Announcing Saxon 13.0

We got notice that Saxonica released the version 13.0 of their Saxon Library:

The first release of Saxon 13 has just been published. This is a new release for Java, C#, C/C++, PHP, and Python. The highlights in this release are:

• A redesigned Schema API that allows multiple schemas to coexist. You can now validate an input document with one schema and the result with another, even for the same namespace.
• More than 175 features from the draft 4.0 specifications are now available in Saxon-PE and Saxon-EE, including:
  • JNodes, path navigation over trees of JSON maps and arrays,
  • Lookahead and lookbehind in regular expressions,
  • Functions for CSV parsing,
  • Functions for parsing with Invisible XML, and
  • More flexible XML-to-JSON conversions with fn:element-to-map.
• On the topic of 4.0,
  • Mike recently published a list of 101 new things you can do with Saxon using 4.0 features!
  • (For more information about 4.0, see QT4CG.)
• Support for SaxonC extension functions written in C++, Python, and PHP.
• SaxonCS-HE, our first release of the free Saxon HE product built for .NET with C#.

For more details, please consult the documentation.

If you encounter any issues with Saxon 13.0, please report them on our issue tracker.

Our MBS Plugins include Saxon 12.9 currently. We will soon review the new version and integrate it into MBS Plugins. If any issues prevent that, we may report them and wait for the 13.1 version.

Our Saxon integration for FileMaker and Xojo is a powerful add-on to use XLST 3.0, XPath 3.1 and XQuery 3.1 in your solutions.

MBS Xojo Conference 2026 - Auto Reports — run Reports in your Sleep

We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2026 and here is the MBS Plugin presentation with David Cox:

Auto Reports — run Reports in your Sleep

Xojo is very useful for creating databases and reporting your data to the screen, a PDF, an email or a printer. Users often need to run these reports daily, weekly or monthly. But this can be a problem when staff are sick, on holidays, just too busy, we forget or when the number of reports gets too large. Auto Reports are normal Xojo reports where your Xojo application runs the reports themselves automatically based on a time or database trigger, then send the results to email or SMS with no human intervention. If you charge for your reports, you can have them delivered even when you are away from your computer, support more clients than you could manually manage and even have your invoices sent automatically.

Watch on YouTube. All videos go into the playlist for the conference.

News from the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 26.2

DynaPDF

In this release, DynaPDF is all about the DynaPDF Content Parser. As PDF documents contain pages with content streams, you may be interested to inspect the content with our DynaPDFParserMBS class. You open a PDF document, you import pages into memory and then parse the page. Once you parse them page, you can access the content objects. How this works and what posibilityies you have you learn in the new Article DynaPDF Content Parser.

In DynaPDF, you can also embed tables. In this release, the SetColOrRowSpan methode from the DynaPDFTableMBS class allows you to specify the row height or column width of a cell in your table. In the parameters you first define the cell using its row and column numbers. Next, you specify the height or width of the cell. In the last parameter, you specify whether to use col span (true) or row span (false).

DynaPDF has also recently updated its licensing system. In detail the DynaPDF Starter license now includes encryption, form fields, and digital signatures. Previously, these features were part of the Lite license. If you are interested in these and other updates, we recommend reading the article DynaPDF Starter License Extended and taking a look at the product feature matrix: DynaPDF Starter vs. Lite vs. Pro vs. Enterprise

LibXL 5.2 released

Recently LibXL 5.2 was released and we include this update in our upcoming MBS Plugins for FileMaker and Xojo.

Version 5.2.0 (2026-05-15)

• fixed the vulnerability CVE-2026-22184, updated zlib to the version 1.3.2
• added possibility to read data validations from xlsx files
• added possibility to remove filters from tables (xlsx)
• added the support for xlsx files in the Book::loadWithoutEmptyCells()
• fixed a bug with reading strings with incorrect character encoding in the Sheet::readStr() on Linux/MacOSX (xls)
• fixed an issue with loading some xls files with message "read error: record id can't be 0"
• fixed an issue with corrupting output files in the AutoFilter::setSort() method (xlsx)
• fixed the unhandled exception in the Format::borderLeftColor() method (xlsx)

• Sheet::dataValidation()
• Sheet::dataValidationSize()
• Table::isAutoFilter()
• Table::removeFilter()

MBS Xojo Conference 2026 - MBS Plugins Update

We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2026 and here is the MBS Plugin presentation with Christian Schmitz talking about what is new in MBS Xojo Plugins:

Watch on YouTube. All videos go into the playlist for the conference.

Bridge Day

MBS Xojo Conference 2026 - Xojo Update

We recorded the presentations at the MBS Xojo Conference in April 2026 and here is the keynote video with Geoff Perlman talking about what is new in Xojo:

Watch on YouTube. All videos go into the playlist for the conference.

DynaPDF Content Parser

As PDF documents contain pages with content streams, you may be interested to inspect the content with our DynaPDFParserMBS class. You open a PDF document, you import pages into memory and then parse the page. Once you parse them page, you can access the content objects. That's great for a few things:

• Extract text or vector graphics
• Remove unwanted elements
• Modify drawings
• Get bounding boxes and coordinates from every item.
• Check which font is active for which text fragment.

A lot of properties in the classes are settable, so you can for example change a color easily. Or adjust a coordinate in some vector graphic or adjust the line width.

Or when you like to place a template on top of an existing page, you may need to modify the content to remove rectangle in the background, so you can see through the template to the content behind it.

Here is a sample, that marks all images for deletion and then writes the page back.

// remove all images
Var needWrite As Boolean
Var ContentParsingFlags As Integer = 0

If parser.ParsePage(page, ContentParsingFlags) Then
  
  var u as integer = parser.OperatorCount-1
  for j as integer = 0 to u
    Var content As DynaPDFParserContentMBS = parser.Content(j)
    
    if content.Operator = DynaPDFParserContentMBS.kopDrawImage then
      content.Delete
      needWrite = True
    end if
  next
  
  If needWrite Then
    Call Parser.WriteToPage
  End If
End If

MonkeyBread Software Releases the MBS Xojo Plugins in version 26.2

Nickenich, Germany - (May 5th, 2026) -- Monkeybread Software today is pleased to announce MBS Xojo Plugins 26.2 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 3000 classes and 85,000 documented features, and the versatile plugins have gained more new functions:

Our UIAutomation classes can help you to automate GUI applications on Windows. You can enumerate windows and their controls, read and write properties and react to events like focus changes.

The DynaPDF Starter license now includes encryption, from fields and digital signatures. Previously these features were part of the Lite license. You may still need the Lite license level to read existing PDF files.

Use DynaPDF parser to inspect the content of a PDF page. We have over 20 DynaPDFParserContentMBS subclasses to inspect the drawing commands and modify some of their properties. When using tables in PDF documents, you can use SetColOrRowSpan function in DynaPDFTableMBS class to merge cells.

When using the Foundation Models on macOS, you can query the context size for the model. Use the tokenCount function to query the tokens need for a given text.

We improved the search field classes on macOS. The searchFieldDidStartSearching and searchFieldDidEndSearching events in NSSearchFieldControlMBS control help to know when search starts and ends. The searchTextRectForBounds, searchButtonRectForBounds, and cancelButtonRectForBounds events allow you to customize the layout of the search field.

By updating the zxing library, we got support for more barcode formats in the ZXingReaderOptionsMBS class. Use FromJSON method in JSONMBS class to convert TOON formatted data to JSON. You can use raw compression mode for ZLibCompressMBS and ZLibDecompressMBS classes.

The new events for QLPreviewPanelMBS class lets you react on when the preview panel begins and ends. We added more properties to NSTextAttachmentMBS class. Use NLEmbeddingMBS class to work with embeddings.

Finally we updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.1.9, jsoncons to 1.6.0, libarchive to 3.8.7, libexpat to 2.7.5, mongo-c-driver to 2.2.4, openssl to 3.5.6, phidgets, SQLAPI to 5.4.2, Xcode to 26.4 and zxing to version 3.0.2.

See release notes for a complete list of changes and new functions in documentation.

xDev Magazine 24.3

DynaPDF Starter license extended

We received notice from DynaForms GmbH, that their DynaPDF products got a change for the DynaPDF Starter license.

With DynaPDF version 5.0.1.9, the Starter license includes Encryption, Interactive Forms, and digital signatures. These three features previously required a Lite license.

When you create a PDF file from scratch with DynaPDF Starter, you can encrypt the file. We recommend the current 256 Bit AES Encryption. Older encryption standards are also available for compatibility.

You may include interactive form elements on the page and pre-fill the fields with values. Use buttons and connect actions to make your form interactive. This may include submit buttons to send the form data to your server as well as JavaScript actions to perform calculations or validations.

Add digital signatures to your PDF documents. This may be either a form field where the user can sign the PDF file after filling the form, or alternatively you can sign the PDF directly in your code with a digital certificate and a private key.

The lite license is still required for reading existing PDF files and importing pages. Great for merging PDFs or extracting images and text.

For details, please check the product feature matrix: DynaPDF Starter vs. Lite vs. Pro vs. Enterprise.

DynaPDF is made available for FileMaker and Xojo by Monkeybread Software. You can also use the same licenses with C/C++, C#, Delphi, Lazarus, PHP, VB, VBA, and VB .Net.

MBS Xojo Plugins, version 26.2pr5

• Added beginPreviewPanel and endPreviewPanel events to QLPreviewPanelMBS class.
• Updated DynaPDF to version 5.0.1.9.
• DynaPDF Starter gets more features: Encryption, Interactive Forms, and digital signatures are now already included in this version.
• Added SetColOrRowSpan function to DynaPDFTableMBS class.

New functions in documentation

Download Links: Download Mac dmg or Download Windows/Linux zip

Download: monkeybreadsoftware.de/xojo/download/plugin/Prerelease/.
Or ask us to be added to our shared DropBox folder.

You can subscribe to our Xojo mailing list to get notified for new pre-release and release versions.