JUNE 1990

NEWSLETTER OF ThE LOS ANGELES AREA FOXPRO I FOXBASE USER GROUP

Tom Rettig’s FoxPro Handbook

[The following discussion on FoxPro color schemes is excerpted with permission from Tom Rettig’s FoxPro Handbook,published by Bantam Books. J

Color Pair

Setting a single display color requires specifying two color codes, one for the foreground (text) color and one for the background. These two codes, separated by a forward slash, are called a color “pair,” with the foreground specified first and the background last. For example, W/B produces white on blue, and RG+/B produces yellow (actually bright brown) on blue.

Most commands take a comma- delimited list of color pairs, with each pair in the list setting the color of a particular display object according to its position in the list. For example, SET COLOR TO takes a list of four color pairs.

SET COLOR TO

[<standard >] [,[<enhanced>]

[,[<perimeter>]

[,[<background> ]]]]]

<standard> is the color for output text and unselected items. <enhanced> is the color for input text and selected items. <perimeter> is the color for the screen border on some monitors. <background> is the color for some monitors that do not recognize the second color in a pair for the background setting. The actual command might look like this:

SEF COLOR TO W+/B, W+/G, 0, B

or like this:

colors = " W+/B, W +/G, G, W

SET COLOR TO &colors

Some commands like @...SAY...COLOR take a shorter color pair list, and others like SET COLOR

OF SCHEME take a longer one. If a

specified color pair list is shorter than the list which the command accepts, only the specified color pairs are changed.

L.A. FOX

President’s Report

by Greg Dunn

Thanks to Tom Rettig for helping the Los Angeles Foxbase/FoxPro User Group get off to a great start. MOre than 100 people were in attendance for Tom’s presentation: “FoxPro - The New Standard”. It was nearly 11 o’clock when the last dog was hung!

We in the Los Angeles area are favored with access to many of the “stars” in the Fox world - like Tom Rettig. For those who may have missed it, our May meeting was also honored with the attendance of George Goley, who writes the Fox column for Data-Based Advisor. George was in town teaching FoxPro

Color Scheme

A complete color pair list comprises ten color pairs and is called a color “scheme.” Different features use different color schemes to determine their displays. For example, user-defined windows use color scheme number one to get the colors for output, input, border, titles,

selected items, the clock, and window shadow.

SET COLOR OF SCHEME 1 TO; " W+/B W+/BG, RG+/B, RG+/B,’ +;

‘R÷/B, W + /RG RG+/RB, N+/N,’ +; "RG+/B, R+/B

Only the first 11 schemes affect the display of objects, and the last 13

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User-defined pop-up menus use color scheme number two, dialogs use color scheme number five, and so on as in the following table.

seminars under the sponsorship of Pinnacle Publishing.

Rounding out a triumvirate of Fox titans was Richard Grossman, president of Tech III, Inc. and author of the PmDemo application bundled with your copy of FoxPro. The presence of these three Fox gurus, along with your attendance, made the Right Way Computer Learning Cen ter, where our meeting was held, one of the most important places in the Fox universe on May 8!

For our June 12 meeting Richard will take center stage to address the group on the topic, “ProDemo Unveiled.” ProDemo is a goldniine of FoxPro tips and techniques, and

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