The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

March 1996

VFP Tip of the Month .

More SCREEN and

_SCREEN Tips

By Rick Schummer, Contributing Editor

(Ed. Note: Reprinted with permission from the February issue

of the Detroit Area Fox User Group newsletter.)

There is not a couple weeks that go by on CompuServe’s

FoxForum when I see the question "I have added an icon to my

.FoxPro EXE using ADDICON.APP, but when I run the app and

minimize it I get the Fox Head, how can I fix this?”. In a very

short time one or more developers will answer this question (and

hopefully those who have asked it in the past return favors by

jumping in). Microsoft defaults all form and SCREEN icons to

the Fox logo, and unless you change it they will continue to get

free advertisement and your customers will ask “where did you

get that cute fox icon for my application?”.

The ADDICON.APP (found in the main FoxPro directory)

attaches the application icon to your .EXE. This allows the icon

to be available when adding the application to a program group

in Windows. It does not insure that the application will have the

icon assigned to the main FoxPro Screen.

In FoxPro 2.x for Windows there is a command that is a must in

every application main program that looks something like:

MODIFY WINDOW SCREEN MINIMIZE;

ICON FILE "f:\payroll\prapp.icon"

This command will insure that the application will have a

specified icon when it is minimized by the users. If you do not

include the MINIMIZE option then there is no reason to include

the ICON FILE option.

There are many other fun things that can be included in a

MODIFY WINDOW SCREEN. Please note that MODIFY

WINDOW SCREEN is a FoxPro for Windows and MAC com-

mand and is not supported by FoxPro for DOS or UNIX. Also

note that “SCREEN” cannot be abbreviated to four characters

like most FoxPro keywords and that there are some issues with

app icons and Windows 95 (see Running FoxPro 2.6 Apps

Under Windows 95, October 1995 issue). It seems that the

screen icon is not supported properly and results can vary.

In Visual FoxPro we use some of the properties of the

_SCREEN object. The following setting gives the same result5

as the MODIFY WINDOW command in 2.x:

SCREEN.Icon = "f:\payroll\prapp.icon"

I have noticed some problems with VFP _SCREEN icons

running under Windows for Workgroups, but they perform

without issue under Windows 95. For some reason (a bug

perhaps) icons will not display correctly, they just display as a

black outlined box.

There is no ADDICON.APP included with Visual FoxPro. The

icon is attached to the .EXE during the build. To specify which

icon to include in the application see the Project Information

(Ctrl+J) dialog and click on the “Attach Icon to .EXE” checkbox,

and select the project’s icon.

Out and About (Con't from page 3)

call 800/545-8240. The last notice I received stated that all

information at the conference will be delivered at an advanced or

technical level.

DevCon Rising from the Ashes? We’re not trying to start any

rumors here, but Bill Anderson sent me a blurb he found while

messing around on the VFOX Forum:

Subject: DevCon - Msg Number: 48372

From: Carl Warner 72567,3372

To:

Bob Thomsen 71023,3273

Forum: VFOX Sec: 01-lnfo(non-technical)

Date: 10-Mar-96 12:58

If you have access to the Web, try

http://www.microsoft.com/FoxPro/devcon.htm

As of today (so you and others don’t waste your time), the

official word there is:

The 1996 Microsoft FoxPro Developer’s Conference has not yet

been announced. When the date, location, and schedule for the

1996 Microsoft FoxPro Developer’s Conference is announced,

this page will be updated with complete information about the

conference.

This page will also contain information about other conferences

of interest to FoxPro developers as they are announced.

I have yet to see “other conferences” mentioned on that page,

and have no idea how anyone would go about making sure their

conference is mentioned on that page. Who are you going to

call? I left a feedback message concerning at least mentioning

FoxTeach there, but I guess my message was filed the same

place MS puts InfoWeek articles.

Also awaiting DevCon ‘96.

==Carl

What was That Number? As if Apple didn’t have enough

problems. Customers dialing into Apple’s help line (800/SOS-

APPL)have found that if they accidentally dial a zero instead of

the letter “0”, they get connected to a commercial phone sex

line.

(Cont, page 6)

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