Articles about installing softwares from SamLogic

I’m aware of the fact that I nowadays rarely make any posts here at all. One explanation is that I’m learning about new tools and that I find it very satisfaction and enjoyable.

Nevertheless, SamLogic, the Swedish vendor of Visual Installer and other excellent tools, have recently published some interesting articles which explain some important aspects when it comes to install softwares:

• The ‘Program Files\WindowsApps’ folder in Windows 8 explained
• How to install a desktop application / desktop app in Windows 8
• Installation Program for Windows Vista and Windows 7

 

Happy coding everyone!

Dennis

Xojo: An Old New Kid on The Block

Until 4th June this year the company had the name Real Software Inc and their product, a cross-platform developing kit, had the name Real Studio. However, the company name is now Xojo Inc and the product’s name is Xojo.

Bob Keeney, founder of BKeeney Software, has written a great review about Xojo 2013r1. I refer to that articles then write one myself.

Here I will bring up two important subjects, Xojo in Windows and Missing Controls – Expensive to buy.

Xojo in Windows

When I started to hang around and lurk around I got the impression that the major group of developer are on the Apple platform. Since then it has been confirmed in many ways and with the transformation of Real Studio UI to Xojo UI it’s quite clear that Xojo Inc favor the Apple platform. Have a look on the below screen shot, is it Windows or?

Missing Controls – Expensive to buy

If I buy a development tool like Xojo I expect to have included a bunch of basic controls. Xojo Inc do not follow the main stream of development tools. They have excluded two important controls, a Data Grid and a Chart control.

In fact, they have placed themselves as hostage to 3rd party controls by some vendors. For developers it gets more expensive and by using the 3rd party controls the developers are also in the hand of the 3rd party vendors.

OK, we start first with buying a license of Xojo Desktop for US$ 300 (excluding VAT).

Suppose we need a descent Data Grid control we then must buy a collection of plug-ins. The collection has a price of US$ 199 (excluding VAT) with a subscription of one year.

Next, we realize we need a chart control. It exist a free chart control but it has not been updated for the last years. Beside that, it lack a lot of feature. Our real option is to buy a commercial Chart control. It cost US$ 26o (excluding VAT).

Let us summarize it:

• We pay US$ 300 for one Xojo Desktop License
• We pay US$ 560 for two basic controls!
• All in all, we pay US$ 860 (excluding VAT)

We actually pay more for two basic controls then what one license of Xojo Desktop cost! That sucks.

Badwill can be created in many ways. Badwill created this way can easily be avoided; provide a Data Grid control and a Chart control as part of Xojo packages.

Is it only me who find it unacceptable?

Xojo is an interesting development too and I find the job done by Xojo Inc to be good. However, given the present feedback Xojo need one or two releases before all the teething are gone.

Finally, the subject for this article is related to the fact that Xojo is based on Real Studio so in one way it’s new in another way it’s old.

Kind regards,
Dennis

Great News From Paradigma Software & Syncfusion Inc

Paradigma Software released version 5.0 of its Valentina Database and tools. The hard databases competition is an advantage for us developers; we get better tools and more for our money.

Paradigma Software continue to offer some great tools for free;

• An updated and more powerful Valentina Studio which now also supports MySQL DB, PostgreSQL DB. And since prevously version Valentina Dbs and SQLite Dbs
• An updated and more powerful Valentina Server / 5

Of course, Paradigma Software also offers Premium products such as  Valentina Server , Valentina Studio Pro and a great number of ADKs and Report ADKs  for nearly all existing developing platforms.

For more information please visit:

Syncfusion, Inc, have also released new versions of their first class components for the .NET platform, WinRT and Windows Phone (Beta). Check it out at:

Kind regards,
Dennis

PS: I have no commercial interest in any business. I’m just a pleased customer who believes that high quality tools and components should be expoxed to other developers.

Microsoft Chart Control for .NET

In 2007 Microsoft aquired Dundas Data Visualization but Dundas still remains as a standalone company. What matters is that by acquiring Dundas Microsoft got access to all the Dundas .NET controls. Last year Microsoft made the Chart control available for free. Originally the Chart control comes from Dundas but  Microsoft has done an update of its code base so it fits better with Visual Studio.

So far Microsoft have only provided some basic controls in Visual Studio and has let other providers to provide more advanced commercial controls. But with the Chart control they make an exception and provide an excellent control for free. Perhaps we will see more of that in the future?

I find the Chart control to be a great companion into my solutions where it requires some data presentation in terms of charts. Due to this I believe it deserves to be more highlighted within the Excel and .NET developing communities.

 Initially I planned to create a sample and discuss it in more detail however because MSFT has made over 200 samples available there are no reasons why I just should repeat some of these samples here. Actually, the sample collection is very nice and all the code samples can be viewed in both C# and VB.NET as the below screen shot shows.

What should be noted is that we cannot place the control on worksheets when creating document centric VSTO solutions. But on the other hand we don’t need to use it like that as we have access to Excel’s nice built-in chart control.

 For more information and to download please see the following links:

• Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5
• Microsoft Chart Controls Add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008
• Microsoft Chart Controls for .NET Framework Documentation
• Samples Environment for Microsoft Chart Controls

A great blog about the Chart control is Alex Gorev’s Weblog.

Kind regards,
Dennis