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Xamarin Client (simple PoC)

What is Xamarin?

Read all details here.

It's a company and a really cool platform for mobile application development. It enables you to use one codebase for iOS and Android.

Since 2016, it's more or less free for everyone.

We tried Xamarin some years before 2016 and it wasn't free. So it wasn't an option for us. Not because it's using C# as programming language. We already have mobile clients for JVx applications but they don't share the same codebase. There is one client for Android and another one for iOS. The source code is licensed under Apache 2.0.

Our native clients work great but we think they could be better.

In the last days we made some tests with different tools, to create a new universal client with one technology. A HTML5 client wasn't an option for us because of different criterias. A real native client was important during our evaluation.

Some links to different opinions:

We made good first progress with Xamarin and because of its pricing, it was the winner of our evaluation. Sure, Xamarin is C# but it's better to write C# than JavaScript. Another plus was that we already have a simple JVx connection port to .NET based on C#. So we could reuse this code.

Why not JavaFX?

The problem with JavaFX is, that it's unclear what will happen with JavaFX in the future. There are different articles about the future of JavaFX, but the one from Jonathan Giles makes it clear

Sure, there's Gluon and some other individual developers, but the overall performance isn't relly comparable to native apps. It's awesome what happened in the last years, but the progress is missing.

We still have our JavaFX based UI, but we're not sure if JavaFX will survive or it will be commercialized. So it's better to have an option.

Why not CodenameOne?

It's a really cool technology and works great with some smaller performance glitches (simply try the current KitchenSink from the App stores)..
WORA just works!

The cloud build isn't what we prefer and the pricing is not good for our use-case. Our client should be free, open and easy to use for every developer.

Here is a simple test application for REST access to our Heroes application, used in our Angular test application.

iOS client

iOS client

Android client

Android client

The source code for this test:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Xamarin.Forms;

namespace TableViewSamples
{
  public class RESTTable : ContentPage
  {
    public RESTTable()
    {
      GetData();
    }

    async void GetData()
    {
      this.Title = "REST Data";
      var table = new TableView() { Intent = TableIntent.Data };
      var root = new TableRoot();
      var section1 = new TableSection() { Title = "First Section" };

      var authData = string.Format("{0}:{1}", "user", "pwd");
      var authHeaderValue = Convert.ToBase64String(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(authData));

      HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
      client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization =
        new System.Net.Http.Headers.AuthenticationHeaderValue("Basic", authHeaderValue);
      HttpResponseMessage response = await client.GetAsync("https://...");

      if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
      {
          HttpContent content = response.Content;

          var result = await content.ReadAsStringAsync();

          var parsed = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<HEROES>>(result);

          foreach (var record in parsed)
          {
              System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Data: {0}", record);

              section1.Add(new TextCell { Text = record.NAME });
          }
      }

      table.Root = root;
      root.Add(section1);

      Content = table;
    }
  }

  public class HEROES
  {
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string NAME { get; set; }
  }
}

VisionX 5 is available

visionx_five_small VisionX 5 is available

It's an awesome version with so many new features and new possibilities.
We had some hard months but now it's done and it's available for everyone.

We made the decision to wait a little bit longer with VisionX 5 because of changes in used frameworks.

The new Version is more web centric than any version before, but it's not a web tool. VisionX 5 still supports Desktop application creation.

So what's new?

  • Default Stylesheet

    All new applications will contain an empty application.css. This file could be used to add custom HTLM5 application styles.

  • New CSS Editor (Web settings)

    The new CSS editor makes it possible to change the style of the application directly within VisionX. The Editor supports Search/Replace/Goto line. It's also supported to reload the application in the browser. Simply test your style changes immediately.

    CSS Editor

    CSS Editor

    It supports syntax highlighting and auto completion. Read more...

  • New default Theme for HTML5

    Newly created applications will use the new default theme "valo" as standard theme. It's possible to change the theme in web settings wizard.

  • Additional Themes

    VisionX 5 is shipped with following themes: Standard, Valo, Valo (small), Mobile

  • Navigation

    The page navigation is now enabled by default. It support Back/Forward Browser navigation for the application.

  • New Tabset navigation

    It's also possible to enable tabset navigation. This feature enables Back/Forward navigation for tab sheets. This feature is disabled by default. It can be found in the web settings.

  • Favicon

    It wasn't easy to change the favicon for your application because it is stored in different locations. VisionX 5 solves this problem because it's possible to change the favicon directly in VisionX.

    Favicon support

    Favicon support

    It's also possible to use the favicon as icon for desktop applications. VisionX will extract the image directly from the favicon.

  • New GUI element: Menu Button

    The Menu Button is a simple button which shows a popup menu if you click the button. The component itself also supports a default action, but this is a new feature of JVx' UIPopupMenuButton. The component is available in the elements area.

    Menu Button

    Menu Button

  • New Web Elements

    The web elements is a new element area. The elements are preconfigured components like an Insert Button. This Button simply inserts a new record in a table. This web elements will work for desktop applications as well, but are often used in web applications.

    Web Elements

    Web Elements

  • New web element: Table Menu Button

    The Table Menu Button is a Menu Button with preconfigured menu items like Delete, Export. It's also possible to add custom menu items via menu customizer.

    Table Menu Button Items

    Table Menu Button Items

  • Menubar Image

    It's now possible to configure the web menus independent of the desktop menu. Every screen has a menu icon and a toolbar icon. The menu icon will be used for the menubar and the toolbar icon for the toolbar in Desktop applications.

    The HTML5 application has different layout modes. The standard, the corporation and the legacy mode. The standard mode shows the menu in a sidebar on the left or right of the browser frame. This sidebar was used as toolbar in versions before VisionX 5. If you did configure a toolbar image, the screen was shown as image in the toolbar of your Desktop application and in the sidebar of your HTML5 application. It wasn't possible to configure an image, only, for the HTML5 sidebar. This feature is now available in the menu settings wizard.

    Web Menubar

    Web Menubar

    The toolbar image will be used for the toolbar in the corporation mode, as usual.

  • New Edit Panel Customizer

    The Edit Panel now supports a Navigation mode: Single click, Double click and No navigation.

    Customizer

    Customizer

    It's also possible to morp an Edit Panel into a Tabset, a simple Panel or a Group Panel.

  • All/No columns

    It's now possible to show/hide all columns of a table via customizer. It wasn't nice to click through e.g. 50 columns. Now it's easy to show only 2 columns of e.g. 50 columns.

    Show/Hide all

    Show/Hide all

  • Default image mapping for HTML5

    It was possible to map desktop images for e.g. HTML5. It's better to use simple/flat images in web applications compared to desktop applications. The web style should be or is different to standard desktops.

    With VisionX 5, we did the default mapping for you and a standard web application will show different standard images.

    Image mapping

    Image mapping

    Same application, no changes necessary. Only some image mappings!

  • FontAwesome support

    JVx has FontAwesome support for a while, but this feature wasn't integrated in VisionX. The new image chooser supports FontAwesome.

    FontAwesome

    FontAwesome

  • Custom image libraries

    It's now supported to extend VisionX with custom image libraries. We have different commercial AddOns in our Solution store.

    Image library AddOns

    Image library AddOns

  • The libraries will extend the image chooser.

    Extended Image chooser

    Extended Image chooser

    It's also possible to integrate your own offline image libraries.

  • New tutorials

    We have new tutorials and new Tutorial Applications in our Store.

  • New Edit Panel features

    The integrated edit panel has new features like Tab Navigation by Buttons. The edit dialog now has OK and Cancel. It supports single our double click navigation.

  • Server actions and DB functions

    Our action editor now supports (Oracle) database function calls and server-side function calls.

    Server Actions

    Server Actions

  • Better Action Code Editor

    The source code editor now supports syntax highlighting and code folding.

    Action Code Editor

    Action Code Editor

  • New Button options

    It's now possible to change the button border behaviour.

    Button options

    Button options

  • New Search Options

    The search field now supports Contains and Starts with.

    Search options

    Search options

  • Better HTML5 default styling

    We improved the Split Panels and fixed some problems with focus.

    HTML5 Styling

    HTML5 Styling

    The split handle is now small.

  • Vaadin 8

    Our HTML5 GUI is now based on Vaadin 8.1 instead of Vaadin 7. With Vaadin 8, the UI is faster and supports all modern AddOns from the Vaadin Directory.

    We offer a Vaadin AddOn for VisionX to integrate AddOns from the directory.

  • New HTML5 layouting mechanism

    We rewrote the layout mechanism of our HTML5 UI because our Form Layout didn't support all available features. Now it's possible to overlap elements or to work with Anchors directly. The new layout mechanism can be disabled if necessary. In this case, the old mechanism will be used.

  • Documentation

    The online documentation is now available.

    Documentation

    Documentation

  • Library updates

    JVx changes, VaadinUI changes

VisionX 5 still contains Applet and Webstart support, but with VisionX 6 we will remove Applet support because the technology is EOL.

The new Version of VisionX will require a new license. Simply ask your sales contact to get a new one. The download area already contains links to VisionX 5 binaries.

Please report any problems as usual and have fun with VisionX 5.

VisionX 5.0 will be available this week

The next big update of VisionX will be available by the end of this week.

We have awesome features for you and your applications.

Some impressions:

Web Elements

New Web Elements

New Tutorial Apps

New Tutorial Apps

More Web Settings

More Web Settings

FontAwesome Support

FontAwesome Support

New Web Menubar support

New Web Menubar support

More details will be available in the next days :-)