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. 

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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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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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!

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.