Xanadu

Web App Framework.

Xanadu

Xanadu is a platform for developing Database-Driven Web Apps that use NGINX, PHP, HTML, Bootstrap, CSS,Javascript, and MySQL. We landed on PHP because it is a mature, stable, and widely supported language that excels at building web applications. While Xanadu is open-source, it's not free.

Xanadu isn't like other platforms or frameworks. We're old-school developers who use a mix of procedural and object-oriented code in a way that reflects reality. For example, the Page Body generally contains Cards with Elements like Tables, Labels, Inputs, and Buttons. Simple.

For decades, we've been developing Database-Driven Apps with FileMaker and Xojo, both closed-source platforms. FileMaker rocks, but licensing has become expensive. Xojo has fantastic pricing but is perpetually buggy.

Closed-source platforms can change the rules at any time, whether that means higher pricing, new licensing terms, deprecated features, forced upgrades, hosting restrictions, shifts in product direction, or app approval issues. When that happens, your business may have to absorb unexpected costs, rework processes, delay plans, retrain staff, or even rebuild parts of your system around decisions you did not make. That kind of dependency can limit flexibility and create long-term risk.

With Xanadu, there's no need to download an app. All you need is a browser and a connection to the internet.

Overview

Why Xanadu?

Open-Source

Open-source gives you control in ways closed-source platforms often do not. When a product is proprietary, you can be limited by its pricing, licensing changes, development priorities, hosting requirements, and the features the vendor chooses to provide. With open-source technology, you have far more freedom to adapt, extend, host, and maintain your app on your terms, reducing lock-in and giving your business more long-term flexibility.

Flexibility

A PHP web app can do far more than display pages. It can provide API endpoints, power secure customer portals, run a web store with a shopping cart, and even connect to existing systems such as the FileMaker Data API. That flexibility makes PHP a practical choice for building everything from internal business tools to customer-facing platforms and online services.

Development Ease

Adding a module in Xanadu is straightforward. Start by creating a MySQL table with the fields you need, then run the table schema update so Xanadu can recognize the structure. After that, customize the schema details to control how the module should behave and display, run Module Generate to create the module, and then refine the list view, cards, and business logic to match your app’s needs.

CampSoftware Support

We can help at every stage, whether you need support by email or Zoom, web app hosting, custom development, or someone to build the entire app for you. We can add features to an existing system, assist with specific technical challenges, convert data from sources like Excel, FileMaker, or Xojo, and provide one-on-one coaching so you can move forward with clarity and confidence.

Modules

Home

Home is the place to include important information to the user. This might be a list of Tasks, Calendar Events, Billable Project Items, or Sales Stats.

Currently we have a few demos:

Getting a Location
Stripe Payment Buttons
QRCode
API Request and Queue Processor
Time from the Server in UTC and a equivalent time in a specified Timezone.

Contacts

Contacts is a Record Based Module that displays a record along with related records like Comms. Modules like Home are similar, except they don't typically have a Selected Record or a List.

The Menus are found on the top. Next is the Module Title with Module Action Buttons on the right. Buttons can be anywhere you'd like as well. The Content is below the first two lines. In the Content, there is a List of Records Card with five Cards for the Details [ Contact, Comms, Info, Notes, and Other ].

Blue Plus Buttons can be found in the List to add a new Contact and also in Comms to add a new Address, Email, Web, Phone, etc. Red Minus Buttons can be found in Comms to delete a Comm.

Next to the Photo in the Contacts Card, an image can be uploaded by clicking the Blue Upload Button or Dragging and Dropping an image onto the Blue Upload Button.

The Contact Picker Button lets you search Contacts to then select a contact. It returns the Contact ID to then do something with that ID. The Actions Button has a dropdown menu with items: Print to PDF, Print to HTML, Duplicate, and Delete.

Actions

Some modules have actions. Here we Add a Contact by clicking the + Button. On the right we can Select a Contact or under Actions, we can Print to PDF, Print to HTML, Duplicate or Delete the selected Contact.

User Menu

The user Menu is for specific options for the logged in user. The pictures show an Admin logged in. If a non Admin was logged the first four options would not be included.

The options are:

Stats

Stats is where you can see a bit into what is going on in the server. Stats shows:

Versions of the OS, PHP, and wkHTMLtoPDF
Disk Usage
RAM Usage
Disk Usage of each app folder
Processes Info
List of Sessions
List of Process Pools

Settings

Settings is where you can customize Xanadu to include:

Contact info
Specific formatting for Dates, Timestamps, Time, and Currency
Details for Sending Email (SMTP)
Details for Sending SMS/Text Messages (Twilio)
Details for Payment Buttons (Stripe)
Other APIs like Google Maps

Users

To create a Login, a User is needed where you can set Contact Info, Privileges, and Authentication including replacing a password.

Activity Messages

We always want the user to know what is going on. Here we edit a User Full Name which immediately Saves followed by a Name Update in the Header and User List. The Name Update shows a Cloud icon indicating it started, an intentional pause for a few seconds, followed by the completion message and run time.

Contact Record Load Code

Module Generation

Add Database Tables

Add MySQL Tables for Tickets and Tickets Messages to create a Bug Tracking Ticketing System.

Tickets will have a related list of Ticket Messages.
Record Modification fields begin with "Mod".
Xanadu Keys begin with "UUID". The Primary Key is "UUID{TableName}"

Update Schema

Run Schema Update

Found under the Developer Menu.
Updates the Modules Table from the SQL Tables.
Updates the Schema Table from each SQL Table for each Column.

Edit Schema

Edit the GroupName for each Column (boxed in red).
Format is Card Order, Card Title, Column Order.
On generation, Columns with the same Card Title will be placed on the same Card.

Generate Module

Define the Tables with the Module Name, Table Name, Plural Name, Singular Name, and Defined Font Awesome Icon.
Generate Modules for the Parent Table and Related Table.
Check the Result Log.

// Modules
$tableContacts = new \xan\khan( 'Contacts', 'Contacts', 'Contacts', 'Contact', "FI_CONTACTS" );
$tableTickets = new \xan\khan( 'Tickets', 'Tickets', 'Tickets', 'Ticket', 'FI_TICKETS' );
$tableTicketsMessages = new \xan\khan( 'TicketsMessages', 'TicketsMessages', 'Tickets Messages', 'Ticket Message', 'FI_MESSAGES' );
	
// Generate
$tableTickets->generate( [ $tableContacts ], [ $tableTicketsMessages ] );
$tableTicketsMessages->generate( [ $tableContacts, $tableTickets ], [] );
	
// Result
$khanResultMsg[ '$tableTickets' ] = $tableTickets->result;
$khanResultMsg[ '$tableTicketsMessages' ] = $tableTicketsMessages->result;

Load Module

Below is the generated Tickets Module after populating some fields.
The Ticket List and Ticket Detail come from Tickets Module.
The related Tickets Messages come from the TicketsMessages Module.
TicketsMessages wouldn't normally be included in the Navigation as a related table.

Schema Attributes

Once a SQL Table is created, you can run the Schema Update which will set many of the following:

TableName, DatabaseName, IsDefined, ColumnOrder, GroupName, ColumnName, LabelEN
EleFormatAs, EleType, EleAlign, InputMode, DataType, LengthChars, LengthInteger, LengthDecimal
LabelENTooltip, EleChoicesValues, EleChoicesDisplay, EleOtherLabel, EleClearLabel, EleWidth, EleHeight
IsFindable, IsIndexFullText, IsMod, IsKey, IsKeyPrimary, IsKeyForeign, SelectAs
UpdatedTS, ModTSCreated, ModFlag.

Processes

Our Development Flow is simple. Develop, Test, Push to Production.

We use PHPStorm and love it. PHP Storm, you can connect to FTP Servers, git Servers, and MySQL. I'm sure there are many more things that you can connect to, but this is all we've needed. We create two websites, one for development and one for production. Both are added to PHPStorm as separate connections along with connecting MySQL to the MySQL Server.

Xanadu Pricing

Price

$900 for Source Code updates for one year.
Use what you have forever.
Support via Email or Discord is unlimited.
Support via Zoom, up to 2 hours.
Additional years are 50% off with an active Hosting plan.

Have a Question?

Hosting

$100 per month for ITALICS most ITALICS Web Apps
Includes
INDENT Dev App and Production App.
INDENT Domains like myapp.xanweb.app

Development and Training

Discuss via Zoom
Ballpark Estimates
Develop
Demp

Questions & Answers

Have a Question?

Can you add a feature for me?

That depends on what you need! Seriously, just ask and we'll try!

Why don't you use FileMaker?

We did use FileMaker for years! Unfortunately, the licensing made selling apps with FileMaker too expensive. We used FileMaker Runtime, but it was deprecated. We hoped to use FileMaker WebDirect, but FileMaker changed the WebDirect per user price to the same price as FileMaker Pro or FileMaker Go user. FileMaker just priced it self out.

Why don't you use Xojo aka REAL Studio aka REALbasic?

We tried Xojo. While developing Desktop Apps [ Mac, Windows, Linux ] works well, not so much for Web Apps. When developing Xanadu with Web 1.0 would encounter a Xojo bug here and there, the IDE wouldn't crash too much, but over time the quality decreased. Xojo deprecated Web 1.0 with the release of Web 2.0. We were excited for responsive apps and a refresh. Unfortunately, it took Xojo a while, and once released, Web 2.0 sure didn't feel ready. I love Xojo and the pricing model. I'd pay double or even triple, but there are too many bugs in Xojo to deal with. Check out the forums at https://forum.xojo.com and https://ifnotnil.com to read more.