Less than four months till the
XOJO.CONNECT 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. In the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale you can get a ticket $200 off from the regular $999 ticket price.
It will be held March 25-27, 2020 in Nashville, TN at the
Sheraton Music City Hotel. This conferences is the best place to meet Xojo developers from around the world in real live, make contacts, present yourself as expert and learn what is new in Xojo.
Registration is currently $200 off full price till Monday night. Please sign up early to get the best deal.
Check out the
conference highlights video if you want to see what it's like - or ask one of the many attendees from the forum!
PS: If you fly from Europe, it can be cheaper for the tickets to add a few extra days and stop for example in New York compared to flying directly.
We wish a Happy Thanksgiving to all our clients, partners and friends all over the world.
Xojo Inc. runs their yearly Black Friday weekend sale:
The biggest sale of the year for developers!
Everything Xojo is 20% off for one weekend only! That means new licenses, renewals and upgrades are all 20% off this Friday, November 29th through Monday, December 2nd. Also, all 3rd party products and Xojo Developer Conference videos are 20% off! XOJO.CONNECT tickets are also discounted to the early bird price. No coupon required.
Save on new licenses, renewals and upgrades.
Xojo licenses are available in the following options:
- Xojo Pro - Get one license for Desktop, Web, iOS, and Raspberry Pi, plus many extras like priority support and beta access. Also, your Xojo Pro license will work on up to 3 of your own machines.
- Xojo Pro Plus - Everything in Xojo Pro, plus an extra level of support.
- Xojo Desktop - Develop and build apps for macOS, Windows and Linux.
- Xojo Web - Build web apps that can run on Linux, Windows or macOS servers and support Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer.
- Xojo iOS - Create native iPad and iPhone apps.
Interested in upgrading to Desktop, Xojo Pro or Xojo Pro Plus?
You can check your upgrade price here and come back during the sale to save an additional 20%. Upgrades from Xojo Lite to full Desktop are available by contacting Customer service at hello@xojo.com.
Tell Your Friends
Help spread the word about Xojo - tell your friends about this sweet deal to get them started with Xojo. Xojo comes with a 90-day money back guarantee.
XOJO.CONNECT 2020 Special Offer
We have already reached the end of our early bird pricing, but we will still offer the special $799 discounted price during this sale! Save $200 though Cyber Monday.
*Xojo Cloud is not included in the sale.
This sale includes third-party items in the
Xojo Store. If you like to order directly from us, please use coupon code
BlackFridayMBS in our web shop or email use for an invoice or Paypal link (for new licenses only).
For years we told people to use prepared statements. But recently we run a test to see what happens in real world. So we created a login form on our website. The login form, does never log you in and just writes down the login credentials to a database using prepared statements. This page is not linked and no human should ever find it. But there are bots testing whether you have some common folder names like "wordpress", "admin" or "login".
Unions
After a few weeks, we checked the database and got hundreds of login attempts. At least 100 per month come to our form. Most of the things entered in our form are attempts to exploit the SQL with an SQL injection. We see common patterns like the following values for user name:
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
' UNION ALL SELECT NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL--
If you don't use prepared statements, this would end the string of the username comparison and combine the result with an second result with the given number of NULL values. If this is valid SQL, it may execute. e.g. if you have a query like
"SELECT UserID FROM Users WHERE Username='"+username+"' AND Password='"+Password+"'"
the attack will be successful. Instead of the proper way:
"SELECT UserID FROM Users WHERE Username=? AND Password=?"
The user names from above will end the quote from user name, do the union and declare the rest of the line to be a comment with the two dashes. If the first try works, the login may first succeed and second the attacker knows we have one field in the result.
(more)
Did you know that in Xojo you can have a desktop project to run also optionally as command line tool?
With App.
ArgumentsMBS the
MBS Xojo Plugins provide a convenient way to get the command line parameters. Your application can query them at startup in app.Open event and check whether there are commands which need to run as command line tool. You may get arguments like file paths to open via OpenDocument event, so you may decide about the console or desktop mode with other parameters.
If you detect no special commands, you just continue with your normal application flow. Otherwise, you branch into code to do the console portions of the application. When this returns, you can do a flush on
StdoutMBS and then use
ExitMBS(0) to quit the application and return error code zero. Or return any other exit code, so if the application is called in a batch environment in a shell script, you can detect whether there was an error.
In your method doing the console portion, use
StdInMBS class to read input and
StdOutMBS class to write output. For Windows there is a special call to
StdoutMBS.AttachConsole method needed to connect
StdOutMBS to the current command window.
Like to try this? Just check "Console and GUI in one project" example project coming with the
MBS Xojo Util Plugin.
Xojo Inc. just released the version 2019r2.1 of Xojo. You can
download it on their website.
MBS Xojo Plugins in version 19.5 have been updated to handle changes for API 2.0 in Xojo 2019r2.1.
See our older blog post:
MBS Plugins updated for Xojo 2019r2
Due to a change in
PreparedStatement interface we had to update our
SQLPreparedStatementMBS class in the
MBS Xojo SQL Plugin. As we also updated APIs for some functions to better support MacOS Catalina, improved variant and
DateTime handling in the 19.5 plugins, please makes sure you use the latest plugins for 2019r2 and 2019r2.1.
We are happy to see the refinements made for API 2.0 and look forward on what's coming for 2019r3 or 2020r1.
Check our QuickLook Plugin for Xojo to see which project is made with what Xojo version. We currently have 12 versions of Xojo installed and in use for various projects.
Nickenich, Germany - (November 12th, 2019) -- MonkeyBread Software today is pleased to announce
MBS Xojo Plugins 19.5 for macOS, Linux and Windows, the latest update to their product that is easily the most powerful plugin collection currently available for Xojo.
MBS Xojo Plugins have been updated and now includes over 2600 classes and 65,000 documented features, and the versatile plugins have gained more new functions:
We support over 12 years of Xojo versions from 2006r4 to the latest 2019r2 release. Older Real Studio plugins are still available on request. Our
SQL Plugin got updated to support newer API 2.0 calls with ExecuteSQL and SelectSQL methods and using RowSet class. We continue to provide the older APIs for use in older and current Xojo versions. To mitigate switching between versions we even provide NativePath for Real Studio and AbsolutePath for Xojo 2019r2 via plugin.
For Windows we developed a replacement for the IPCSocket class in Xojo. With our
WindowsPipeMBS class you can create named pipes and exchange data between two processes without going through the network stack (and firewall) and without going through the file system. We even include methods to allow connectivity between a service running in the background and an user application on the desktop.
The classes for JPEG and PNG handling got a major upgrade. We now include JPEG Turbo library. Once activated, you can speed up JPEG compression and decompression by factor 2 to 5 (in our testing). For PNG, JPEG and TIFF classes you can now pass file paths as string instead of FolderItem.
PNGReaderMBS class got options to strip or invert alpha channel, read gray images to memoryblock without expanding them to RGB or convert RGB to grayscale images.
We now use SQLAPI in version 5, so a couple of things changed on the SQL Plugin. As each connection can now decide which client library to use, you can now decide per connection whether you use built-in libraries for SQLite, CubeSQL or PostgreSQL or your own library. We offer many database specific commands directly on the relevant SQL connection or command classes. For API 2.0 you can now query RowSet for
SQLCommandMBS objects. For CubeSQL we have SendData and ReceiveData methods to send and receive files.
SQLPreparedStatementMBS class is updated for changes in Xojo 2019r2.1.
Due to changes in variant handling, use of datetime class and SQLPreparedStatement changes, we highly recommend this update to everyone using Xojo 2019r2 or the upcoming 2019r2.1 version. Changes in the implementation of various functions moving from older to newer APIs make this release a recommended update for everyone targeting MacOS Catalina.
For our WebKit 2.x browser implementation in
WKWebViewControlMBS control we now support private browsing. The new
WKUserScriptMBS class allows you to add custom user scripts to each website.
We updated
ResourceForkMBS class to work on 64-bit MacOS target and added 64-bit Linux support for Rockey2 dongles. Our DynaPDF classes got new methods to handle XFA streams. With
ClearStringContentMBS method you can now clear the content of a string to not leak passwords in memory. The map views shown by the plugin can now programmatically change the zoom level.
Finally we updated DynaPDF library to version 4.0.33.95, LibSSH to 1.9.0, openssl to 1.1.1d, plugin SDK to Xojo 2019r2, Rockey 2 SDK to v2.201r10, V1.41 for Linux, V1.21 for Mac, SQLAPI to version 5.0.1, SQLite to version 3.30.0, zint library to 2.6.7.
See
release notes for a complete list of changes.
Subscription or not?
First we got questions for subscription pricing. First we don't sell the plugin licenses as subscriptions. We ask you to keep the license up to date and buy maintenances. And you can buy them for up to 5 years in the future. But we will continue to have a nice kind of licensing, where we do not technically force you to buy the updates.
You can continue to keep the old license with the old plugin files until they break. Please be aware that newer FileMaker / Xojo versions may break them as well as newer versions of the operation system. Looking on security related changes in the plugin and used libraries, it is highly recommended to keep the plugins updated to get latest versions of them.
If you like to see it as subscription, please consider the update price as subscription price. For first purchase, you pay a year to get current version and a year of updates, which defines the purchase price.
Conference Discount
For the conferences we used to offer 20% on everything as discount. This is a great incentive for visiting the conference and buying some of the software you see for a special show price. With yearly licenses, some people tend to only buy at the conferences and that is the direction we don't like.
Starting with next conferences we limit discount to new licenses only. Also with more conferences here on the horizon, we may reduce the conferences where we have a booth and just put up some posters and be available for questions.
Conference Sponsoring
We'll continue to sponsor as many conferences as possible and prefer to sponsor those where we can attend. If you have details on a conference we may attend or sponsor, please let us know.
Price Changes
As you know we didn't change prices for ten years, but are always looking on fine tuning them. For Xojo plugins, we continue to de-emphasise buying individual parts and prefer to sell Complete plugin set licenses.
With DynaPDF 5 on the horizon, pricing is expect to change and we allow all existing users to order up to 5 years of maintenance for todays prices.
Last versions for 32-bit on MacOS?
Next year, we may upgrade to MacOS Catalina. That could break our ability to build for 32-bit. In that case version 9.5 for FileMaker or 19.5 for Xojo may be the last ones to support 32-bit on macOS. This is just a warning and you should be on our list for FileMaker MacOS 32-bit version or Real Studio Plugin version if you asked for them before.
As all MacOS versions since 10.7 from year 2011 are 64-bit operation systems, 32-bit is only needed for older OS versions. But we only support MacOS 10.9 or newer, so there is hardly any use for 32-bit plugins.
New in this prerelease of the 19.5 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
As you may know Xojo deprecated
AbsolutePath a few years ago and removed it in Xojo version 2019r2. Now we have projects ranging from old Real Studio versions to latest Xojo versions. I currently have 12 difference Xojo versions installed, three Real Studio versions and two REALbasic versions. We use the
QuickLook plugin from us to have each project show version number in the icon.
Recently we added
NativePath to FolderItem class for REALbasic and Real Studio. Newer code using NativePath now compiles even in Real Studio. For projects in Xojo 2019r2 we now add
AbsolutePath function for FolderItem, so older code using it can still be built. For some projects we even switch between various versions. For example develop on Windows with Real Studio and just use Xojo for building the 64-bit version.
Of course we know that we should get rid of
AbsolutePath. But the problem is in compatibility and in the detail. Older projects put file references as AbsolutePath into documents to find related files. Newer versions of the applications now use
NativePath or
GetSaveInfo functions. But we still want to read old documents with old paths and resolve them. It would be a support nightmare if clients call support about projects not finding their files.
For MBS Plugin 19.5 we add
AbsolutePathMBS to folderItem class for all versions of Xojo and Real Studio. We got
NewFolderItemFromAbsolutePathMBS function to resolve the absolute path. This even works fine in MacOS Catalina as far as we see.
For our
MBS Xojo Images Plugin we added support for libjpeg-turbo. The new JPEGTurbo plugin part encapsulates the libraries for MacOS, Windows and Linux, all built with SIMD instructions for better performance.
In Xojo the
JPEGTurboMBS module provides the API pointer, which you can pass via SetAPI functions in
JPEGImporterMBS or
JPEGExporterMBS classes. Then the next load or save uses the new functions which work with higher performance.
Speed improvements are notable, but of course depend on your test images and computer configurations. We have seen speed increase by factor 2 to 5 here.
Please try the classes soon and report any feedback you have. Included in 19.5pr7 upload.
New in this prerelease of the 19.5 plugins:
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
Next year in April our company will turn 20 years old.
We'll plan to have a big party here in Germany near our office with over 100 guests.
Invitations are going out this month in several batches.
If you like to join and you miss an invitation, you can contact us and ask whether your invitation got lost.
As people confirm they are coming, we'll add them to the guest list. If we run out of space, we may put people on the wait list.
If you can't make it, please respond soon, so we don't need to contact you again later.
New in this prerelease of the 19.5 plugins:
- Added ClearStringContentMBS function.
- Added ExecuteSQL and SelectSQL methods for SQL Plugin to support API 2.0.
- Updated SQLPreparedStatementMBS for changes in Xojo 2019r2.1.
- Changed ParentID property for iTunesLibraryPlaylistMBS class to 64-bit.
- Added path variants for CreateMTDebugOutputFile, CreateMTHeaderOutputFile, CreateMTOutputFile and OpenMTInputFile methods in CURLSMBS, CURLNMBS and CURLMBS classes.
- Added path variants for CreateICCBasedColorSpace, InsertImageEx, OpenImportFile, OpenOutputFile and OpenOutputFileEncrypted in DynaPDFMBS class.
- Added path variants for copyItem, copyItemMT, linkItem, moveItem, trashItem in NSFileManagerMBS class.
- Added path property to JPEGExporterMBS and JPEGImporterMBS classes.
- Added path variant for OpenFile method and new SourcePath property to PNGReaderMBS class.
- Added path variants for OpenWriteDestination method to PNGWriterMBS class.
- Added path variants for Create and Open methods for TiffPictureMBS class.
- Fixed bug in ReadFile function in SmartCardMBS class.
- Fixed crash in PrintPDFFile method in DynaPDFMBS class with nil PageRect in DynaPDFPrintParamsMBS object.
- Added click and willValidate methods to DOMHTMLButtonElementMBS class.
- Added SetInvertAlpha method and InvertedAlpha property to PNGReaderMBS class.
- Added OriginalColorType property to PNGReaderMBS class.
- Added AllowGray option to ApplyOptions class.
Download:
monkeybreadsoftware.com/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared Dropbox folder.
Stefanie recorded a new
video of her presentation about SceneKit Plugin classes from the
European Xojo Developer Conference 2019 in Cologne.
Enjoy the video and see you at the coming
Xojo.Connect in USA!
The November/December (17.6) issue of
xDev Magazine is now available. Here's a quick preview of what's inside:
Numbers Please! Part 5 by Markus Winter
Supporting decimals, precision, and exponents.
Xojo In Cologne by Dana Brown
A report -- with photos -- from the MBS Conference in Germany.
Maps (Part 2) by Markus Winter
When example projects fail, it's tough to make progress.
Your First Web App -- Part 3 by Paul Budd
Adding editing, plot lookup, searching, and more.
Big Numbers and Large Numbers by Stefanie Juchmes
Learning how the MBS Plugins support big and large numbers.
Designing for Error Tolerance by JC Cruz
Writing software that anticipates errors.
PLUS: Xojo 2019r2, API 2.0, DateTime, planning, Best of the Web, and more!
