About Windev
Windev is a 4GL rapid application development (RAD) computer programming language that uses 'templates' to define the application. Windev is a French programming tool; new releases are released in French and then later ported over to English. The third party marketplace for Windev-specific components is virtually non-existent; however the Windev environment provides nearly everything needed to create a wide variety of software applications. As of Aug 2011, there are no English language books for Windev available from bookstores; however, an excellent tutorial book (500+pages) is included with Windev. The programming language seems straightforward and powerful.
Miscellaneous Websites
Programmer Owned Websites
- 4usInfo's site click HERE (older Windev examples; French language)
- Center..W.D. web site click HERE (French language)
- Chez' site click HERE (French language; older functions)
- Fabrice Harari's site click HERE (infrequently updated)
- Funcoder Technology Blog click HERE
- GdPicture ActiveX image processing plugin click HERE
- Greg's sample applications site click HERE (French language)
- MP3Tools site click HERE
- Next Age Consulting click HERE
- Nicholas Seinlet's site click HERE
- OrangeTree site click HERE (demo version plugin)
- Peter Vu's site click HERE (not updated since Windev 7.5)
- WinDevAPI site click HERE (French language)
- WinDev in Austria click HERE
- ZapSolutions site click HERE
Support Forums
- To visit the Australian Windev forum click HERE
- To visit the Dev4U forum click HERE
- To visit the official PC Soft online support forum click HERE
- To visit the TuniDev forum click HERE (French language)
- To view the WDForge forum click HERE (French language)
- To visit the WinDAsso forum click HERE
- To visit the WinDevAsso forum click HERE (the BEST WinDev forum!)
Tutorial-Oriented Web sites
- DevRoadMaps/WinDev click HERE (online magazine - still in beta testing mode)
- I Like Windev click HERE
- SoftDesign Consulting site click HERE (the BEST WinDev training package available!)
- SupInfo Windev database creation tutorial can be found HERE
- WDtutor Free Windev 12 downloadable videos click HERE
- WDtutor Windev 14/15 tutorials click HERE
- WinDev AT downloadable code / examples click HERE (Older WinDev versions)
- Windev Tutorials site HERE
- WinDevLive site click HERE (Webinars from Clarion -> WinDev transitioners)
I've tried 3x to "like" WinDev - it promises a LOT, but only partially delivers - perhaps the soon-to-be released version 17 will deliver what I need. Issues that I've found to be serious enough to keep pushing me back to Clarion (up to Windev 16):
- Data Lookup: No equivalent to the ProDomus PDlookup for table-based intelligent lookup tables for form procedures. A workaround was pretty easy to call a lookup table on the data entry form to allow for "assisted entry" - the problem is the combobox doesn't allow for realtime adding / editing / deleting of the lookup table data in the lookup table (that PDlookup allows). This means that endusers that are using the WinDev application can't add a new lookup table entry in real time - that is a serious problem, and unreasonable to expect the enduser to abort their data entry screen to modify the lookup table and then return back to the data entry screen from the listbox!
- Queries: No equivalent to the Nicetouch Query Wizard for an easy-to-use wizard to create reusable queries on browse and report procedures; the Windev query module was too hard for me to figure out, let alone an enduser. A temporary workaround was my creating a droplist of pre-programmed filters for the onscreen combo box to filter data.
- Calendar Component: WinDev 16 greatly enhanced the calendar component that can be used for data fields on a data entry form; it is much more attractive than previous WinDev calendar components and now parrtially mimics the Windows 7" drilldown feature (i.e. clicking the calendar jumps backward to the month; click the calendar again and it jumps backward to the year) - it falls short of perfection, as it doesn't continue to drill down to displaying decades to allow the user to jump backwards quickly to select a year.
- Deployment Size: Size is an issue; a standard Clarion compiled application with Fomin Report Builder clocks in around 5MB in size; the smallest Windev .EXE during my tests was 3x-4x larger. Yes, disc space is cheap, but downloading a 20MB sized .EXE is still a pain for some people. I was able to remove about 9-10MB in framework DLL files from a 30MB WinDev install through trial & error - roughly half of the remaining *.DLL files are needed for the print preview screen (which is a VERY nicely done print preview screen).
- Bugs: I still read of lots of lingering bugs in Windev on various WinDev forums - it seems that PC Soft chases new customers via an annual promise of hundreds of new features while ignoring years-old bugs (or for me, not adding features that I need to immediately use Windev). Programmers commonly report problems with language translations (this is a French-based programming language after all, but WinDev touts itself as multi-language capable) within compiled applications. Online posts regarding the 130MB Reports and Queries module reflected that longstanding issues regarding it being slow, buggy, and too complex for endusers repeatedly surface, which is a shame, as I found the Report Writer to be powerful and relatively straightforward and capable of generating any type of report (even tricky CrossTab reports).
- Bugs Part 2: Looking at the WinDev forums it is very apparent that longstanding bugs within WinDev (in some cases dating back to WinDev 5) are being ignored by PC Soft. That is extremely disturbing to hear of. When I view longstanding requests for features on the online forum (and see them still missing from the current shipping version) THAT is also disturbing to read. Is PC Soft a company that truly listens to it's customer base? Doesn't seem so :(
- Screen Designer: The WinDev screen designer was a pain - roughly 80% of the time that I tried to select a single onscreen control the mouse would instead select the outermost control - it took a couple of additional mouse clicks to unselect the default control to finally select the desired control. Frustrating!
- Combobox: The combobox and table controls drove me nuts - during runtime, if you type in an alphanumeric character on the keyboard (to execute an incremental search) the listbox/table control would lose it's sort order (e.g. the enduser selected two columns to sort it's contents). This is unacceptable! After a LOT of lost time I ended up forcing a sort after the alphanumeric search terminated. This is unacceptable - the enduser might have sorted the columns differently than my forced sort.
- Radiobuttons: Radiobuttons on data entry forms drove me nuts - and I couldn't fix it. A grouping of radio buttons would be ignored by the TAB key, thus forcing me to use the mouse to select the grouped radiobuttons - what was weird is this behavior only occured when a NEW database record was being created - if the form procedure was in EDIT mode (to edit an existing database record) the keyboard's TAB key worked as expected. When I compared the controls configuration with shipping WinDev example applications everything was identical - yet my form would not work properly.
- Print Preview: Had one button whose tooltip was in the French language - more wasted time trying to figure out how to remove the button from it's screen because I couldn't figure out how to get the tooltip to display in English.
- Table Controls: One has to be careful how you are configuring the table controls - several times I would modify a setting in the 7-tabs screen that, at runtime, would change the record pointer and not display the same database record in the data entry form. At runtime this would be disastrous and lead to corrupt data!
- Image Controls: Image controls were a pain. I wanted to click an onscreen image and have it copy itself to the Windows clipboard in the image's native size - it would copy the image to the Windows clipboard, but it would be the exact same size of the image control versus the image's native size! I had to create a new window procedure and link it to the form's image control, with the window sized as large as the image's native size, and then have a button on THAT form to allow for the image to be copied, in the desired size, to the clipboard.
- Help System: I never figured out the WinDev help system - every time I would try to regenerate Help ID's and rebuild the master *.RTF file to include updated screen captures of all of the windows WinDev would add a duplicate line of code in the embed to call the help procedure - I would have to edit every single procedure to get rid of the duplicate calls because during runtime the executable would lock up or do other weird things due to the redundant help ID calls.
- Support: Online help via the forum is a mixed bag - for example, I tried to stir up interest of using Combit Software's List & Label 16 with WinDev 16 - 175 forum views over one week netted ZERO ideas of how to make the requisite DLL calls to use L&L (and kick the 130MB WinDev enduser Reports and Queries module to the curb). Nobody had ideas on how to fix the incremental search problem (regarding column sorting). End result - ZERO help, and nobody from PC Soft chimed in either.
- RAD Reports: RAD generated reports nearly had me kick WinDev to the curb early on - when an appgen report was sent to the WinDev print preview screen, images that were stored in the blob would cause the application to crash after 10-15 pages were generated! A different appgen default report would generate so slowly that I started to wonder if the *.FIC/*.MMO database design was severely flawed - and the table only had 800 records that were locally stored! After I deleted the RAD generated reports and built them from scratch they executed quickly and flawlessly - I didn't press my luck and include the BLOB images on the report though.
- Flash Screen: There are two different designs for the Flash Screen that can be added to your appgen-created application that is displayed upon program execution - the gold colored flash screen would not display ANYTHING in the compiled application, so I reverted to the less attractive silver flash screen.
- Printing: Printing only the highlighted combobox record to a report was a bit trickier than it should have been - if you want a report generated that only has a table control on the report it is a piece of cake, as there is an appgen option to add that kind of report that uses a wizard to handhold you through the creation process (very nice). If you want a report that is a form / freehand design (e.g. an invoice snapshot report) then you have to jump through hoops to set a report filter that will work properly.
- About Screen: The default application's ABOUT screen was a pain... eventually I created a design that I liked, but the default controls for module number / module name / web site / email address / license agreement were a bit of a pain to get aligned / resized to they would left align inside of the box.
So, I have resigned myself to the fact that Clarion, along with a few carefully chosen third party templates, results in a FAR easier programming environment AND a far better enduser experience. I have installed Clarion 8 and started buying upgrades for some of the key third party templates and will continue using Clarion for my application development needs. Maybe WinDev 17 will FINALLY address longstanding programmer / enduser issues and I can give it a fourth try?
To view more information about Windev please consult the PC Soft web site by clicking HERE.
