Other B4A is now free!

Erel

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kohle

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A small image png file which says "Made by B4X" would be nice. Developers should put in the menu "About" of the apps.
Little marketing
 
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cimperia

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I don't know how many of you had a look at Android Studio (or Swift for iOS) to do a simple "Hello world" app.
I can tell you that it is a real pain!
I don't believe it to be the case. There are a lot of templates available when you start a new project in Android Studio (AS) and the Basic Activity one will create a Hello Project. If you have a fast computer with enough memory (a proper developing machine), AS is actually fast and its IDE is hugely powerful. With Kotlin (much simpler than Java and 100% interoperable with Java) massively adopted by Android developers and ipso facto becoming the new official developing language, it definitely has advantages. Furthermore, you can use Kotlin to develop mobile-crossplatform, Native, web, server-side apps and more.

By all means, stick with B4X, but I don't think it's fair to misrepresent AS for Android development.

Unfortunately, I believe B4A and its IDE have severe limitations, that I don't want to go into here, which will prevent its ecosystem to becoming widely adopted by developers. I don't mind being wrong on that last point and wish B4A good luck.
 
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J M Movilla Cuadrado

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Cuando terminé mi primer proyecto estaba demasiado agobiado con un programa en SQL, ¿qué tuve ocupado durante seis o siete meses? Al finalizar este, no hay necesidad de iniciar una nueva aplicación en B4A; así que no renueve la licencia y acepte "olvidar" este lenguaje ... Ya me perdonaréis todos los que estuvisteis a mi lado ayudándome de forma tan eficaz y amistosa.

Al amigo Erel le transmitió mi admiración y mis deseos de que B4A se agigante en la medida de su esperanza.

Aunque mis métodos de programación no pueden tomarse como ejemplo (ya sabéis que yo soy médico, no informático), podríamos ayudar a alguien que pueda servir de ayuda el proyecto que hice con vuestra colaboración inestimable; al menos les gusta a cuantos se lo he instalado. Por ello, y como signo de agradecimiento a esta comunidad, adjunto el paquete y ... que Dios reparta suerte, aunque solo sea para que no os olvidéis de que ya cumplí 88 años. Ojalá me entre de nuevo el gusanillo y aproveche este regalo de Erel.

(He de advertir que el corrector automático del foro, a veces "trastorna" la sintaxis del texto... Probablemente lo traduzca al inglés y después vuelva a traducirlo al español... digo yo.)
 

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kisoft

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Unfortunately, I believe B4A and its IDE have severe limitations, that I don't want to go into here, which will prevent its ecosystem to becoming widely adopted by developers. I don't mind being wrong on that last point and wish B4A good luck.
It is hard to disagree. The wish list has become longer and longer ...But we don't live in a perfect world, personally I think that B4x is a great platform and has no equivalent in the world. A huge number of people are working on the development of Android Studio and thanks to the Kotlin language, creating applications has become much easier. That is why I believe that EREL must have the support of a development team in order to compete effectively with others.
 
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Erel

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can use Kotlin to develop mobile-crossplatform, Native, web, server-side apps and more.
That's far from being accurate. You will not be able to share any code between the platforms as the code will be based on the native APIs which are completely different.
Are you using Kotlin to target platforms other than Android?

The wish list has become longer and longer
This only means that the product is alive and used by many developers. The B4X IDE will never include all the features that Eclipse or Android Studio include. Otherwise it will no longer be a RAD tool.
 
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LucaMs

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The wish list has become longer and longer
I haven't found a "Wish" section for Android Studio (nor for anything else) on Google sites.

The B4X IDE will never include all the features that Eclipse or Android Studio include. Otherwise it will no longer be a RAD tool.
🤔
For example, a snippet manager would certainly not slow down development speed.
 
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josejad

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I'm not sure what to think of this news but I'm sceptical by nature
The problem of the scepticism is that you can't trust in any other project too.

the version was updated and without buying a new license the software was almost immediately out of date.
Out of date, but usefull yet probably, unless the changes become from google or apple.

let me know if ever you choose to fully open source it.
Stay online...
 
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cimperia

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That's far from being accurate. You will not be able to share any code between the platforms as the code will be based on the native APIs which are completely different.

There’s a distinction between developing for iOS and Android with Kotlin and sharing code, no doubt. Kotlin definitely targets iOS and Android but indeed you cannot share 100% of the code, far from it. With Kotlin 1.12+ you certainly can share code, but the developer has to know a lot about the platform specificities.

However, more and more Kotlin libraries are developed as seamlessly multiplatform to deal with HTTP, serialization and coroutines. Also, an extensive standard library is available on all platforms. No doubt the code sharing facilities will grow with each release. Kotlin 1.4 coming out soon will certainly enhance this aspect.

If one would like to learn about Kotlin code sharing, you can read this interesting article: Kotlin Code Sharing . Notice how easy it is to target the correct platform by using a couple of keywords: expect/actual, though you have to know about the platform itself.

If you really want to share 100% of the code between iOS and Android then Google’s Flutter framework is excellent for RAD development. It’s even more popular than Kotlin and once you understand the widget concept (everything is a widget), it’s easy enough to build great interfaces. The only drawback from my point of view is that one will have to learn Google’s Dart language which is not as easy and modern as Kotlin.

From my point of view, the perfect combination would be Flutter/Kotlin, but I doubt it’ll happen.

There are other eco-systems that allow you to develop cross-platform applications, so it's good to have the choice.

Anyway, I hope it was transparent, I did not mean to disparage B4X, though I believe it has shortcomings. B4X certainly has its place and some developers do make a living out of it.
 
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Sergio Castellari

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Cuando terminé mi primer proyecto estaba demasiado agobiado con un programa en SQL, ¿qué tuve ocupado durante seis o siete meses? Al finalizar este, no hay necesidad de iniciar una nueva aplicación en B4A; así que no renueve la licencia y acepte "olvidar" este lenguaje ... Ya me perdonaréis todos los que estuvisteis a mi lado ayudándome de forma tan eficaz y amistosa.

Al amigo Erel le transmitió mi admiración y mis deseos de que B4A se agigante en la medida de su esperanza.

Aunque mis métodos de programación no pueden tomarse como ejemplo (ya sabéis que yo soy médico, no informático), podríamos ayudar a alguien que pueda servir de ayuda el proyecto que hice con vuestra colaboración inestimable; al menos les gusta a cuantos se lo he instalado. Por ello, y como signo de agradecimiento a esta comunidad, adjunto el paquete y ... que Dios reparta suerte, aunque solo sea para que no os olvidéis de que ya cumplí 88 años. Ojalá me entre de nuevo el gusanillo y aproveche este regalo de Erel.

(He de advertir que el corrector automático del foro, a veces "trastorna" la sintaxis del texto... Probablemente lo traduzca al inglés y después vuelva a traducirlo al español... digo yo.)

Wow!! Dijo 88 años!!!! Felicitaciones, y le diría que aproveche el regalo de @Erel . Admiro a las personas asi!!!!

Saludos,
Sergio Castellari
 
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stevel05

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The B4X IDE will never include all the features that Eclipse or Android Studio include.
This is one of the main things that drew me to the B4x environment 9 years ago, there is a small learning curve to get a project working. We only have to worry about which libraries we want and occasionally for B4a, an entry or two in the manifest (can't comment on B4i) and the projects work. unless you are doing something that no one has done before (which gets more and more unlikely by the day), you are likely to be able to find the relevant instructions and further help if required, on the forum with the right search terms.

There are no hidden configuration files or options buried deep in the menu system that you are required to know or find out about.
 
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LucaMs

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From my point of view, the perfect combination would be Flutter/Kotlin, but I doubt it’ll happen.
From my point of view:

1 - can I develop quickly and easily an Android app using B4A? Yes
2 - can I share code between Android and iOS projects using B4X? Yes
3 - can I develop SWs for any other platform using B4J? Yes
4 - do I have someone always willing to help me, almost always after a few minutes, almost never later than 24 hours? Yes, only here, on B4X.COM.

Am I satisfied? Yes a lot.
 
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Alex_Puz

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Dear Erel May I use B4A logo in my APP to make b4X more popular?
media-share-0-02-08-2ffd629abe8200b77e854e39e115824b59631f1768a6073614f3868c5258f0b8-20905965-...jpg
media-share-0-02-08-95eb9c9dd93847f9fb67c62ba5637641eb2899cc4d41680f8a22e49a1ea6efff-9a0feb71-...jpg
 
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JGParamo

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Congratulations Erel! This is such a giant step for the future of B4A now being 100% free and open source. Got a standard license about 2 years ago and I loved how it became a very nice tool in my daughter's senior high school Android application project for classroom attendance records - she, her classmates and teachers learned a lot and were amazed, and I as well finding it very promising. I look forward that B4A will become one of the mainstream Android dev IDE eventually. Thank you for your wonderful work, a work of a genius!
 

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