FiveTech Support Forums

Dear Antonio, hello everyone,

When looking at the topics and view counts in the forum over the past months, I noticed a development that I would like to share calmly and without any judgment.

It seems that today there are two major, equally legitimate directions among developers in the FiveWin / Harbour ecosystem:

Developers who consciously want to stay with the established development environment

Developers who, for various and understandable reasons, shift part of their focus toward HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and general web standards

Both approaches are valid. This is not about replacing anything or questioning FiveWin itself.

What stands out, however, is that many developers from the second group tend to ask fewer questions and participate less publicly, even though their view counts suggest strong interest. In many cases, this is not due to a lack of relevance, but rather because certain topics do not clearly fit into any existing forum category.

These topics are often not FiveWin-specific, but more general in nature, such as:

application structure and navigation HTML, CSS, and JavaScript fundamentals PHP as a backend glue UTF-8, JSON, REST, and security aspects architectural questions between desktop and web

These subjects do not compete with FiveWin. In many cases, they complement it or exist alongside it.

For this reason, I would like to propose — openly and without expectations — the idea of a small, neutral subforum, for example:

“HTML / JS / PHP – General Web Topics (FiveWin Context)”

This would not imply support obligations or a change of direction. It would simply provide a visible place for discussions that already exist and attract significant interest.

From my perspective, such a space could help keep developers engaged within the community, even as their technical scope broadens.

I’m sharing this as an observation and a suggestion, not as a demand. If others see it differently, that’s completely fine.

Best regards, Otto

I agree. Currently, web questions are scattered on all the forums and this is not appropriate.

Que buena idea, me sumo a la solicitud.

Hi everyone,

Antonio has produced and donated giants when it comes to advances in this area. He started and donated the Harbour project alongside other key figures in the xBase community. But he didn't stop there—he created mod_harbour, an incredible tool that I didn't fully appreciate until I worked with it recently. It's truly a monster in the best sense: a great machine in itself.

That said, I think we need perspective.

While Antonio has been incredibly generous, this is his forum for his commercial product. The fact that we need additional tools doesn't mean he's obligated to provide them. Microsoft isn't rushing to solve our protection needs. Apache and Windows Server aren't building web security for us—those require separate products and separate expertise, on their own places.

Yes, we need web protection. Yes, we need web access. But FiveWin already provides mod_harbour, and Harbour has server functions. It's not reasonable to expect Antonio to also teach HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and AJAX. Although Antonio once more took our hands to take us to another beautiful project from Carles, the HIX Server... a Microservices Websocket Server...

If Antonio decides to add a web section, great—it might bring more visitors. But let's give him breathing room to make that decision on his own terms.

Here's the reality: mod_harbour has been around for a while with only ~ 2,400 posts. That's a beast of a tool sitting underutilized. Why? Because many in this forum aren't interested in learning web technologies. That's exactly why I took the approach I did with my project—meeting users where they are and want to be.

Let's be grateful for what we have, and a little less pushy about what we want.

My humble opinion, hopping not to start controversy, since the function of this forum is to provide Fivewin users a place to find help, not to read about people debating... Thanks...

I would like to add one more thought — not as criticism, but as a structural question about the future of the community.

Wilson mentioned that one needs to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and suggested moving to Discord (UT framework forum).

That is absolutely legitimate.
Of course web development requires those skills.
And of course everyone is free to use other platforms.

But this raises an important structural question:

If web-related discussions increasingly take place on Discord,
why should developers who expand into web technologies remain active in the main forum?

My original suggestion was not about changing FiveWin’s direction or creating obligations for Antonio. It was simply about creating a visible space within the existing forum where these conversations can naturally belong.

What is currently happening is something different:

Topics are not disappearing because they are unwanted.
They are drifting away because there is no clearly defined place for them.

And when discussions structurally move elsewhere, over time the forum does not only lose topics — it risks losing developers.

This is not criticism of UT, Discord, or anyone involved.
It is simply the observation that community cohesion depends on visibility and structure.

If FiveWin developers today need to learn:

HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Web security
JSON
REST

… these are not competing technologies.
They are extensions of the developer’s toolbox.

So the real question is:

Should this extension of knowledge happen inside the community —
or outside of it?

Nothing more.

Best regards,
Otto