Unlike VB and VB.NET, Xojo allows you to develop on your platform of choice- Windows, Mac or Linux. But being able to develop wherever you like isn’t the only reason Xojo is a great alternative to Visual Basic. Xojo is fully object-oriented, supported and regularly updated. It allows you to cross-compile desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux and Raspberry Pi. Currently, a Mac is required to compile projects for macOS and for iOS development and compilation; learn why. In additional to all this, Xojo allows you to compile apps for mobile and the web with that same powerful language and IDE.

Evaluating Xojo as a Visual Basic Alternative

Xojo is free for learning and development so you can take all the time you need to evaluate. Download Xojo and start learning while you develop, run and debug your projects in Xojo’s free IDE. Going through the QuickStarts and Tutorials, you’ll recognize how your knowledge of VB leads you to quickly embrace Xojo. Purchase a license only when you are ready to compile your projects.

To help make your transition from Visual Basic to Xojo easier, download this open-source Xojo.VB library that maps many Visual Basic commands to their Xojo equivalents. Watch this Migrating from VB video to see a simple VB app get migrated to Xojo. Visit our Migrating from Visual Basic page at the Xojo Docs for more details about Data Types, Commands and Controls.

Modernize Visual Basic Apps for Web and Mobile

Xojo it is a great way to modernize legacy Visual Basic desktop apps to web and mobile platforms.

Web Development – With Xojo’s programming language and IDE, web apps are as simple to develop as desktop apps. Instead of HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and AJAX, you’ll save tons of development time using the Xojo programming language. Xojo web apps are compiled to binary code and can be deployed to any server (Linux, macOS or Windows) as standalone web apps. For simple, secure one-click deployment of web apps plus built-in SSL and database support, use Xojo Cloud.

Mobile Development – With Xojo iOS you can design your apps using drag and drop in the layout editor, add your code and build. Access the iOS-features you’d expect, like sharing panel and your photo library, and also the iPhone’s hardware-based features, like motion, location and camera. Xojo makes iOS development familiar and fast. Xojo Android is currently in development.

Similarities Between Xojo and Visual Basic

As a Visual Basic developer, you will find Xojo very familiar. VB and Visual Basic.NET use a language similar to the Xojo programming language. You will notice that many of the commands are nearly the same. The default UI controls included with VB are, for the most part, also included with Xojo. You’ll also find that Xojo has several controls that are not included by default with VB like HTMLViewer/WebHTMLViewer, MoviePlayer/WebMoviePlayer and SearchField. 

Language – The Xojo programming language has commands like If..Then..Else, For..Next, and While..Loop. You will also find the object-oriented capabilities of Xojo are quite similar to VB.NET.

Data Types – Xojo shares many of the same data types with VB6 and VB.NET, including: Integer, Double, String/Text, Currency, Boolean, Variant.

Controls – Xojo has many common controls including: Buttons, Labels, TextFields, TextAreas, ListBoxes (grids), PopupMenus, ProgressBars, toolbars and more.

Differences Between Xojo and Visual Basic

Xojo definitely feels similar to Visual Basic, but you’ll find there are differences too. Many of these differences stem from Xojo’s focus on being cross-platform.

Shared Libraries – Xojo cannot create DLLs, ActiveX controls, .NET assemblies or any kind of shared libraries. Since these are all Windows-specific technologies, that is somewhat understandable for a cross-platform tool. If you’re depending on a DLL and are planning to deploy on Mac or Linux, you’ll need another solution for those operating systems. Fortunately, Xojo supports conditional compilation which makes it easy for your code to use DLLs only when compiling for Windows. If you find another library that provides a solution for MacOS and/or Linux, you can use conditional compilation there as well.

Compiler and Run-time – Xojo apps are compiled to native code. They do not contain byte-code that is run by a virtual machine (as with .NET). The run-time library is included with your applications so there is nothing additional that needs to be installed on users’ computers.

Language and Framework – Xojo is fully object-oriented. Unlike VB6, you can have classes that use inheritance and other object-oriented features. The Xojo framework is designed to be simple to use and support cross-platform applications; it provides access to many things you’ve come to expect such as file handling, databases, graphics and more.

File I/O – One of the biggest differences between VB6 and Xojo is file I/O. Xojo consolidates all its file processing into a few classes: FolderItem, TextInputStream, TextOutputStream and BinaryStream. VB6 uses hard-coded file paths and less flexible file access methods, primarily because it only needs to work with Windows-specific file paths.

Data Types – Xojo is strongly typed, just like VB.NET. VB6 allows you to do some things the old-school, BASIC way, the most significant of which is using variables without declaring them (the type is inferred by a suffix on the name). Xojo does not allow this. Use the OPTION EXPLICIT command in all your Visual Basic code to have VB enforce explicit variable declarations.

Improved Error Handling – Xojo has modern exception handling using Try/Catch, Exception and App.UnhandledException.

Enjoy Coding Again

Whether you need VB for Mac, or VB for Linux or just an updated, rapid-application development tool for Windows, Xojo is that alternative! If you find yourself frustrated with VB.NET or you’re still looking for something to replace VB6, test out Xojo. If saving time and money is a concern, Xojo is a development tool you should consider. Go ahead and download Xojo and see how much you have missed coding like this!

Like all development tools we know Xojo isn’t a fit for every project, so all Xojo licenses come with a 90 day money-back guarantee. We’ve been around for more than 25 years now, and we’ll be here when your next project is looking for a quick way to get off the ground and into development! Questions? I’m here for that, email me, a human being and Xojo fan, anytime at hello@xojo.com.

Download mp3.

Show Notes

• Softbase Development
• A modern alternative to Visual Basic
• Migrating from VB to Xojo
• AlgoRhythms

In spite of its name, the current Visual Basic is not the same language as the ancient Visual Basic 6, nor the Visual Basic for Applications used for macroing. The transition to .NET in 2002, with what was called, at the time, Visual Basic.NET, left developers familiar with those languages high and dry; although the new language was called Visual Basic, and looked a bit like Visual Basic, it was really just C# in disguise. There was no good migration path from old to new, and much of the simplicity of those older languages was forfeit.

This is a primary reason why so many Visual Basic developers choose Xojo after trying Microsoft Visual Basic (.NET): they don’t want “C# in disguise”.

Xojo is not Visual Basic, but it is familiar to Visual Basic developers. Xojo is object-oriented, but it is not the complex language that C# has become. It truly is the best of both worlds. When you choose Xojo you get to keep the simplicity of languages like VB that were so popular, fun and beloved, but you get modern object-oriented features that allow you to make desktop, web and mobile apps for today.

As one commenter on the above post noted:

… (a tool like VB) has a really valuable place in allowing small companies to grow and rapidly define a system without costing a sh*tload of capital and time. It seems like Microsoft pretty much threw in the towel…

Not every company needs an IT department with a development staff in the hundreds. For many of today’s small business, something like Xojo is a much better fit.

When deciding what you’ll use to make your apps, remember you have choices outside of  development tools like Visual Studio and C#. Xojo is fast, fun and affordable with an active, friendly user community and lots of free resources to help developers of all experience levels develop their apps.

For more information about how to switch from Visual Basic to Xojo, check out Migrating from Visual Basic or watch the Migrating from Visual Basic webinar, where you can see how a small VB app was recreated as a Xojo app.

Download Xojo and try it for yourself. See how quickly your company can start making its own apps.

Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired the mobile development tools company Xamarin who had their own IDE which runs on Mac and Windows. Microsoft is going to be shipping that IDE branded as Visual Studio for Mac. So while there will be a product from Microsoft called Visual Studio for Mac, it’s not really Visual Studio.

Visual Studio for Mac (formerly Xamarin) is focused mostly on mobile development. For example, there’s no cross-platform drag and drop support for desktop user interface nor do I expect there will be as Microsoft has no shortage of software available for Windows. It uses C# and F# and is aimed at the professional developer, not the citizen developer for whom Xojo is primarily designed. Xojo, on the other hand, is for much more than mobile development. Xojo gives users an easy to use drag and drop interface designer with a simple, modernized BASIC syntax that builds applications for macOS, Windows, Linux, the web, iOS, Raspberry Pi and many other ARMv7-based devices. The web is one platform Xojo supports that is worth calling out since unlike ASP from Microsoft, building web applications with Xojo requires no knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript, AJAX, and PHP. With Xojo, building web apps is nearly identical to building desktop or mobile apps.

Why would Microsoft want to convert Xamarin into Visual Basic for Mac? While Microsoft is the 800-pound gorilla in terms of desktop market share, they are in a very distant third place on mobile. Their goal in buying Xamarin and marketing the Xamarin IDE as Visual Studio for Mac is to get developers building their mobile apps for iOS and Android in C# to make it as easy as possible to then port those apps to Windows 10 Mobile.  Their ultimate goal is to make more apps available for the relatively anemic Microsoft mobile platform.

For Xojo users, this doesn’t really mean much. While 25% of our users are full-time professional developers, most started as citizen developers and they are our primary focus as they make up 50% of our users. Having said that, our goal has always been to make Xojo easy for those learning programming for the first time, hobbyists, citizen developer and professionals. We will continue in our quest to make Xojo a tool that someone can use at any stage of their interest in software development.

Lastly, reporters enjoy hearing  from those that use a particular product or service they write about. If you read stories about Visual Studio for Mac, please write to the reporter and let them know about Xojo. The more people who talk about Xojo, the more likely we are to grow the Xojo community.

Join the discussion on the Xojo Forum here.

There are three possible solutions to this problem:

1. Find a way to decrease the demand of mobile apps. (Good luck with that one.)
2. Increase the number of mobile developers.
3. Decrease the time it takes to build mobile apps.

Solutions 2 and 3 are not mutually exclusive. You could potentially do both. Adrian Leow even points to the solution when he suggests that developers use rapid mobile app development tools. These tools can provide solution 3, but they don’t create necessarily create more developers.

At Xojo, we have been building rapid application development tools for more than a decade so we know how to do it. Plus, we know how to make it easy enough that citizen developers (those that build apps but don’t have “developer” in their job title) can build the apps they need themselves. Xojo supports the ability to build native iPhone and iPad apps along with the ability to build web and desktop apps from a single IDE and language. Xojo is ideal for citizen developers as they often need desktop or web counterparts to their mobile apps. Anyone with experience in Visual Basic will find it quite easy to adapt to Xojo.

Xojo provides the combined solution that creates more developers by enabling citizen developers taking some of the burden off of IT and dramatically decreasing the development time of mobile applications.

Xojo is the modern alternative to Microsoft Visual Basic. Xojo is a single language to build apps for Mac, Windows and Linux desktop, plus web, mobile and Raspberry Pi. Cross-compile desktop apps and use the same powerful language to develop for web and mobile too.

Develop Faster with Xojo

Xojo is more powerful than VB6 while at the same time more approachable than VB.NET. With Xojo, a single project can create desktop apps that work on Windows, macOS, Linux and Raspberry Pi. Unlike VB and Visual Studio, Xojo allows you to develop on your platform of choice- Windows, Mac or Linux.

Modernize Legacy Desktop Apps with Web and Mobile

Because Xojo can create apps for so many platforms, it is a great way to modernize and update your legacy desktop apps to web or mobile apps.

With Xojo, web apps are as easy to make as desktop apps. Use Xojo’s powerful language to create your web app instead of HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and AJAX and save tons of development time. Xojo web apps can be deployed to any server (Linux, macOS or Windows) and can also use the industry standard Apache web server.

These days mobile apps are often a necessity. Design your Xojo iOS apps using drag and drop in the layout editor, add your code and publish. Access the iOS-features you’d expect, like sharing panel and your photo library, and also the iPhone’s hardware-based features, like motion, location and camera. Xojo makes iOS development familiar and fast. Xojo Android is currently in development and will be testing soon.

Similarities between Xojo and Visual Basic

Language

The Xojo programming language is very similar to Visual Basic. It has commands like If..Then..Else, For..Next, and While..Loop. You will also find the object-oriented capabilities of Xojo quite similar to VB.NET.

Data Types

Xojo shares many of the same data types with VB6 and VB.NET, including: Integer, Double, String/Text, Currency, Boolean, Variant.

Controls

Xojo has many common controls including: Buttons, Labels, TextFields, TextAreas, ListBoxes (grids), PopupMenus, ProgressBars, toolbars and more.

Differences between Xojo and Visual Basic

Compiler and Run-time

Xojo apps are compiled to native code. They do not contain byte-code that is run by a virtual machine (as with .NET). The run-time library is included with your applications so there is nothing additional that needs to be installed on users’ computers.

Language and Framework

Xojo is fully object-oriented. Unlike VB6, you can have classes that use inheritance and other object-oriented features. The Xojo framework is designed to be simple to use and support cross-platform applications; it provides access to many things you’ve come to expect such as file handling, databases, graphics and more.

File I/O

One of the biggest differences between VB6 and Xojo is file I/O. Xojo consolidates all its file processing into a few classes: FolderItem, TextInputStream, TextOutputStream and BinaryStream. VB6 uses hard-coded file paths and less flexible file access methods, primarily because it only needs to work with Windows-specific file paths.

Data Types

Xojo is strongly typed, just like VB.NET. VB6 allows you to do some things the old-school, BASIC way, the most significant of which is using variables without declaring them (the type is inferred by a suffix on the name). Xojo does not allow this. Use the OPTION EXPLICIT command in all your Visual Basic code to have VB enforce explicit variable declarations.

Improved Error Handling

Xojo has modern exception handling using Try/Catch, Exception and App.UnhandledException.

Shared Libraries

Xojo cannot create DLLs, ActiveX controls, .NET assemblies or any kind of shared libraries. Since these are all Windows-specific technologies, that is somewhat understandable. You’ll either need to rethink your design or just re-use these components from within Xojo (and limit yourself to deploying only on Windows).

Switching to Xojo

Xojo is free for learning and development. Take your time to see how Xojo can help with your next project. Develop, run and debug your application with the free IDE, only purchase a license when you are ready to compile. Learn more about Xojo, read the User Guide and visit the Xojo Docs.

If you find yourself frustrated with VB.NET or are looking for something to replace VB6, be sure to test out Xojo. It might be just right for you. Watch the Migrating from VB video to see how a simple app is migrated to Xojo and visit our Migrating from Visual Basic page at the Xojo Docs for more details.

Updated June 2020