Did you try our new Clipper plugin classes?

Recently with the 18.0 release of our MBS Xojo Plugins, we added a new Clipper plugin part in the Tools plugins to use the Clipper library.

As you see, you can do polygon clipping with intersection, union, difference & exclusive-or using ClipperMBS module. The ClipperOffsetMBS class allows to add offset to a polygon like the one on top right.

And the bottom example is a rectangle with a triangle hole. We intersect with a second rectangle and get the new square area with the triangle hole.

BKeeney Software Looking for Xojo Developer

BKeeney Software, a Lenexa, Kansas software consulting company is looking to add a talented developer to their consulting staff. We have been creating cross-platform applications our international clients as well as internally developed products for applications developers for over fifteen years. The resurgence of the Macintosh has driven our business growth.

The ideal candidate should have a minimum of two to three years of experience in an objected oriented development language creating commercial desktop and/or web applications. The candidate should enjoy learning new languages and techniques. A B.A. or B.S. in Computer Science or equivalent is preferred.

Experience with the Xojo (Real Studio) development platform is a plus.

Experience with Objective C, Xcode or web app development is a plus. Candidates must be familiar with Macintosh OS X and Windows from a development standpoint. Linux is a plus.

Experience with iOS development is a huge plus.

Candidates should be comfortable using SQL as most projects involve a database (either local or server). We support projects using MySQL, SQLite, and PostgreSQL databases.

Candidates should enjoy the challenge of working on full life cycle projects. This includes requirements gathering, coding, documentation, testing, and follow up work and changes from the client. Previous consulting experience is a plus.

Candidates must have a suitable work environment in their home. Our offices are virtual with regular interactive meetings. Candidates must have the discipline to work in their home environment and get their work done. Proven experience with work from home development is a plus.

The candidate should have excellent communication skills and be able to interact with clients in a professional manner via phone, email, and video conferencing.

Strong analysis and problem solving skills are required. Candidate must be able to manage multiple priorities. Attention to detail is a required skill.

Send us your resume and introduce yourself!

Resumes can be submitted to: support@bkeeney.com

Due to client restrictions candidate must be U.S. Citizen or green card holder. No recruiters please. Preference will be given to full-time candidates, however, consideration will be given to candidates who would prefer less than full-time (e.g., 20 or more hours per week).

MBS Xojo Plugin registration dialogs

Sometimes you may see a dialog from our plugin with a message about your license for our plugin. You can read the message carefully and see what the problem is. Usually it's not difficult, but to help, here a few common dialogs:

This dialog simply tells you that no license key was used and Register function never called. The dialog includes the name of the plugin "Overlay", the version of the plugin "17.4", the date it was compiled "Sep 25 2017" and the process ID. The last one helps to figure out which application shows the dialog in case you have several candidates. Simply lookup in Task Monitor, Activity Monitor or any other tool which application has this process ID. Than you can add your license call in app.open event and enjoy our plugins.
While you debug the application, we do not show this dialog, so you only see it in built applications.


The second dialog simply tells you about an outdated license key. So your key is from 2017 and the plugin from 2018, so please order an update.


The third dialog appears when you use the plugin in your application before calling the register function. Later when you register, we notify you that the plugin was used before license dialog showed up. This can cause problems like, one part of the plugins misses license key (used before), but other parts have a license. Please make sure registration is done early in the application.


For the forth dialog, you need to mix different version of the plugins. That is a bad idea as we change data structures for C++ from time to time. If two plugin parts share the same data structures and they have a different layout, the application may crash accessing values there. Luckily the plugin tells you the names of both parts and the process ID, so you can locate the application.
Sometimes this happens, when you install an newer over an older application and some DLLs are not properly updated.

If you have trouble, please do not hesitate to contact us. In fact, with a valid license key, you should never see those dialogs.

Java with MBS Plugin

As you may know we support loading Java in both Xojo via MBS Java Plugin and FileMaker via Java functions to call java code. Due to a change in Java 9, the existing plugin doesn't find the jvm.dll on Windows automatically. You can of course just pass the right path to the functions to load it and bypass the automatic.

For Mac and 32-bit applications, you can install Java for OS X 2015-001 and if you run our examples, they will simply work and return java.version with "1.6.0_65".

For Mac and 64-bit application, you can of course use Java 1.6. But we prefer to use version 9. You simply install version 9 and now you see the plugin still loads version 6 unless you fix JavaVM framework manually. But a better fix is to pass in a custom path of the jni library. e.g. in Xojo:

JavaVMMBS.SetLibraryPath "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-9.0.4.jdk/Contents/Home/lib/jli/libjli.dylib"

But for next plugin version we added code to find the latest Java version and load it's library automatically. So you don't need to pass in the path.

For Windows in a 64-bit app you get "9.0.4", if you get the Java 9 library loaded and query java.version system property. To have this work better, we improved the loading code there, too.

So for the upcoming version 18.1 (Xojo) and 8.1 (FileMaker) of our plugins, you should be able to use Java 6, 7, 8 and 9 easily without hassle. If you want a specific version, you can always pass in the file path.

If you like to try it soon, you can always contact us for a test copy of the plugin.

MonkeyBread Software Releases the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 18.0

Nickenich, Germany (January 23rd, 2018) -- Monkeybread Software releases version 18.0 of the MBS plug-in for Xojo.

The MBS plug-in comprises a collection of several plug-in parts which extend the Xojo (Real Studio) development environment with 2,300 classes featuring over 60,000 documented functions. Our plugins support all three platforms Mac OS X, Windows and Linux with all project types desktop, web and console including 64-bit and ARM targets. Some of the highlights on the 18.0 update:

We got a new Clipper plugin part inside our Tools plugin. The ClipperMBS module performs line & polygon clipping - intersection, union, difference & exclusive-or, and line & polygon offsetting. Please play with new example projects to see what it can do for you!

Our DynaPDF Plugin got a new ExtractText function to extract text of a page, optionally inside a rectangle. The RenderPDFFileEx function writes images for all pages of a PDF file to a given folder, optionally preemptive threaded. We added example to sign PDF with 2048bit PKCS#12 certificate file.

For our CURLSMBS class on Windows we added support for IDN domains, so you can use umlauts and other special characters in domain names there. This requires Windows Vista or newer and will return error on Windows XP. On Mac all file paths passed into CURL functions are now properly encoded, always as UTF-8.

Our CSV Split function now supports tab character as separator and better handles multi line texts.

The WKWebViewControlMBS control on MacOS in 64-bit applications can now send messages from JavaScript to trigger event where you can process the parameters. The control can now be allowed to access file URLs.

For PictureMBS we got new functions to multiply and un-multiply RGBA pixel data to convert between pictures with alpha channel and those with masks. You can also clear cache, fill rect with alpha, blend pictures and copy picture with alpha channel.

The new NSViewTooltipMBS class allows you to add dynamic tooltips to Mac applications. You can provide a static tooltip text or provide current text via event based on the mouse position.

We added clipboard functions for NSAttributedStringMBS, GUID parsing for DirectShowGUIDMBS and WIAGUIDMBS, a function for OpenSSLMBS to sign data with PKCS7, new camera configuration properties for RaspberryPiCameraMBS class, LocalIP, LocalPort and Poll to RAWSocketMBS and UDPSocketMBS classes, AppReceiptVerificatorMBS.MACAddress shared property and we pass through picture resolution properties for various picture functions.

Finally we updated Xcode to version 9.2, CURL library to version 7.57.0, updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.15.42, updated OpenSSL to 1.1.0g and 1.0.2m, updated Rockesy4ND library for macOS to better support macOS High Sierra and updated SQLAPI to version 4.2.1.

See release notes for a complete list of changes.

Colorspaces in MacOS with Xojo

Some of our clients love to make applications to edit photos and want to display them in the correct colorspace.

The example project used for a test shows various colorspaces and you need to look very close at them on the screen so you can spot the difference between the red in the three color spaces: screenshot For my screen left is RGB(237, 65, 36), middle is RGB(235, 51, 36) and right is RGB(255, 2, 0). So the right one is basically 1 to 1 to the screen. In that screen colorspace a SRGB or generic RGB red color is quite a difference. (more)

Sign up for MBS Newsletters

You can sign up for MBS Newsletters on our website.

We keep you informed about new plugin versions, local events, conferences and special offers. Emails are sent out in average once a month, so it shouldn't fill your mailbox.

If you provide an address, we can make sure we include you for local events in your area. Like when we attend meetings, we usually email people 100 km or miles around to let them know we are coming.

Looking for a trial license key?
You can get one here: Trial License Request Form.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.0pr9

New in this prerelease of the 18.0 plugins: Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

DynaPDF Text Position Examples

We got a new example for Xojo on how to extract text from a page and know each position of each text chunk. We can even keep track of current state, so we have the fonts ready and can even draw the same text on top of the existing PDF with Xojo. So DynaPDF renders page with here with text in black and we draw in paint event the blue rectangles for text portions and than draw the same text with Xojo in red:



This example uses the DynaPDFParseInterfaceMBS class from DynaPDF Pro to walk over all PDF commands drawing a page, so we get all the text output as well as matrix changes, font setting and state saving & restoring. We keep track of the current matrix with DynaPDFMatrixMBS class and collect the text records with DynapdfTextRecordWMBS class for Unicode or DynapdfTextRecordAMBS for font specific encodings. In latter case we convert the characters using current font to unicode text.

The example will be included in 18.0pr9 later today and in the 18.0 release next week.
To use this code in a shipping application, you need to order the DynaPDF Pro license from us for use with the MBS Xojo DynaPDF Plugin.

FileMaker und Xojo Stammtisch in Passau

On my next visit to Passau, I'd love to make another FileMaker & Xojo developer meeting:

Wer hat Interesse an einem FileMaker Entwicklertreffen im März 2018 in der Nähe von Passau?

Einfach in gemütlicher Runde treffen in einem netten Restaurant und beim Abendessen was über FileMaker und/oder Xojo schnacken. Vielleicht habt ihr ja auch Fragen und Probleme, wo ich helfen kann?

Zeit wäre ca. 18 bis 22 Uhr, so dass man auch später kommen oder früher gehen kann.

Bei Interesse bitte in die Liste eintragen.

Falls sonst noch Bedarf an Schulung, vor Ort Entwicklung oder FileMaker/Xojo Hilfe besteht, bitte wegen Terminfindung bald melden.

Register for XDC 2018 in Denver soon

Xojo Inc. just announced that the Xojo Developer Conference 2018 in Denver may sell out soon as there are only 25 tickets left.

If you haven't registered yet, the time is now! Save $100 by Feb. 16, but register soon to guarantee you'll have a spot!

Hotel rooms are available here.

I am looking forward to see you all in Denver!

See also Things to do in Denver beside XDC and MBS Xojo Conference in September 2018 in Munich.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.0pr8

New in this prerelease of the 18.0 plugins:
  • Fixed bug in VLCEqualizerMBS.Map setter.
  • Fixed out of bounds problem in zxingQRCodeReaderMBS.
  • Fixed problem with loading cairo library on Linux for Ubuntu 17.4.
  • Added IDN support for CURLSMBS and CURLNMBS classes on Windows Vista and newer. Does give error if you try it on older Windows XP.
  • Improved CSV split to also auto detect tab instead of just comma and semicolon.
  • Improved CSV split via SplitCommaSeparatedValuesMBS to handle multi line text values better.
Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Xojo Stammtisch in Hamburg

On my next visit to Hamburg, I'd love to make another Xojo developer meeting:

Wer hat Interesse an einem Xojo Entwicklertreffen am 27. oder 28. Juni 2018 in Hamburg?

Einfach in gemütlicher Runde treffen in einem netten Restaurant und beim Abendessen was über Xojo schnacken. Vielleicht habt ihr ja auch Fragen und Probleme, wo ich helfen kann?

Zeit wäre ca. 18 bis 22 Uhr, so dass man auch später kommen oder früher gehen kann.

Bei Interesse bitte in die Liste eintragen.

Falls sonst noch Bedarf an Schulung, vor Ort Entwicklung oder FileMaker/Xojo Hilfe besteht, bitte wegen Terminfindung bald melden.

PS: Für die Xojo Konferenz und Schulung in München sind noch Plätze frei.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.0pr7

New in this prerelease of the 18.0 plugins:
  • Added NSViewTooltipMBS class and NSViewMBS.addToolTipRect method.
  • Updated DynaPDF to version 4.0.15.42.
  • Fixed problem with VerifyEmailMBS function and some DNS servers.
  • Added Multiply and Unmultiply to PictureMBS class.
  • Added PictureMBS.CopyPictureWithAlpha function.
  • Fixed bug in Picture handling for setting alpha channel for Cocoa picture.
  • Added ClipperMBS module to use clipper library.
  • Added OpenSSLMBS PKCS7SignData function.
  • Fixed problem in SystemInformationMBS.ProcessorCount with logical/physical CPUs in wrong order on Windows.
  • Added example to sign PDF with 2048bit PKCS#12 certificate file.
  • Changed WinUserNotificationMBS to better handle empty texts.
  • Changed SystemInformationMBS.HardDiscSerial on Mac to prefer serial from internal disk.
  • Fixed bug in CURL SetupAWS when wrong date was used.
Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.

Xojo Developer Meeting for Dallas

Due to the FileMaker DevCon, we will come to Grapevine, Texas in August.
So let's organize a Xojo developer meeting! Anyone interested?

Currently we'd like to know if there is interest for a dinner meeting or more?

Please fill the survey.
Dates is around 1st to 11th August 2018 on one of the evenings.

For a dinner, we would just meet in a restaurant and chat. If we get a bigger group, maybe get a separate room and with a screen and projector, so you an show something if you like.

If you are interested in some private consulting or training, let me know and we can arrange an appointment.

PS: I'll also attend the FileMaker Dallas meeting on 3rd August 2018.

Sign PDF with DynaPDF and your custom signature

With the MBS Xojo DynaPDF Plugin, you can digitally sign PDF files. This works with 1024bit keys from PKCS#7 certificates. But DynaPDF does currently not support longer keys.

But well, we do have a MBS Xojo Encryption Plugin with an OpenSSLMBS module including signature functions. With the PKeyMBS and X509MBS classes we can read the PKCS#12 files, get certificates and private key and sign the SHA1 hash from the PDF data.

Here is an example to show you how we can do it:

// In this example we load a PFX certificate file const password = "123456" // read from file dim filePath as FolderItem = SpecialFolder.Desktop.Child("test.pfx") dim b as BinaryStream = BinaryStream.Open(filePath) dim certificateData as string = b.Read(b.Length) // load PKCS12 file to get private key dim cert as X509MBS dim certs() as X509MBS dim pkey as PKeyMBS if X509MBS.ReadFromPkcs12(certificateData, password, pkey, cert, certs) then // get private key as text dim PrivateKey as string = pkey.PrivateKeyData // sign something so we know length dim DummySignature as string = OpenSSLMBS.PKCS7SignData(cert, pkey, certs, SHA1MBS.Hash("test"), 0) // sign parameters dim p as new DynaPDFSigParmsMBS p.ContactInfo = "Call MBS for help." p.Reason = "Signed for demo purpose" p.Signer = "TestApp" p.HashType = DynaPDFMBS.khtSHA1 p.PKCS7ObjLen = lenb(DummySignature) // now assemble PDF and leave room for signature if pdf.CloseAndSignFileExt(p) then // sign the Hash dim Signature as string = OpenSSLMBS.PKCS7SignData(cert, pkey, certs, p.Range1, 0) // add hash to file and launch in PDF reader if pdf.FinishSignature(Signature) then f.Launch end if end if end if

Xojo Developer Meeting for Stockholm

Due to the CURL conference, we will come to Stockholm in April.
So let's organize a Xojo developer meeting! Anyone interested?

Currently we'd like to know if there is interest for a dinner meeting or more?

Please fill the survey.
Dates is around 12th to 16th April 2018 on one of the evenings.

For a dinner, we would just meet in a restaurant and chat. If we get a bigger group, maybe get a separate room and with a screen and projector, so you an show something if you like.

If you are interested in some private consulting or training, let me know and we can arrange an appointment.

The 2018 Xojo Design Awards

Xojo, Inc. is looking for candidates for their design awards:

We are very pleased to announce that we are now accepting entries for the Xojo Design Awards, which honor excellence in software design! The deadline for entry is March 1, 2018. The awards will be presented at XDC 2018, The Xojo Developer Conference, taking place April 25 - 27 in Denver, Colorado.

The categories to be awarded are:

  • Best Overall
  • Best iOS App
  • Best Business App
  • Best Consumer App
  • Best Cross-Platform App
  • Best Developer Tools
Note: Categories may vary based on participation

The criteria on which the software will be judged includes: creativity, ease of use, design, utility and best use of Xojo technologies. All software submitted to the Xojo Design Awards must be shipping at the time the software is entered (no beta software permitted).

Each winner will receive an engraved Xojo Design Award and the right to use the Xojo Design Award logo in marketing materials. For more information or to submit an entry, please visit www.xojo.com/designawards.

If you like to know who won last time, please check the list: 2016 Xojo Design Award Winners

Very early bird offer to expire for European MBS Xojo Conference in Munich

The very early bird offer is set to expire this week (9 months before conference) for our European MBS Xojo Conference 2018 in Munich. If you like to join for the best rate or become a speaker, please contact us soon.

Monkeybread Software is pleased to announce the MBS Xojo Conference in metropolitan Munich, Germany. We meet in the lovely Maritim Hotel in the center of Munich. The hotel is near the main station and in walking distance to the city center. Beside our two conference days we have accompanying social programme with our dinner event and optional two training days. For the evenings we have casual get-together in the hotel bar or beer garden.

As date and location is set, we are now looking for interested speakers to join our conference. If you have an interesting topic, feel free to propose a session. We look for sessions to present applications made in Xojo, best practice, looking deeper on a Xojo features or presenting a product for Xojo developers.

The schedule:

Sep 5th: Xojo Training in English
Sep 6th: Conference, first day with dinner event
Sep 7th: Conference, second day
Sep 8th: Xojo Training in German

Registration is open. The early bird offer available till 6th January is just 399 Euro plus VAT. Attending the conference costs regularly 699 Euro plus VAT, including food and beverage in the Maritim Hotel as well as an accompanying social program.

Sessions are to be held in English. Our conference is conceived as a networking event for the Xojo community. The conference is an ideal opportunity for sharing your thoughts and your own development experience with fellow users and developers. If you like to hold a presentation, please contact us as soon as possible. Speaker receive discounted tickets.

See also XDC 2018 in Denver next year.

xDev Magazine Issue 16.1 Issue

The January/February (16.1) issue of xDev Magazine is now available. Here's a quick preview of what's inside:

Byte Order Marker by Eugene Dakin
Unicode was supposed to solve all our text encoding problems, but there are tricky aspects. Find out what a BOM is and how to support it.

From FileMaker to Xojo and Back Again by Ulrich Bogun
Imagine the best of FileMaker and Xojo with none of the limitations. How is that possible?
by using the two together, you can take advantage of the strengths of each!

MBS London Conference 2017 by Richard Duke and Marc Zeedar
Did you go to the conference in London in November?
Marc did, and he had a great time on his first-ever visit to England. Find out what you missed!

Get Stock Prices with Xojo by Marc Zeedar
There are web APIs for getting data on the Web, but sometimes data scrapping is easier.
Marc demonstrates two methods of getting stock prices.

A Model For Health by JC Cruz
Jose shows how to design a proper data model for his previous Health Data project.
He refactors the old code so you can see how to update an existing design.

Plus: Xojo 2017R3, disaster recovery, packaging Linux apps, scope, and more!

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 18.0pr6

New in this prerelease of the 18.0 plugins: Download: monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
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