FiveTech Support Forums

Dear freinds,

In December, a webinar on “Building software with HIX & AntiGravity” took place – with over 80 participants. Since then: silence. No questions, no feedback, no experience reports in the forum. That’s not normal.

Why? I don’t believe that everyone immediately understood everything or is quietly building perfect solutions on their own. Rather, many are facing the same hurdles – and struggling alone.

The real problem: time In the past, especially during the COVID period, some of us had the freedom to experiment, fail, and start over. Today, that time is missing. Anyone active in day-to-day business cannot afford to: spend weeks on trial and error, walk down every dead end alone, solve every release problem on their own.

Today’s reality Building an application quickly is possible. The real challenge lies in clean releases, stable operation, and maintenance. This affects all of us: caching, updates, release strategies, real users instead of demo scenarios.

You don’t learn this from documentation – you learn it from the experiences of others.

A simple question in the forum can: save hours, prevent frustration, make the next step possible in the first place.

Collaboration is not a nice-to-have, but a necessity Open collaboration means more than just asking questions or posting results. It requires: time to seriously evaluate other people’s solutions, precise, honest feedback (“I tried it – X is where it breaks for me”), a balance between giving and taking.

Feedback is not a one-way street An “interesting” helps no one. What matters is:

“I tested it – it works here, but not there.” “The idea is good, but it fails at this point.”

That takes time – but exactly this investment saves many times more elsewhere.

My wish Let’s: try out other people’s solutions, give conscious feedback (including critical feedback), invest time where we ourselves want to save time.

Not out of obligation, but because collaboration only works when it goes both ways. Why this is crucial right now Topics like release issues, updates, or caching cannot be fully thought through or tested alone. Only when we evaluate solutions together does solid knowledge emerge – not just opinions.

Collaboration is not a luxury, but a prerequisite – for efficient learning and sustainable solutions.

Best regards, Otto

Dear Otto, I think the "silence" after happened just because the promissed "FW for Web" is not a reality yet. I don't see HIX ready to support a professional application for web. I would like to be wrong, but it's what I think.

Vilian,

vilian wrote:

I don't see HIX ready to support a professional application for web. I would like to be wrong, but it's what I think.

Why ? :D

C.

Hi Carles,

It could be just a lack of knowledge mine about Hix, but could we use https/SSL? could HIX prevent ddos/inject attacks? Beyond support of harbour code, could you talk to us what else could HIX do?

Vilian,

vilian wrote:

could we use https/SSL?

Yes :D

vilian wrote:

... could HIX prevent ddos/inject attacks?

The main responsibility for ddos attacks lies with previous layers (firewall, network, CDN, etc.), meaning it depends on the infrastructure where you install your HiX server, just like any other server such as Apache. There are already users testing their applications under systems like Cloudflare that handle these kinds of concerns, such as DDoS attacks.

vilian wrote:

...could you talk to us what else could HIX do?

HIX is a web server and it does what it's supposed to do… serve web pages.

But for now, any harbour user can have a web server with a simple run & "start" command, where your backend is entirely Harbour. You start it up and forget about HIX…

Learning to design web applications is another matter.

C.

Hello friends,

I don’t think this is about “learning to design web applications”.

The questions raised are typical production and integration questions:
how a component fits into an existing web stack, how it cooperates with
other technologies, and how it behaves in real-world infrastructure.

That’s not a learning issue — it’s an integration and architecture issue.

That’s exactly why these questions matter:
Vilian is asking them because he is evaluating a real-world use case and considering whether HIX could be part of a production setup.

For that audience, it might help to make two usage models explicit:

Simple / Direct Model (entry level)

For developers who want a straightforward start, HIX can be used as a self-contained web server:

Harbour backend
HTML/JSON output
minimal infrastructure
fast experimentation and learning
This is a perfectly valid model and lowers the entry barrier.

Integrated / Proxy Model (experienced developers)

For more experienced teams, a proxy-based architecture is often more realistic:
a standard web server or reverse proxy (Apache, Nginx, Cloudflare, etc.) as front office
HIX (or a Harbour microservice) as back office
clear separation of concerns:
TLS, routing, security, caching handled by standard infrastructure
business logic and data handling handled by Harbour

In this model, HIX does not replace existing stacks — it coexists with them.

Making this explicit would avoid the impression that HIX must be adopted as an all-or-nothing solution, and it directly addresses the kind of production and integration questions that experienced developers naturally ask.

These are not questions about learning how to design web applications.
They are questions about how a tool fits into an existing ecosystem.

Best regards,
Otto

Hi,

My take and my solution.

• We’ve got a Harbour web server (HIX) ready to go.

• We’ve got an easy way to spin up the infrastructure (Cloudflare).

If anyone has a technical question about HIX, just put it out there. If something’s not working right, I’ll try to fix it, my focus is HIX.

On my end, other setups don’t really interest me, because there are dozens of scenarios out there and I’ve already been through most of them. I think HIX is the best solution for most Harbour programmers, given the typical profile they have.

You can try it freely, it’s not some kind of prerequisite like someone said. If you want to use other Harbour-based systems, the technical level you’ll need is very different and necessarily higher.

If you already have solid web environment skills, HIX might still surprise you…

Regards.
C.

Charly, o avoid any misunderstanding, it’s important to be precise here.

HIX is a personal project and not an official FiveTech product. As far as I know, the only official web solution provided by FiveTech is mod harbour, which I have been using for years and which has consistently done exactly what I needed.

That doesn’t make HIX irrelevant or wrong — it simply means it should not be presented as “the” Harbour web solution endorsed by the whole ecosystem.

A fair and accurate wording would therefore be:

“I have built a Harbour-based web server (HIX) that works well for my use cases.” “It may be a good fit for many Harbour developers.” “Others may prefer different setups.”

That keeps the distinction clear, avoids unintended authority claims, and leaves room for different approaches within the Harbour community.

Best regards, Otto

Otto,

Leave me and HIX alone. I'm talking about Hix here just like you talk about your Harbourinu. If there's any issue with that, Antonio will tell me, or are you suddenly Fivetech's manager too? Do you see me telling you not to talk about your "system"? Who do you think you are to tell me what I should say or post?

I’ve never claimed it's "the" official Harbour web solution endorsed by the whole ecosystem, that’s something you say. I’m just offering a real option for anyone who wants to try it, and of course I’ll talk about it, because there aren’t any other solutions in this forum, not even yours.

So far, you’ve given lots of lectures about architecture, how to do things, etc.… I still haven’t seen or tried anything you’ve talked about. And neither has anyone else.

So please, forget about me, HIX and go your way, and I’ll go mine.

C.

Otto, to answer your point.

1) Collaboration, and using the forum, is absolutely a positive practice.

2). As I have shared before, in a few months I will turn 80 years. It is not the time for me to "convert" an application I developed, upgraded, maintained, and supported for 44 years into a web application. Had someone bought out my "company" I would be happy to consult, help, and guide but I want my remaining years free to focus on family, and service to my community and others less fortunate.

3). To keep my mind active, I do continue to work on my current software.

4). I find HIX to be an interesting option. I don't plan to create any income producing applications with it, but I do intend to work with it. To this end, I have a computer set aside to act as a "web server". I did not attend the seminar due to a significant scheduling conflict, but I have started watching the video.

5). I haven't moved ahead because of other pressing needs: family health issues, emergencies, travel, and other obligations. Life often intervenes at the most inappropriate times ... and that has been my situation recently.

6). I look forward to moving into this area in the near future, and when I do, I will certainly ask questions here, and share my observations, all in the interest of providing the input that allows other developers to constantly improve products.

You are doing many valid projects with your WinHotel, and what you share is helpful to many. As I told you when you first encouraged me to move my program to a cloud based app, I just didn't have the time, or energy, and it was not appealing to my clients. I am a solo developer ( though I count all the contributors here as part of my team ), and you have a team. I am at a point in life where my focus is on my remaining time with others, and I have no interest in competing against the sales and marketing teams of my competitors. I have clients who have been with me for well over 30 years, and they not only value my services, but we are friends. I'm content, and they are very satisfied.

Because we take different approaches in no way is a criticism of your approach. You have the right way for many, even when some of us, after strong reflection, are taking a different approach, or sticking with the old ways.

Tim

Hi Otto and Vilian, perhaps you didn't read my post from January 1, 2026:

https://forums.fivetechsupport.com/viewtopic.php?p=283218#p283218

I completed this project with the help of Hix, using code from my Windows system with FWH and with the help of Antigravity. You can see the result.

I hope to put this project into production in February of this year, that is, next week, with two clients.

As Carles correctly points out, Hix is ​​a web server that understands our Harbour code. I didn't have to learn PHP, Python, etc. I used my .prg code, and Antigravity provided the view with HTML, CSS, JS, etc.

Hix is ​​a tool we can use to create something for the web because it understands our language, which we've been using for years; in other words, Harbour.

Best regards.

Carlos

Hola buenos días para todos, desde mi punto de vista, nosotros NO queremos probar HIX ni hacer mas desarrollos web con ninguna rama de FWH y no por que no sean funcionales o se puedan mejorar y adaptar a las necesidades futuras que la tecnología demande. El problema para nosotros es el soporte, que es exactamente el mismo problema que esta teniendo FW; se ha hablado en los foros sobre el tema "el foro se esta poniendo viejo", no por el foro si no por las personas que interactuamos en el mismo, llevamos años, sin que alguien nuevo (que apenas este iniciando en FW, no que haya vuelto) ingrese al foro con la necesidad de aprender; y por que menciono esto por el tema del soporte, quizás en este momento haya alguien que nos responda las preguntas y quizás por otros años mas, pero llegara el momento que esto no va a suceder, ¿y que nos queda, la IA? eso es algo que tampoco nos da la certeza de una solución. Por eso nosotros hemos hecho los desarrollos WEB en PHP, y en este momento estamos migrando (no todo) a Angular, con el fin de generar aplicaciones de verdad MULTIPLATAFORMA, que funcionen en cualquier dispositivo.

De momento del lado de escritorio (solo Windows), nos quedamos con FW, por que nos ha permitido trabajar de manera optima y única, también cabe agregar que hace algunos años con el desarrollo de WebView hemos logrado hacer un tipo hibrido de aplicación que a funcionado bien chevere.

Saludos foro, y dejen de discutir por cualquier cosa. Otto solo quiere impulsar el foro, se nota que ama FW :oops:

Hola a todos,

Yo nunca he entendido que Hix era de o patrocinado por Fivetech. ...no debo haber leído todos los post. Siempre he tenido claro que era un producto de Carles.

Hace tiempo que aprendí y decidí no usar "cosas externas" (con todo el respeto y recuerdo a su creador, recuerdan SBrowse? Y los controles Five [no recuerdo bien su nombre]); entiéndase código que no puedo gestionar (por eso uso TDBF de hace años en PRG por que la actual/última versión está hecha en C y yo no sé C).

Y también he tenido claro que FWH quedará cojo el día que A. Linares se dedique a pasear en bicicleta 12 horas al día, de la misma manera que contemplo que alguna solución que adopte pueda quedar obsoleta en 2 ó 3 años, ... ¿Pero dónde está el problema? Yo llevo toda la vida adaptándome y cogiendo cosas de aquí y allá.

Mi primer programa es del año 1990 (o antes; la primera oficina bancaria catalana en vender en mostrador entradas informatizadas de un evento), mi campo es reducido, muy reducido, pero aplicando aquello de 'zapatero a tus zapatos' he llegado hasta aquí. He trabajado colaborando muy estrechamente con informáticos de carrera unos 20 años. Créanme o no, no todas las soluciones estaban en sus dedos, si no a veces en como se daba respuesta a una necesidad/problema/cuestión concreta.

Con todo el respeto (faltaría más), Otto todo lo que explicas intento leerlo, pero me va grande.

Hay un grupo de gente, no sé si muchos o pocos, entre los que estoy yo, a los que Hix nos ha abierto un mundo. Y entre informáticos (yo no lo soy) no se venderán algunas soluciones, pero a sus clientes les venderán lo que les funcione aunque no sea lo mejor. Lo he vivido, doy fe.

Y lo más importante, cada caso, cada problema tiene su solución; desde mi limitado punto de vista, para mi Hix da respuesta con una facilidad inigualable, a una cuestión/situación que no la tenía. Todo ello con la colaboración inestimable de AI.

Hoy también tenía ganas de escribir.