Looking Forward: GraffitiSuite for Web 2.0

One of the most commonly asked questions we’re getting right now is

What will GraffitiSuite for Xojo Web 2.0 look like?

The short answer is, hopefully, it won’t be much different. I’ve been planning this for a long time, and current customers can see the GraffitiControlWrapper class in their project that is a subclass of WebControlWrapper from the Web 1.0 SDK.

Initially this was to work around some issues with the Web 1.0 SDK, but as it became more and more apparent that Web 2.0 would completely alter the Web SDK it was definitely a good choice to continue with it. There was a point where I could have safely removed this superclass, but it made little sense to do so when I could use it to retrofit my current code for the new framework.

So the end result? Hopefully? To have three downloadable Web packages for the time being:

  • GraffitiWeb 1.0 Support — The original GraffitiControlWrapper
  • GraffitiWeb 2.0 Support — The new GraffitiControlWrapper, a WebStyle substitute class (if needed at launch), and anything else needed to shim the old code to work on the new framework
  • GraffitiWeb Products — The actual product classes

This will be a delicate transition, and it means that some things won’t be supported initially in Web 2.0, like the IDE previews, but when I’m ready to mark Web 1.0 as Deprecated I’ll be able to start adding things like that, removing things that are no longer needed, and go back to a one-package delivery system.

I hope this helps customers plan their own transitions in to the awesome new Xojo Web Framework!