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A Newsletter for
FoxPro
Application
Developers in Southern California
Visit our WebSite at:
http://www.mesllc.com/lafox.html
September 1997
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Our job as software developers is to build applications that are useable; not just applications that
we
think are useable, but applications that really
are
useable by normal people. This involves knowing all the tools available to us, how they work, and when to use them. Microsoft has built so much into Visual FoxPro that it will be years before any one of us conquers everything this language has to offer, so this article came about as a way to share a few shortcuts about a tool that has likely been under-implemented in the past.
I had my initial doubts about using drag-and-drop. It was never clear to me why this was invented when so many other controls are adequate, but after using it in a few applications it became clear that users exert more control over the computing environment when they can both select an item and the action to be taken using that item. These are subtle user benefits, to be sure, but drag-and-drop is state of the art and our clients
(:r.d
superiors) are simply going to expect it.
The Scenario for this Demo
A System Administrator (with some FoxPro training) can add, delete, or modify reports (.FRX/. FRT) for a particular system. There is no telling how many reports may be in the system at a given time, and users must be able to select whether a report is sent to the screen or to the printer. Yes, this task can be accomplished in a number of ways, but, after all, this is a Drag and Drop demo.
Two tables will be used for this demonstration
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a Reports table with two fields for report Descriptions and for report filenames, and an Employee table
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plagiarized from the Tasmanian Traders demo that comes with VFP.
In the form above, users are presented with a listbox containing the report descriptions, two .BMP image objects as drop targets, and a “Close” button to close the form.
Building Drag-and-Drop
Microsoft gives us two ways to use Drag-and-Drop: Manual
(Con’t, page 3)
In this issue
ActiveX, Part 2
VFP Assistance
Tricks, Tips, etc.
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At LA Fox
September
22,
1997,7:30 PM
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Bill Anderson. Following a discussion on the latest “stuff’ from DevCon, Bill will demo Visual FoxExpress. Please take special note in the change of date for this meeting. Since our regular meeting (Sept. 15th) falls during the San Diego DevCon, we’ve re-scheduled. Thanks to Twila Miller, our treasurer, and a stroke of luck, we’ve been able to arrange for our regular meeting place at the Torrance Airport.
October
20, 1997, 7:30 PM
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Peter
Butterfield. Peter Butterfield’s Los Angeles consulting firm has built a nation-wide client list in a
dozen business domains. He has been an xbase consultant so long that he still uses “ctrl+w”. His VFP framework, Butterworks, originated with the beta version VFP 3.0
in
1995, and is now
in
its third design iteration. Employing the user interface portion of Butterworks as a case study, he will discuss some of the issues of the object oriented design process. Among those topics covered will be the use of visual object modeling tools, the applicaton of design patterns, the management of class hierarchies, and, particularly, the non- visual approach to VFP implementation of object model designs.
Elsewhere
September 14-17, 1997- DevCon. The mother of all FoxPro Developer Conferences convenes in SanDiego. This is the eighth almost-annual gathering of FoxPro developers from around the world. This is where you can gather with the best in the industry, members of the Microsoft Visual FoxPro product team, and developers from around the world to learn how to solve your programming puzzles. Find out how to get
it
done
Page 4
Page 7
Page 8
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The September meeting of LA Fox will be held on Sept. 22, 1997, at 7:30 PM at our regular meeting place (the Torrance Airport, 3301 Airport Drive, in Torrance). For details on how to get there, see the map on the back page.
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and much more
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