked teachers.  With our software having won the Pitchfest award at the prestigious Future of Education Technology Conference this year, I believe, largely because of our AI capabilities, I think it isn’t just the LX Aer team that’s excited about AI in education.

Thank you to Leo Medvinsky for answering our questions. If you want to learn more about LX Aer visit https://www.lxaer.com/. To all those in the Xojo community, as a token of gratitude, Leo is offering a free license until December 31^st, 2024. Email sales@lxaer.com and say that you’re part of the Xojo community! “Although I have not been very active in the Xojo community in terms of engagement,” Leo says, “without the exceptionally great resource that is the Xojo Programming Forum, as well as the software and plugins made by those in the community, such as Tim Parnell, Marco Bambini, Christian Schmitz, Björn Eiriksson, and Sam Rowlands, none of this would have been possible.” See the full LX Aer Xojo community credits at https://www.lxaer.com/credits.

xDev is a bimonthly digital publication and a staple of the Xojo community since 2002. Every issue is packed with fresh and vital information: step-by-step tutorials by Xojo experts, columns for the beginner and expert, “behind-the-scenes” postmortems of popular programs made with Xojo, fascinating interviews, handy tips, product reviews and Xojo news. Subscribe today and start expanding your Xojo world.

10 Questions with Marc Zeedar of xDev Magazine

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac.

What do you wish more people would ask you about when it comes to xDev?

I love learning about people’s projects. I find many (most) people are overly modest about their own work and over-idealize the coding of others. Every programmer creates bugs. The truth is that *every* project is interesting, regardless of skill level. That’s one of the things I love about programming: it’s so vast and covers such a broad array of uses. They’re all fascinating.

It’s especially gratifying to hear about xDev articles or tips that readers put into practice. There’s nothing better than learning how the magazine helped someone!

How would you explain your most recent project to a 5 year old?

I got AI to help find writing errors in articles (see xDev 22.4’s “Beginner’s Corner” column).

What’s next on your Learn Next list?

Oh boy. That list is so long! And it doesn’t just include programming. Like I’m working on building a microcamper and I’m wanting to learn more woodworking skills so I can build some custom cabinets. I know just enough to be dangerous now and to realize how much more I need to learn!

In terms of programming, I always feel I’m weak on the algorithms side. There are many project ideas where I have no idea how to even begin. So I’m always open for more learning in problem solving.

In tech, I’d like to learn more about AI from a behind-the-scenes perspective, such as training models. For instance, could I create an AI model trained on xDev content that would make it easier to find coding help from past articles?

When do you think of solutions for big bugs?

Usually several hours after I wished I had! Typically that’s at 3 a.m. when I should have quit and gone to bed at midnight. Then I’m kicking myself for making such an “obvious” error.

What programming moments made you think “Wow, I love my job so much.”

Every time my code actually works! There’s nothing more satisfying than having an idea and then seeing it come to life. Probably 90% of the time when I start a project it’s on a whim and I’m just “playing around” to see if the idea is even feasible. Then when it works I’m totally jazzed and inspired.

I did that recently with my “Sandstorm” simulation (xDev 22.1) [Download this article for free], my “Find the Differences” game (xDev 21.6), and my “Xojo Jigsaw” app (xDev 20.4). They all started out with me just fiddling around and then ended up as surprisingly good apps I could write articles about.

What’s something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

Probably AI (horribly named since it isn’t intelligent at all), which is problematic, but capable of impressive feats. The idea that it can actually generate useful code is wild to me. It’s still early days and there are serious issues to figure out, but it has incredible potential.

Focusing more on coding itself, I don’t think it’s any one thing, but just the way programming has improved and grown more powerful over the last decade. Each year there are small improvements and after ten years you look back and you’re amazed. The high standards of software these days — what users expect — keeps rising and yet coding is getting more powerful and making achieving those levels possible.

What’s a cool piece of software more people should know about?

Not really software, but a technology: RSS (Really Simple Syndication). It’s old, but so simple (it’s even in the name) and effective. I hear so many people grumbling about bad stuff on the news, social media, screen addiction, etc. and I wonder why they put themselves through that. The beauty of RSS is you can use it to set up your own custom feed of information and ignore all the cruft. I get to ignore politics and nonsense and focus on interesting people and technology.

What’s the coolest thing you worked on recently?

Besides my microcamper? My current project is always the coolest, at least until the next one comes along.

Music or no music while coding?

No music. I wouldn’t hear it anyway. When I go into coding mode (or writing mode or reading mode), I’m not aware of much that’s around me. It’s like I’m underwater.

Thank you to Marc Zeedar for answering our questions. If you want to learn more about xDev visit https://www.xdevmag.com/, you can get your subscription via PDF, or print for those of you who still like to hold your media in your hands. xDev also offers a 500-page printed book of each year’s issues.

Since its launch in 2002, Marc Zeedar is the publisher and editor of *xDev Magazine*, an independent bimonthly publication focused on instructing users of the Xojo development environment. He’s been using Xojo (then called REALbasic) since 1998 when he released his acclaimed Z-Write word processor, a unique tool for creative writers. In his spare time he hikes and camps, reads, writes novels, watches soccer and films, and lets his dog and cat tell him what to do. He lives in beautiful Oregon wine country.

GraffitiSuite is a series of user interface components for Xojo developers. With a powerful data grid component for web, an extensive WYSIWYG HTML content editor, and beautiful animated in-window modal popups for Desktop, GraffitiSuite classes have helped people make stunning UIs for their Xojo-made apps since 2003. Anthony Cyphers, GraffitiSuite’s founder, is a well-known name in the Xojo community and a Xojo MVP; and he volunteered to be our first Spotlight On guest. GraffitiSuite is offering 10% off this month only! Use coupon code SPOTGS10 in June go get 10% off GraffitiSuite.

10 Questions with Anthony Cyphers of GraffitiSuite

Mac, Windows or Linux?

Mac, primarily, but I’m comfortable pretty much anywhere since I tend to have a set OS for specific things. macOS for work, Windows for play, Linux for servers. I keep multiple machines for each hanging around here.

What do you wish more people would ask you about when it comes to GraffitiSuite?

I wish people would show me their project and ask how GraffitiSuite can help them more.

How would you explain your most recent project to a 5 year old?

I make pretty things that help people use computers.

What’s next on your Learn Next list?

I’ve been deep in TypeScript for the last six months — and enjoying it — expanding from my JavaScript skills. The plan is to continue that journey and use it to augment Xojo Web as much as I can. This means rewriting some Xojo Web components with more modern, useable, performant and attractive controls.

When do you think of solutions for big bugs?

Usually when I’m trying (and failing) to sleep or when watching something on TV that I’m really not paying any attention to.

What programming moments made you think “Wow, I love my job so much.”

That feeling of triumph when you spend an inordinate amount of time working on an idea without doing any actual testing, then you hit “Run” and it just works. As though the stars aligned in that moment to say “Yeah, you can have this one, but the next one will be harder” — and it usually is.

What’s something that has surprised you about coding in the last 10 years?

Meh. Not much.

What’s a cool piece of software more people should know about?

The obvious answer would be Xojo, but I’m also very impressed with a lot of software that I use. And, in keeping with the Xojo theme:

• Version Tracker from Tim Parnell immediately springs to mind as an indispensable part of my toolkit.
• Apple Profile Triage from Greg O’Lone has saved me from some headaches.
• Beauty Shot by Ricardo Cruz is wonderful for tweaking screenshots.

What’s the coolest thing you worked on recently?

I’d have to say it’s my web application firewall (WAF) for Xojo Web called GraffitiFirewall. I spent some time reading white papers, tutorials, specs, and just playing with other implementations. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out and excited to add more features over time that may help protect Xojo users’ web apps. I work on a lot in a given week, both new and old stuff, but this one feels right.

Music or no music while coding?

Doesn’t matter. It’s all background noise. I often stream an old TV show like The X-Files, Law & Order, The Big Bang Theory, or Adventures of the Gummi Bears.

Thank you to Anthony Cyphers for answering our questions and for being a rock in the Xojo community. If you want to learn more about what GraffitiSuite can do for you, visit graffitisuite.com. And take 10% off in June with coupon code SPOTGS10.

Anthony G. Cyphers is the Lead Developer and Sole Proprietor of GraffitiSuite Solutions, and has been providing custom Xojo components and contract development since 2003 and is a Xojo MVP.