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| WDM19 - reduced functionality for Windows 8 Phone |
| Iniciado por guest, 15,feb. 2015 20:20 - 21 respuestas |
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| Publicado el 15,febrero 2015 - 20:20 |
Hi All
I have noticed that serialize and crypt and even full utf8tostring are not available in WinDev Mobile for Windows 8 Phone. Is this correct? Does anyone know if they are available in 20? It seems to be a huge show stopper, not being able to encrypt nor work with xml.
Any comments welcome.
Cheers
André |
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| Publicado el 15,febrero 2015 - 22:50 |
Hi Andre,
I have WM20 and I'm afraid not. However, neither does it seem possible, (though I stand to be corrected), that in either 19 or 20 for Windows Phone, can you simply put some code in to call the phone dialer or send a text, a somewhat handy thing to have, one would think!
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 16,febrero 2015 - 05:38 |
Hi Piotr
Thanks for that. One cannot but wonder why they released it then. It is of no use for business type apps which is what PCSoft is targeting. What on earth do they expect developers to do with the limited Windows Phone functionality? I wonder.
I see you can read and write text files but that is of no use to us. We pass complex structures via xml. We are not even asking for database work on the phone.
Oh well, what other tools if any have you used to stop this gap in functionality?
Cheers
Andre |
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| Publicado el 17,febrero 2015 - 17:01 |
Hi Andre,
I've not used any other tools. I have done my client an iPhone, Android and I was hoping to, a Windows Phone version, but as there is practically no functionality of any use on that platform with WinDev, I've done them an iPad version instead.
Like you say, I don't know why PCSoft have even bothered to put Windows Phone on as a platform that can be developed with WinDev, though I guess it looks good on the shiny brochures. Unfortunately, in reality, it's no use whatsoever.
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 17,febrero 2015 - 21:26 |
Hi Pjotr J
"I don't know why PCSoft have even bothered to put Windows Phone on as a platform that can be developed with WinDev"
The answer is simple: to sell more copies of WM, of course. That's why I bought WM18.
best regards
Ola |
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| Publicado el 17,febrero 2015 - 22:02 |
Hi Ola,
If that was the reason why you bought WM18, I just HAVE to ask the question......are you happy with the result !? <img src="/NG2013_WEB/ui/smiley/1.gif" align=absmiddle border=0 alt=":-)">
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 18,febrero 2015 - 22:44 |
Hi Piotr
Am I happy with WM18? I cannot really say. I have not done much with it yet as I have been wasting my time (10 times more than necessary) with the buggy multi-lingual features of WD. But I bought WM mainly to do an app for Windows phones. And that app would -- surprisingly -- include the need to dial phone numbers and send text messages. If these functions really are unavailable for windows phones, as it seems, then I certainly will feel cheated.
best regards
Ola |
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| Publicado el 19,febrero 2015 - 00:08 |
Hi Ola,
Ah, prepared to feel cheated then , sorry <img src="/NG2013_WEB/ui/smiley/2.gif" align=absmiddle border=0 alt=":-(">
I did write to Tech Support, asking why such fundamental features were missing from the Windows Phone version, and I was curtly told to speak to their Sales Department.
Ok, let's get this right.....I've got a Windows Phone. What possible things could I want to do with it? Call someone? Text someone? How ridiculous!! PCSoft could have said they offered development facilities for Blackberry devices too, it would have only taken them the same time to create those for WM as it obviously did Windows Phone.....about an hour!
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 19,febrero 2015 - 22:12 |
Hi Pjotr,
I have noticed that the features list shown in PCsoft brochures has really been a cheat list. They add a "feature", and it may partly work, and then over succeeding versions the feature is little by little brought to some level of useablility. This could also be called "milking"; it forces you to buy more versions in order to really get the feature you originally purchased the product for.
But in the case of telephoning and messaging from a Windows phone it seems that there has been no improvement at all during the last three versions.
Perhaps some day, maybe in version 25 or so, PCSoft will introduce a "killer feature" to WM, which will allow dialling a phone number. Maybe, in version 30, there will be the possibility to send a text message.
Not really. Actually it seems that they no longer develop the WM for Windows phone, for the obvious reason; Windows phone has become much like the the snow of last winter. But it would be fair from them to say so, and remove Windows phone support from the list of WM features.
In other words, they are cheaters; they promise more than they deliver. More than they even intend to deliver.
best regards
Ola |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 00:12 |
Hi Ola,
that may well be, but usually it is possible to mix another development tool with WinDev- or WM-code. WM / WD gives the overall functionality and parts of the application work by API-calls or calls to assemblies or library functions in a different programming language. Ok that's not what you'd expect from a general tool but developer's lives are quite often like that. Fortunately, PC Soft tools very often prove to be extensible by other environments. For WP7, C# would apply. If you really need to make a WP7 app then I think, it may prove to be a good idea to look at WP7-development using the original tool set from Microsoft and what they can achieve with it.
<a class="ExternalLink" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-7-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners">http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Windows-Phone-7-Development-for-Absolute-Beginners</a> |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 00:23 |
Hi Ola.
Welcome to the world of PC SOFT, where one spends 10 times more time trying to work around buggy or non existant features!
Cut your losses and move on. And never look back!
John. |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 08:41 |
Hi John,
this is clearly nonsense. Truth is, there's no real alternative. PC Soft's products try to offer a compromise between complex work in a 3GL environment and easy going within a slightly restricted but much nicer 4GL environment. A 4GL will / can never offer all or as many 'features' as a 3GL or 2GL can. If one wants to have more or even all possible functions for a less popular group of devices (WP7/<img src="/NG2013_WEB/ui/smiley/7.gif" align=absmiddle border=0 alt="8)"> then you have to move on to do your development using C# or VB.net. Which is NOT as friendly as WinDev Mobile's environment and you will need to buy / maintain third party tools. If one has already troubles with PC Soft's easy way of developing applications then it would be no good idea to advise to move over to C# / VB.net. Personally, I'd advise NOT to develop for WP7/8 at all, not with the current market share of those devices. If one needs a mobile business application and knows WinDev then the easiest way to go would be to develop a WinDev application for Windows tablets using the new Intel Atom processors. If phones are a must, develop for Android or iOS. We offer some Android apps which are feature complete, just to demonstrate WinDev Mobiles abilities. We even made an Android POS app which is for waiters in a restaurant.
We're using mainly WinDev for 15 years now and could improve development speed by 3 for business applications. Ok, not 10x, but 3x is impressive enough. Means, we earn three times more per developer than an average developer using VB or VB.net does. Tested and proved. I do not know of any tool which can offer that performance. Further more, finished WD-applications are bullet proof. We're still selling an application made with WinDev 5.5. We've developed many applications using WinDev, many of them use unusual external devices, communicate over the web in a variety of ways, access databases supported by PC Soft and some which are not. Up to now we've not found a real show stopper. If there was a function missing or faulty, there's always been a way to circumvent the problem. |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 10:14 |
Hi Guenter,
I take your point to Ola about 'mixing' with other Development tools, I think every programmer has reason to do this every now and then to get the most out of whatever dev environments they are using. But making a phone call or sending a text !!?? I'd hardly say that PCSoft can trumpet about developing Windows Phone apps when the programmer can't even do THAT in the native WM environment, would you?
In this case I'd agree with Ola and say yes, it IS a cheat to say you can develop Windows Phone Apps, as this obviously cannot be done, unless PCSoft's idea of fully functional app is one where you have a form with a button and a label on it.......and that's it. Don't get me wrong, I like, for the most part, the stuff that can be done with Android & iPhone, be it a bit 'clunky' at times, but the Window Phone support from PCSoft should either be grown considerably or just removed immediately as it's obviously of no use whatsoever.
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 11:41 |
Hi Piotr,
I agree. Explanation: PC Soft's products are work in progress. This means that somewhen in November someone shouts there: 'make ready, this is the new version!'. And off it goes ... same procedure as every year. So, what's ready for the public is in the product and sometimes even will be fixed in case of malfunctions, but generally we have to wait for next year in order to get the next junk of features. Not even version 20 is a big thing when it comes to Windows phone, see page 37 of the brochure. Only two new features are mentioned. Presumably, they were not sure about how WP7/8/8.1/10 would fare on the market. However, as I wrote: I do not believe it to be a great idea to develop for WP 8.1 - who should buy such an application? And how many users would be? Only one of my grandsons bought such a device, just to have a look at its features. For good C# / VB.net developers there may be an incentive to use their experience and make an app for WP, but I doubt that anyone is able to make money with such an app. So, my advice: let it be! |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 18:11 |
Hi Guenter,
I hear what you're saying about the bulk of features coming in over time for each platform, this is how it's been for Android & iPhone, but after 3 years I'd expect to be able to make a call/text. I've got a client that I've done an Android and iPhone version of the same app for, and had to do very little recoding between OS's thanks to the cross-platform nature of WinDev.
They also would have liked Windows Phone, but of course that's where the development in WinDev comes to a screeching halt, as although I can put an HTML control on the form (required for all OS's), I couldn't do the calling or texting, which I find frankly ridiculous. It's a phone !! Regardless of all the potential 'bells and whistles' PCSoft could have added, didn't ANYONE there think, 'Doh, what could we use a phone for' ? And Windows Phone currently has 10% of the UK Market.......sure, not a lot, but a lot of that 10% are businesses, which is where a lot of us developers make our money from, not from the Consumer market.
Anyway, I will stop with my ranting, but PCSoft should either put the effort in and give at least a useable platform or pull it completely. This limp excuse of a platform support helps no-one.
regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 21:49 |
Hi All
@John
I have been in the world of PC SOFT since WD5.5, so I am fully aware of the "10 times faster" joke, and I have good laughs at it on a daily basis. When was 5.5 introduced? Somewhere around the change of the millennium. At that time it was the best replacement for Clarion, which was dying away. And still is. C etc. was no option. I needed to make an improved Windows version of my Clarion DOS -based ERP, and not fiddle around with punctuation marks. Even with all its quirks WD is still faster than anything else. I have since used WD to make a full ERP (alongside my regular work). That's probably the last ERP I will ever make, so I can't just throw it away and restart from scratch. Life is too short for that.
@Guenter
I agree with much of what you say, but none of it can work around the fact that PCSoft really is cheating its customers with WM's "WP-ability". It's a fraud.
@Piotr
Thanks for opening my eyes for this problem before I started wasting my time with it. The real work around seems to be to invest in another types of phones for use with WM. And cheaper too. WP seems to be dying.
Best regards
Ola |
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| Publicado el 20,febrero 2015 - 22:54 |
Hi Ola,
I'm not sure that WP is dying. Compared to the market share that Android & Apple have, then sure, WP's share is tiny, but in terms of 'bums on seats', a large amount of consumers..........AND Windows 10 is coming. Microsoft claim to have this as device independent. Now if that IS the case, it COULD be massive.
Even with the current Windows Phone offering, I still think it's pretty good and quite intuitive. I think Microsoft's options for development with this platform are dire however and this is where PCSoft should have stepped in with a PROPER development solution, if not in the first year, then certainly in the 2nd and 3rd years of WM versions, instead of the joke that's offered.
Regards
Piotr |
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| Publicado el 21,febrero 2015 - 01:30 |
Hi Piotr,
I'd like to be optimistic about Wx, but I just can't keep my breath any more. We'll just have to see, how PCSoft handles the big question. Will the Win10-capable WM have the killer:rp: feature of actually being able to make a phone call and send a message from a WP10, on this decade, or the next, or never, that remains to be seen. Will the current Win phones be able to run win10?
Best regards
Ola |
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| Publicado el 23,febrero 2015 - 14:05 |
Oh Dear
Did not mean to start a rant session but it is understood.
Just a few points:
1. I do not think that Windows Phones are dying. They are gaining traction and if the CEO of the company you are a vendor for has one best you get that app in fast. You cannot dictate to your clients what phones and tablets they must buy. If you do they will march off to any competitor who does not dictate. It is really not about numbers - it is about service no matter what the numbers are. I think that Windows 10 is going to startle the competitors quite nicely thank you. We live in interesting times.
2. There is not much functionality that we need in order to get a business app working on one of these phones using web services. The only issues I have encountered so far is cryption, limited UTF8 support although I am looking at that, and the serialisation/deserialisation issue which I will have to write myself. I was just hoping that someone had already dealt with these issues but evidently not.
3. I think that Montpelier has done a brilliant job with their mobile offerings as we have been able to produce both Apple and Android business apps from the same code base with minimal changes and it has been a hugely productive exercise. I am sure they will catch up with the Windows Phone requirements, hopefully sooner than later.
I suppose my approach to all this is dictated by the fact that I commenced my programming in a cave with a chisel and stone and then later assembly and hollerith cards and eventually a screen with edlin and so on to computers that had more than 16k ram and so on. So the tools we use today are a complete luxury to me.
Cheers
Andre |
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| Publicado el 23,febrero 2015 - 15:52 |
Hello Andre,
>> The only issues I have encountered so far is cryption, limited UTF8 support although I am looking at that, and the serialisation/deserialisation issue which I will have to write myself. I was just hoping that someone had already dealt with these issues but evidently not.
I haven't tested for windows phone, but my code in wxreplication works without a hitch on IOS too, which makes me think that you may want to give it a try for windows phones too, as there is encryption (RC4), and the equivalent of serialisation/deserialisation already built in
Best regards |
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| Publicado el 24,febrero 2015 - 16:31 |
Hi Fabrice
I am not sure what you mean by "my code in wxreplication". What is that?
Cheers
Andre |
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| Publicado el 24,febrero 2015 - 19:11 |
Hello André
WXReplication is an open source project available on my website. I created it to offer an alternate replication system to the black boxes available in the tools. As it was needed for the functionality of replication, it does contain, already coded in wlanguage, several things you said you were looking for:
- an encryption system (RC4)
- a "serialisation" system (including blobs, as code64 strings)
- and of course a transmission system (using httprequest)
While it was not tested for windows phone, it does work for android and IOS and amy be a good base code for your need
Best regards |
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