Migrating Xojo Web 1 to Web2

The best way to do it is simple: rewrite! (at least your UI code/design).

Last year I wrote my final review on Xojo, a development tool I used for almost 2 decades.

One reason for leaving the platform has been that the company doesn't offer any migration path from their old Web 1 platform to the Web 2 environment, nor do they patch the former Web 1 technology. This leads still in 2023 to problems like the below one, for customers who want to migrate:

Understandably, the customer is upset, though he mentions the solution: Continue to use Web 1 with the outdated 2019 1.1. release.

The response from the Inc. is kind of interesting. The issue that they don't offer a migration path has been debated endlessly in the past years, with no whatsoever help from the company.

Let's dive deeper into that response:

The response time of the company is quick.

• "Migrating from older platforms" should read "migrating from older xojo web platforms is always a challenge": Good frameworks don't break much. Vue3 / Vue2 migrations come to my mind, https://quasar.dev/ is known to not break much (if anything, and then you will get a clear migration path and a helping hand).

• "Keeping our frameworks up to date". Debatable, especially as Xojo Web 2 started already with outdated libraries and usually Xojo is rarely up to date when it comes to using the latest libraries. This may be less relevant in the desktop area, but unfortunately, it looks different on the web.

• "We might be able to help". I doubt it. Xojo Web 1 and Xojo Web 2 are 2 different pairs of shoes. The former resembles a classic desktop app, the latter is based on Bootstrap. For the sake of fairness, technically there is no migration path here, often not because it is better to adapt the logic of the application accordingly. The Inc. has occasionally admitted this in the past, but hope is always awakened.

Inc.'s response is strange in that the company's CEO backtracked back in 2020, under some pressure on the forums (he originally promised that switching to Xojo Web 2 should be easy):

The following excerpt from the above link leaves little room for interpretation:

That is the clear statement from the Inc. that

1. The product is no longer supported. Patches for Web 1 are promised, but only if it would still be technologically possible, and we all know that the time here has already played into the hands of the manufacturer.

2. You should either stay with the old version of Xojo Web 1, but it might no longer work at some point.

3. You are encouraged to migrate to Xojo Web 2.

Regarding point 3, it must be said that this means a complete redesign and rewrite in the frontend area (UI).

If that's the case, you can of course also consider whether other tools are the future-proof and better choice, but of course everyone has to decide for themselves.