Hey Charles,

The WinDev user community -

Well the main forum for tech discussions is http://27130.foren.mysnip.de/list.php?27131 . It is nowhere near as user-friendly as the UT. Also, the forum participants are much more, not sure how to phrase it, but techie inclined? Less time for chit-chat and more just getting to the point. Frequently they will tell posters to RTFM whereas the UT members seem far more amenable to offer solutions even if asked many times before. Sometimes one must wait a day or more for an answer. Sometimes no answer at all. I think this might be part of a European cultural thing perhaps, not sure?

Peer to peer

They have their gurus of course;

People like Guenter (Austria and a WD reseller/dev-house) who goes by the name of Jimbo on that forum. His website offers lots of sample code and solutions - http://www.windev.at/html/downloads.html.

Patrice Terrier who is a WinDev guru of note (see his website with many WinDev project for free downloads here: http://www.zapsolution.com/DW/US/windev.html).

Fabrice Harari is another who also sells video tutorials of all platforms - http://www.fabriceharari.com/

Glenn Rathke - in the US but don’t know his website. He is very knowledgeable and a speaker at WD conferences

Another site here - http://windevlive.com/

Another website recently started offering tutorials here: http://www.windevtutorials.com/index.html

2012 Conference in the US - http://www.windev-us.com/WXUS_WEB/US/Conference.awp

Like any community there will be the guys and girls that have extensive in-depth knowledge and I have found that they are willing to help (but not without you helping yourself first). This goes for PC Soft as well - I have found their support very good but if you ask 4 or 5 "simple" questions then pretty quickly they will tell you to RTFM :)

Pricing and product

Pricing is fair I think. The product is polished and been delivering end-user projects for many years. Check this post where a user asks whether WinDev can handle a large project they are working on. Check the first response he gets for some insight into the power - http://27130.foren.mysnip.de/read.php?27131,135177

NB: the reference to "Hyperfile" - Hyperfile is the name of the internal database engine of WinDev (like the name Rushmore in VFP). It can be used in two modes; (1) classic mode which is like using DBF/CDX/Databases etc. local file mode, or (2) in client-server mode. The same Hyperfile database can be converted between the two modes if required/desired.

--

I am no expert in WinDev. I am only able to spend a portion of my dev time on it because I also need to continue maintaining and enhancing numerous VFP applications as well. However, having spent 4+ years looking at this product, reading the forums, and developing in it I am 100% convinced that this is a fantastic and complete, polished, powerful and excellent tool for those developers who do not need to tow a M$ party line, like independent product developers like us. You create applications like you do in VFP, the syntax is very similar, the database models are similar, the form design, data-binding, etc. are all like VFP. I think they started as a dBase/VFP competitor and have grown and grown.

Still in UK - travel to SA a lot. Was just recently in New York for a week with the famn damily.


>Hi Jos
>
>I know you have been using WinDev for a while so I am pretty convinced you actually know what you are talking about and the product is as presented on their website. I have to say it sound intriguing. At least to where I downloaded a whole lot of stuff and will start reading and maybe even tinkering a bit with their express version. How is the user community and peer to peer support?
>
>Will probably be another year before I am stepping away from my current gig ( would certainly be pleased by that ) but always like to have something to look forward to.
>
>The pricing certainly seems very straightforward and extremely reasonable.
>
>Are you really in HK now? The Flying Dutchman indeed <s>
>
>
>>>>Fine, but the product is still not fully finished - it's a work in progress. WinDev (amongst others) is a finished and polished product in all respests from IDE to distribution, for all platforms WIndows to Apple to Linux to Andorid to iOS. It has a long history of development and refinement starting with version 1 20+ years ago and sitting at version 17 now. It has every 3rd party tool I have ever used in VFP built right in (about 30 I can think off easily). One simple price to buy the IDE of choice and royalty free distirbution of the exe and internal database.
>>>>
>>>
>>>Hi Jos,
>>>
>>>what's the pricing policy on new versions of win/web/mobile dev? If I purchase version 17, do I get all updates to that version for free and then have to by version 18 when it comes out?
>>
>>You get updates to the purchased version for free and you get a discount price for the next version. You can skip versions.
>>
>>Different IDE versions (desktop, web, mobile) are seperate products but all resonably priced imo.
>>
>>No royalties for distirbution.
>>
>>Additional fees - the web version has one aditional once-off fee per server to handle more than 10 concurrent users to a WebDev database-driven website. Again, very reasonable - I think its US$250 for an unlimited user license per web server. The 10 concurrent user license for web sites is free. You can check their website for pricing.
>>
>>EU website - http://www.windev.com/index.html
>>US website (and US conference info for 2012 Nov) - http://www.windev-us.com/WXUS_WEB/Home.awp