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The LA Fox Developer Newsletter
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March 1994
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Books and Toys...... Toys and Books
This article is the second in a series featuring addon products and books supporting
FoxPro.
This time, we’ll be looking at what! refer to as
“FoxPro
2.5.. .The Inside Series”.
Inside FoxPro 2.5 for DOS
and
Inside FoxPro 2.5
for Windows
, by Bob Grommes, are a valuable addition to any developers arsenal. For those of you not familiar with Bob, he is the new editor of
FoxTalk,
having taken over for Lisa Slater recently. His company, B&G Microsystems, specializes in custom
FoxPro
programming and he has worked with Fox products since 1986. He is also a contributing writer to
Databased
Advisor
and
FoxPro
Advisor.
These books are pretty hefty reading at about 1100 pages for the DOS version and over 1300 pages for the Windows version, but he shares some worthwhile insight, not only into
FoxPro,
but the development process in general. Grommes’ goal is to develop the ultimate bullet-proof event- driven application.
This series is somewhat unique in that each book contains a complete application that is built from the ground up. Prior to building the application, different issues related to product development, user interface, and
FoxPro
are discussed. The application is then built and subsequent chapters discuss the techniques that were used in building the application. Some of the chapter titles will give you a hint of what’s inside: “Error and Event Trapping”, “Context-Sensitive Help”, “Multi-User Programming”, “Programming for Speed”, “Outfoxing
FoxPro”,
“Debugging”, “Cross-Platform Issues”.
Special use of invisible buttons is a highlight of this book. Grommes places invisible buttons on the screen, as the first and last screen objects, to act as “Window Bumpers”. These bumpers prevent, among other things, the cursor from moving into another window when the end user moves beyond the first or last object in a window, and effectively sets the
FoxPro
system variable “_CUROBJ” to
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the object number specified as its parameter, usually an object at the other end of the window.
Most of us make use of
FoxPro’s
help system in our applications, but Grommes takes a slightly different slant on this issue. Rather than just supply an end user with a help system that may or may not cover his needs, Grommes uses a technique whereby an end user can add help topics and text in “real-time” so that the person to whom a system is turned over can further expand on the help system to clarify the explanations of what may be going on in the screen input and other areas of the system.
Included with the books are companion disks which contain all of the code discussed, as well as a support library of routines called ‘WinLib” which takes care of a lot of the basic housekeeping chores associated with
FoxPro
applications. “WinLib Pro”, also associated with this series of books can be purchased separately and is a cost-effective investment. But be forewarned about “WinLib Pro”. A separate maintenance/support agreement comes with ‘WinLib Pro” and I learned the hard way that this agreement is probably worth the money.
Both books are available at local bookstores, such as
Barnes and Noble. The DOS version retails for
$34.95, Windows for $39.95.
We’ve come up with an easy way to submit articles to the
LA Fox Developer Newsletter
one that has been overlooked for a long time.
You can submit your articles to either Chuck Williams
(72330,2326) or Barry Lee (72723,3422) on
Compuserve.
These articles can be on any FoxPro-related topic whether it concerns a new technique you’ve discovered, a certain development technique you may favor over others, book reviews, etc.
The quality of this newsletter really depends on the members that support it, not just read it. And I think we’d all be surprised by the useful information that could be circulated around the membership.
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