>Not sure I follow you on the databinding aspects. Modern frameworks totally support no-touch, non-code data updates at the UI layer. Change a value in a text box and if that model value is bound it will update anywhere in the UI, including in lists etc. As will selections if they affect other things. This type of databinding is in a lot of ways much more flexible than what FoxPro ever had because it works with anything, not just ControlSource values.
>
>Getting data from the server still needs to be accomplished yes, but there are actually solutions for that as well (Meteor for example) although I don't really like that type of approach - you lose too much control with that sort of thing. OTOH I don't see pulling data into a client app as a problem - that's the way apps are supposed to be designed - you talk to a business/service layer that feeds data to you and the UI is responsible for displaying it. In Angular or Ember you use services to pull the data down and store the retrieved data into a model - usually that's a handful of lines of trivial code.
>
>FoxInCloud is very impressive in what it accomplishes - don't get me wrong. You guys have done a phenomenal job of making this work. But I think it's much wiser to start now with learning HTML, CSS and Javascript than kicking the can down the road a few more years.

Hmmm, not sure I agree with this. No-one really knows what the future will bring. Only few of us saw the native apps of mobile platforms coming. Personally I hate to go to something as cruel as HTML, CSS, JavaScript. Is this really the platform we all should be dealing with? I'd have expected that in 2015 we should be working in a single environment that at least gives you an EDI a GUI designer and a data oriented environment which VFP had from the beginning. As powerfull as it is, HTML,CSS and JavaScript feels so 3GL, bulky, consuming and only dealing with part of what you need, that I'd really not want to invest any time in it, until something far better comes along.

Something takes away all the headaches of cross browser and cross platform environments. Something more along the lines of SAAS Windev, Lianja, or Servoy. Most developers (IMO) want to concentrate on the core processes, not on learning the ins, out and quirks of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Its too expensive to waste your time on that IMO.





>+++ Rick ---
>
>>>Ultimately desktop and Web UIs are very different in behavior and expectation and it's a terrible idea IMHO to try and try to shoehorn a desktop app into a browser especially when it comes to building modern and responsive device friendly applications.
>>
>>>+++ Rick ---
>>
>>IMO the differences in behavior and expectation between a desktop and a web app may be overrated.
>>
>>There is a fundamental difference between FoxInCloud/desktop and web behavior: event transactions;
>>- with a typical web system such as angular you need to query data from the server (say in JSON) and let the browser JavaScript build the HTML. It means you need a specific server transaction for each component you need to update on the client side, such as lists; or you can design compound transactions and write complex browser JavaScript to dispatch the data to each contained control.
>>- FoxInCloud offers a much more simple paradigm: browser just send the user event to the server (control address, event name, value if applicable), server updates each relevant control and, in a single response, sends back a global update order message addressing on an unlimited number of controls, just because the client (HTML) and server (VFP) addressing schemes match.
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>>Until HTML and JS frameworks are able to address a mechanism as simple as .controlSource() and .Refresh(), I think the processing of a user event will be simpler on a desktop-type application than in a Web design.
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>>Based on an existing VFP application, FoxInCloud applications implement over 1,000 user events, will all the required UI updates (any visual property on lists, grid, an any other type of control), without writing a single line of JavaScript and/or server code.
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>>Regarding the GUI layout, it's true that for now FoxInCloud mainly implements the equivalent of the VFP forms, plus any CSS3 override the developer may see fit.
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>>We are working hard at breaking this 'absolute layout' paradigm in favor of a standard responsive approach - IOW fully override the default VFP-like HTML/CSS layout by something responsive such as BootStrap.
>>Inside existing 'fieldsets' like forms, pages and containers, we need to build an algorithm able to render the controls in an order logical for the user, pair labels and controls, make the grid control responsive by adding properties to the FoxInCloud column class and providing standard responsive CSS.
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>>Then FoxInCloud web applications will behave and look just like any other 'full stack' web application - while sharing code with desktop versions.