Other Promoting B4J - What do you think?

[Erel]

While there are many programming language available today, including free tools, there aren't many quality RAD (rapid application development) tools.
As I see it, B4J, especially after the latest update which adds an internal designer, is a good candidate to to be a very popular programming language / tool. I think of it as a modern VB6. A tool to get the job done.
It can also be a good choice for teaching programming.

How can we better promote B4J? What do you think?

 

[Erel]

I would suggest you to add a showcase trailer of apps like construct have on their site or buildbox... and put it on the first page of b4x.

Done. Check the new showcase page.

https://www.b4x.com/showcase.html

 

[ilan]

Done. Check the new showcase page.

https://www.b4x.com/showcase.html

Awesome erel

I wish you lot of luck with b4x... and good sales...

 

[Douglas Farias]

Done. Check the new showcase page.

https://www.b4x.com/showcase.html

why not make by category? who want send the app to show case send a email for u.

i think put all apps on showcase will be good for all, marketing for b4x and for the app creator

 

[EnriqueGonzalez]

For me it looks broken, in my tablet too

 

[ilan]

For me it looks broken, in my tablet too

CRTL + F5

 

[EnriqueGonzalez]

CRTL + F5

Awesome Thanks!

 

[Cableguy]

As many may know, I've been here for almost a decade, and never went past the feverous hobbyist coder.
Back went all we had was b4ppc, developing for desktop was as easy as developing for winmob. Same controls, almost the same code/libraries, but most of all, the same way of creating them using the visual designer.
Then came B4A, wich was an easy transition... but with B4J, I never even managed to understand the basic concept, mainly because some major lexicon differences.
Now that I can use the same Visual designer, I will give it a go...

For me, that's what kept me away... I was used to forms, controls... activities and views... B4J feels just... odd.

as for promoting, separate Wikipedia pages would do a great deal to promote them, and a "main" b4x page as well.
I use address prediction in my browser, and, if no history is present, it doesn't recognize b4x.com before I hit enter, and if I "forget" the www part, it takes me to googles results.this does not happen with other sites, even on first visit

 

[Erel]

For me, that's what kept me away... I was used to forms, controls... activities and views... B4J feels just... odd.

Try it for 3 hours. I assure you that you will find it quite simple.

In fact B4J is simpler than B4A (due to the underlying platform).

 

[Mark Turney]

Try it for 3 hours. I assure you that you will find it quite simple.

In fact B4J is simpler than B4A (due to the underlying platform).

I agree 100%. I've been leveraging my B4A and B4i knowledge with B4J quite well in just the past week.

 

[Tony Daly]

Erel,

The principle behind B4J can be a bit difficult to get your head around if you're not technically minded. i.e. B4J is an application that runs on Windows to allow developers to write applications in visual basic that will be converted into Java so that they can run on almost any platform.

But in summary, B4J is an application that allows developers to create cross platform applications in visual basic. I don't think that this message is clear from viewing the web site.

In the headline text on the B4J web page you start well:

"B4J - The simplest way to develop cross platform, desktop, server and web applications!"

But then it loses focus:

"B4J is a 100% free development tool, similar to B4A that generates desktop, server and web applications."

What is B4A? The user needs to find out what this is before they progress. Some people may not bother.

Where is the mention of the RAD for visual basic? This is the main selling point!

Sometimes you can be too close to the subject to see it from the perspective of someone looking in from the outside. This isn't a criticism, it's just the way it is; I'm as guilty as anyone.

How about the following as replacement text?:

"B4J is a Rapid Application Development environment to develop cross platform applications using visual basic. It is aimed at developers who have, or want to learn VB skills, but do not want the complexity of heavy-weight IDEs.
B4J generates desktop, server and web applications, which can run on Windows, Mac, Linux and ARM boards (such as Raspberry Pi)
B4J is 100% free for personal and commercial use. It uses the same language as its sister software B4A and B4i, which allow users to create mobile apps for Android and iOS respectively."

I also think that it would be useful to showcase the use of B4J with spreadsheets etc. A lot of VB programmers will have VBA experience. B4J could be a way to interact with office applications without the limitations of VBA.

edit: An example pulling JSON data from a URL into a spreadsheet should generate some interest. VBA support for JSON is not the best.

Tony

 

[LucaMs]

...

Good comments, but the focus is:
come people to read those descriptions?

Some apps may have perfect descriptions, yet they are advertised on television.

I am still convinced that advertising has a 50% influence on the sales of a product (any kind).

 

[Tony Daly]

Luca,

Agreed, but who is the target audience for the advertising? I don't believe that it's vb.net developers who are writing for windows, nor is it java developers. I think the target audience is disenchanted vb/vba developers who can't or don't want to move to vb.net (and VSTO) and developers who would like to automate other office suites (open office, libreoffice)or software via java libraries. There may also be a contingent of developers who want to write server and/or desktop software to support their (B4A/B4i) mobile apps, but these people will already know about it.

 

[LucaMs]

Probably, I would do advertisements on "important" ("very visited") sites on which people writes about web servers.

 

[sorex]

the good part is that Erel has 3 products which are very similar so if he can rent a half/full page it can be used to put all 3 of them in the picture.

 

[imbault]

Basic4android on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic4android
no mention about B4j, neither B4i
...

A french article :
http://www.developpez.com/actu/8912...lications-cross-platform-avec-Visual-Basic-6/
Or in english : Anywhere software announces the release of the B4J EDI allowing to make xplatform applications with Visual Basic 6
Lol


Communication is not very good, @Erel, you should so something about that...

 

[Erel]

I'm not really allowed to update the Wikipedia entry as it violates there terms (a few years ago the page was deleted because of that).

However I encourage all members who like to help to update this page

 

[imbault]

I'm not really allowed to update the Wikipedia entry as it violates there terms (a few years ago the page was deleted because of that).

However I encourage all members who like to help to update this page

Ok, Erel, I can do that, can you provide some text (documents) to add in wiki

 

[Erel]

I think that it is worth adding a few words about B4J and B4i.

There is some relevant text at the beginning of these two pages:
https://www.b4x.com/b4j.html
https://www.b4x.com/b4i.html

 

[narek adonts]

On http://www.leadbolt.com/ is says that it support Basic4Android (along with many other platforms).
I think you should write them and ask them to change B4i and B4A

 

[Roberto P.]

I think the idea of B4J is good, but you have to take further steps forward for it to become "the tool for the development Web applications and mobile"

My considerations are for professional use of the instrument and not to study or small applications to make friends!

- Integration of advanced controls: grids, lists, charts, etc
- Creating a framework for application development management: a logic of master-detail (in necessary in all applications)
- Creation of frameworks for the mobile world, see Material Design ...
- Integration with a tool to generate reports (fundamental)
- Essential add true object-oriented programming, to create modular and scalable applications. Without these capabilities in major projects will lose the benefits of B4J, because you have to create duplicate objects with similar costs of development and maintenance outweigh the benefits (that goes for B4A)
- Create frameworks or components to simplify data exchange with mobile devices

In other words, I think we should have more B4j peculiarities to develop business applications and mobile web (what the market wants), otherwise I will continue to use to make small features for data exchange with App B4A / B4I. Instead I think it can and should do much more.

At this point, I am convinced that the product could become an effective competitor in all of the best tools on the market.

Finally, I believe that the instrument should be paid for (already) at a reasonable price. From my point of view, if we were all the features I listed above, I would be willing to pay even $ 1000 \ year.

Thanks for giving us the opportunity to express our opinion
Hello