The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

July 1995

Visual FoxPro (Con't from page 5)

Microsoft SQL Server back-end servers, develop-

ment-focused wizards, an Icon Editor and hundreds

of additional graphics files, a graphical help file, and

the online Win32=AE application programming

interface (API) programmers reference.

Class Browser. The class browser in Visual FoxPro,

Professional Edition, allows developers to trace class

hierarchy in their solutions graphically, and can be

used to view, use and manage classes and their

user-defined members and components. The class

browser displays interrelationships between classes

in a visual class library file (.VCX), and can be used

to open single or multiple visual class libraries or

form files (.SCXs) with the purpose of subclassing a

new class, and redefining, removing and renaming a

class. The Visual FoxPro class browser will also

display the actual code behind classes in a visual

class library. The developer can leverage this

capability to learn object syntax by studying this code

and can make changes to the code based on devel-

opment objectives.

OLE Controls. An OLE Control allows users to add

OLE Objects tu applications. OLE thjects include

OLE Controls and insertable OLE objects from other

applications such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft

Excel. The Professional Edition of Visual FoxPro

ships with additional development-focused OLE

Controls designed to simplify the process of building

robust Visual FoxPro solutions, including OLE Con-

trols designed to add mail functionality to Visual

FoxPro solutions and to view files in an outline

hierarchy.

Upsizing Tools. The Upsizing Tools built right into

the Professional Edition of Visual FoxPro allow

developers to automate the process of upsizing data

from Visual FoxPro to Microsoft SQL Server com-

pletely. The Upsizing Wizard preserves the data-

base structure, including data, indexes and defaults.

It also automatically converts the Visual FoxPro

validation rules to Microsoft SQL Server equivalents.

Lastly, all of the relationships and referential integrity

will be maintained after upsizing

Developer-Focused Wizards. The Professional

Edition of Visual FoxPro allows developers to create

executable files that are royalty free and unlimited in

terms of distribution. The executable can be run on

any PC that meets the system requirements for

Visual FoxPro, and Visual FoxPro does not have to

be installed on the run-time machine. The Setup

Wizard in Visual FoxPro, Professional Edition,

creates a setup routine for an application over a

network or can create a set of disk image directories

containing all the files needed to install an applica-

tion. Visual FoxPro, Professional Edition, provides a

distributable file that can be installed to take full

advantage of all Windows operating systems:

Windows 3.x, Windows 95 and Windows NT. De-

velopers who build and distribute applications

through the Setup Wizard can choose to distribute

open database connectivity (ODBC) drivers and MS

Graph applications and can automatically register

OLE files if they are included with their solution.

Online Development Reference. The CD-ROM

version of Visual FoxPro, Professional Edition,

contains an online version of the Win32 program-

mers reference. The Microsoft Win32 API allows

applications to exploit the power of 32 bits on the

Windows family of operating systems. The Win32

functions, messages and structures form a consis-

tent and uniform API for all of the Microsoft 32-bit

platforms: Windows 95, Windows NT version 3.1,

and VVindows 31 with the Win32s API. Using the

Win32 API, developers can develop applications

that run successfully on all platforms while still being

able to take advantage of unique features and

capabilities of any given platform.

Visual FoxPro is by far the most sophisticated

database on the market, said Will Foster, vice

president of information at J. Crew, an apparel

company whose FoxPro-based application tracks

apparel from its initial design phase through produc-

tion and manufacturing. J. Crew is designing new

applications using Visual FoxPro and will port its

existing applications to Visual FoxPro.

Computer-Based Training Title Provides an Expert

in a Box for Experienced Database Developers.

Visual FoxPro is the first Microsoft development tool

to produce its own computer-based training tool

from Microsoft. “Mastering Visual FoxPro”, which

will also be available separately in approximately 30

to 60 days, is a comprehensive training tool for

experienced database developers. It presents key

concepts and methods in a variety of ways to best

meet the unique needs of each developer. A con-

(Con’t, page 9)

Page 6