The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

December 1998

Hentzenwerke Ships!

Hentzenwerke Publishing is now shipping two books from its

“Essentials for Visual FoxPro 6.0” series. Effective Technicues

fnr Application Development with Visual FoxPro 6.0 by Jim

Booth and Steve Sawyer went out just before Thanksgiving. And

much to the chagrin of mail carriers and delivery drivers,

Hacker’s Guide to Visual FoxPro 6.0 by Tamar Granor and Ted

Hacker’s Guide

Roche started out the week after Thanksgiving.

ended up being a little bit bigger than originally planned. “We

had planned on a thousand-page 7” x 9” book. Instead, we got a

phone book!”, said Whil Hentzen.

The 1999 Software Developer’s Guide, by Whil Hentzen, will be

the next book released. “It could ship by the end of the year. It

will just depend on the printer’s schedule.”, Whil said. Look for

Markus Egger’s OOP book and Rick Strahl’s Internet book in

January.

[Ed. Note: The Hacker’s Guide weighs in at a svelte 6.5 lbs.!

For more information about these and other books, check-in at

Whil’s site...http://www.hentzenwerke.com.]

VFP Hot Tip...

Many thanks to Foxtalk for the following tip:

John Petersen (you know him as Dr. FoxPro) has come up with

a realty cool idea. In Explorer, when you click on VFP objects

like forms or projects, VFP loads and opens the appropriate tool

—the Form Designer or the Project Manager. However, when

you click on a PRG, VFP attempts to compile and execute the

program. How many times do you actually desire that effect?

Same for John. He, too, wants to load VFP and then open up

the PRG in an editing window. Here’s how he hacked Explorer

to make it happen.

First, create a program (a VFP .PRG) in VFP’s home directory:

*

myedit.prg

*

enables VFP to launch a PRG for editing;

*

instead of compiling/running

Iparameter m.tcFite

modify command (m.tcFile) nowait

*

<end>

Next, in Explorer, under the View menu, Options menu option,

File Type tab, scroll down until you get to the Microsoft Visual

FoxPro Program file entry. Then press the Edit button to bring

forward the Edit File Type dialog box. Highlight the OPEN

Action in the list box at the bottom of the dialog box and press

the Edit button under the list box. The “Editing Action for” dialog

box appears. The entry probably says something like this:

"C:\VFP\VFP.EXE" -SHELL

(Con't, next column)

VFP Hot Tip (Con't from previous column)

Change it to this:

C:\VFP\VFP.EXE” C:\VFP\MYEDIT.PRG

(If the DDE check box underneath is.selected, clear it.

Go ahead and close all of the dialog boxes, exit VFP if it’s

open, and then double-click on a PRG file in Explorer. VFP

opens and brings up the PRG in question in a command editing

window. Pretty nice.

One note: If you’ve got VFP in a directory that contains spaces

in its name, you’ll need to use the DOS 8.3 version of the

directory name.

Job Opportunity

Our client is seeking a developer with 2+ years experience in

VFP. At least four years of overall database design/program-

ming experience is required. This is a mid-level position with

salary ranging from 40K-50K with excellent benefits. If inter-

ested, please let us know. If you know someone, please

let us know. We will pay a referral fee of $500 after a success-

ful placement.

Sam Shahab

SysLogic, Inc.

909.278.1344

909.278.1394 Fax

sshaahab@syslogic.net

It Can’t Get Any Easier.......

We’ve come up with an easy way to submit articles to the LA

Fox DeveloperNewsietter one that has been overlooked for

a long time.

You can submit your articles to Barry Lee at CIS# 72723,3422

on Compuserve, or brlee@earthlink.net

These articles can be on any FoxPro-related topic, whether it

concerns a new technique you’ve discovered, a certain develop-

ment technique you may favor over others, book reviews, etc.

Editor reserves the right to edit or offer constructive comments

concerning submitted articles and accepted articles shall be

considered to be in the public domain.

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.

So.

How ‘bout it?

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