Now the final test is in progress, we can announce that we will release PHsPeed version 2.3 shortly. As written before, this is a major maintenance release, and the focus was to make the product more future-proof. The applied changes allow us to update parts of the software without creating the full package. Thus making it possible to have more intermediate updates when applicable.

An overview of the new release can now be found in a new section of our website: release notes.

PHP 8.2

Version 2.3 also deploys an initial release of PHP 8.2. Because PHP 8.2 is in development, and the same goes for XDebug you can expect issues. Currently, you can select PHP 8.2 and test your application(s). But PHPMyAdmin, currently does not run under PHP 8.2, and XDebug is not functional. But we will update the modules when they come out. Formal support of PHP 8.2 is expected in the release in January.

Customer Portal

Soon we will deploy our customer portal. This will enable you to view your registration and licenses and to buy/upgrade PHsPeed. In the near future, we will add more functionality.

Roadmap

In the bug tracker are a number of feature requests. We will move them into a separate section, and try to address them. The fact is that we will continue to work on the wizards that allow you to create code-less applications. It is well known that our policy remains to work on applications that require as less code as possible, but that we still believe that developers are needed to finetune and model an application around the business rules. Yes, many managers believe that the users have to learn to adapt to what the application brings, and that software development is too expensive to maintain. But when end-users are not working efficiently, or in an 80-20 model, this will easily lead to less motivation, complaints, ill employees, and can lead to increasing costs. With PHsPeed we try to increase the productivity of developers, with full focus on your end-users.

Customer connection

We are very interested in your opinion about PHsPeed, the good and the bad. We welcome ideas from our customer pool to make the product better. Our increasing customer pool is a real motivation to continue improving the product. If you are a customer and reading this, our forum is a good place to communicate. Consider using the forum if your question could help the community. For fast response, the service desk will always be available.

Happy coding!

Hi, and great to see you here! We are proud of our new website, and in the upcoming weeks, we will reveal a lot of new features that will be in our release 2.2. If you haven't already, we would advise you to subscribe to our newsletter to be informed when new releases come out or when there is something to announce. And no, we do not share your email with others, nor will we spam you with useless 'offers'. As you might know, we like to simplify things. No difficult license models, no 'special' promotions. Just a great product for a very fair price. No sudden 'huge' increase in pricing or other unpleasant surprises!

Talking about the pricing is not a nice subject, but we will increase our license price for new licenses as of July 2022. As every company, we too suffer from increased costs. We kept our pricing low for early adaptors, but currently, PHsPeed is competing with all the products out there, which means that we will drop our early-bird discount.

If you are already a customer, then you will not be touched by the new pricing. We keep our promises! But if you are new and want to save a few bucks, then this might be the right time to step in. But if you can't, PHsPeed will still be very affordable.

Then some good news. I will give you detailed information about the new features in the following blogs. But to mention a few:

• Improved user interface
  We started to work with a front-end designer, and the first improvements to the user interface already have been implemented. Our Wiki will be removed and replaced by a new help system powered by HelpNDoc. This allows us to concentrate all our documentation in one place and implement a help function within the IDE. A first implementation is already in place!
  
  
• PayPal
  We have added a new component to connect to the PayPal gateway.
  
  
• Charts
  We improved our implementation of ChartJS.
  
  
• XML/JSon/CSV output
  We have added a new component to export your dataset result in several formats. Just bind the component to the data source, and you're done.
  
  
• Vimeo, Youtube, MP3, Mp4
  We added new components to embed these formats into your PHspeed applications.
  
  
• PWA
  Yes, you read it well. Last but not least. As of PHsPeed version 2.2, you can create a fully qualified PWA application. For those who do not know what this means, you can have your web application look like an App. Users can install this app without needing an app store, and in fact, it is still a web application. But you will have an icon on your mobile that responds directly to the web app, without the url line. It's installable and to convert your application into a PWA is as you might expect from a low-code tool... NO CODING IS REQUIRED!

PWA's become more and more important lately. That is understandable because they have a lot to offer. But what are they?

If you are a developer and writing applications in PHP or another scripting language, you probably will have dreamed that it would be nice if you could run your application just as an 'app' on your mobile device. Building native apps for Android and IOS is not that simple. Some tools allow you to use only one code-base, but you need a subscription to the app store and need to share a high fee on your sales.

PWAs allow you to install your browser-based applications as a traditional web app on a mobile device, including a nice icon on the mobile desktop.

So what are PWAs?

First of all, let's start with the definition that you can find on Wikipedia:

A progressive web application (PWA), commonly known as a progressive web app, is a type of application software delivered through the web, built using common web technologies including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly. It is intended to work on any platform that uses a standards-compliant browser, including both desktop and mobile devices.

Since a progressive web app is a type of webpage or website known as a web application, they do not require separate bundling or distribution. Developers can just publish the web application online, ensure that it meets baseline "installability requirements," and users will be able to add the application to their home screen. Publishing the app to digital distribution systems like Apple App Store or Google Play is optional.[1]

As of 2021, PWA features are supported by Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Firefox for Android, and Microsoft Edge[2][3] but not by Firefox for desktop.[4]

Nice definition, but how does it work? Well. First of all, a PWA must be able to run without a live connection to the server. So everything required to run the application needs to be in the PWA cache of your mobile device. That is a problem for scripting environments, as in our case, PHP runs on the server, not on the mobile. The PWAs are based upon the web browser, so the supported environment is HTML(5), CSS, and JavaScript. If you are a JavaScript developer, then you can come far. But for database access, you still need a server connection. To solve that problem, the PWA requires a fallback. If there is no internet connection, then the PWA must be able to handle that. 

Creating PWAs in PHsPeed will be supported in Q2/Q3

In terms of PHsPeed, we implement a PWA solution that allows you to enable all your PHsPeed applications into a qualified PWA. Suppose you start the application from a PWA-aware device (Android, IOS, Windows), then a splash screen will appear with two options: one to start the application and one to install the application as an app. If the user decides to install it, the application will be installed on the mobile device with the predefined icon. From that moment on, the install option will not be available anymore. The user can now start the app from his home screen.

If the internet connection is gone, the PWA will detect this, and the splash screen will reappear with the error message that there is no internet connection. There is an option to restart the application, which will work as soon as the internet connection is restored.

As a small disclaimer, we are currently developing this option so that the real implementation might be a bit different. And of course, if you already know how PWAs work, you can already deploy the PHsPeed application as a PWA. Using the PHsPeed implementation makes the feature available to anyone using PHsPeed.