Introduction

Xojo is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This means that all its components (layout editor, code editor, compiler, debugger, etc.) are all integrated into one package. In traditional programming languages, these items would each be a separate application.

Getting started

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The first thing you see when you start Xojo is the Project Chooser window. It displays each time you start Xojo and when you select File > New Project. With the Project Chooser window, you can choose to create a new project, work on a recent project, open any project file.

  • New Projects - The Project Chooser lets you quickly decide what project you want to work with. You can choose to create a new blank Desktop, Web, Console or iOS project or open an existing project. For new projects, fill in the Application Name and Company Name to automatically create the Application Identifier (which is used by Mac, iOS and web apps). You can also manually change the Application Identifier as necessary. You need to use Xojo on a Mac in order to create iOS projects.

  • Recent Projects - You can view the most recently used projects and choose to open one of them. If the recent project is no longer available, clicking on it will prompt you to remove it. To remove an individual recent project, select it and then press the Backspace or Delete key. You can also clear the entire list of recent projects when a project is open by selecting File > Open Recent > Clear Menu.

  • Templates - Templates are Xojo projects that are saved in the Templates folder alongside the Xojo application. If you have a set of commonly used modules, classes or anything else, you can put them all in a project and then save it to the Templates folder. When you open the template, you get a new project with all your project items already included. Xojo includes templates for creating Service Applications and Event-Driven Console Applications. You can read more about Templates and how to create your own in the Project Types section.

  • Examples - Select Examples to view the example projects included with Xojo. The examples demonstrate how to use specific features and functions of Xojo. When you choose an example, it is opened in a new project for you to run, edit or save where you like. Over 400 examples are included.

  • Open an Existing File - Click this button to get a file selector for you to choose an existing Xojo project to open.

Once you have chosen the project to work with, the Xojo Workspace window is displayed.

If you open a Xojo project that is read-only on disk, then it will be read-only in the IDE as well.

Workspace

When you open Xojo and choose to open or create a project, a single window, called the Workspace displays. Within this window you can navigate among project items by clicking on their names. You can also choose to open project items in their own tabs for more flexibility.

You have more than one project open at the same time; each will be shown in its own Workspace window.

You can open multiple workspace windows for a single project by using File > New Workspace, which can be useful when working with multiple displays. The Workspace consists of these areas:

  • Top: Toolbar

  • Left: Navigator

  • Center: Editor Area, containing layout and code editors

  • Right: Library/Inspector

  • Bottom: Find/Errors/Messages Panels

Toolbar

The toolbar at the top of the main window is called the Workspace toolbar. It has these buttons:

Button

Description

Insert

Adds an item to the project or to the selected project item.

Back

Moves to the previously used item in the tab.

Forward

Moves to the next used item in the tab.

Run

Runs your project using the debugger.

Build

Creates stand-alone applications that you can distribute to others.

Deploy

Builds and uploads your app to Xojo Cloud. This is only visible for web projects.

Help

Displays documentation for the selected item.

Feedback

Launches your browser and opens Issues, our bug reporting/feature request tracking system.

Library

Toggles the visibility of the Library.

Inspector

Toggles the visibility of the Inspector.

You can hide the toolbar by selecting View > Hide Toolbar from the menu.

Full screen mode

On macOS you can also click the “full screen” button in the window to put the Workspace into full screen mode. When in full screen mode, the window title bar and the main menu bar are hidden to give you more space and allow you to focus better. Full screen mode is especially useful on smaller laptop screens. To see the main menu bar when in full screen mode, move the mouse cursor to the top of the screen; the menu bar will slide down. To exit full screen mode, click the full screen icon in the menu bar.