The LA Fox Developer Newsletter

June 1998

Hot Tip...

Laying Out Reports

by John Porter Hart, LA Fox

At the May meeting, I mentioned that I had had some success

getting users to lay out their own messy reports. Bill Anderson

thought that might be something of interest to the group.

The technique is fairly simple (for the developer):

1. The user lays out the report in MS Word with all the lines,

boxes, etc. they require. They’ve all had a lot of practice with

this because of changing word processors, reorgs, and a recent

sale of the company. Most departments have a local Word

wizard--many of whom insist I can’t possibly do justice to their

masterpiece.

2. I take their .doc file and either embed it in a general field or

link it (allowing user to change “constant” data without bothering

me).

3. I include the general field in the report as an OLE object--

essentially it’s wallpaper.

4. I then lay the header, detail, etc. data on the report & fiddle

with it until it fits right (the report preview in 2.6 misregisters the

general field with respect to the report data...).

The report is now done and will print satisfactorily on any

Windows printer. Everything in the report--both form and con-

tent--gets printed at the resolution set for the particular printer.

Nothing gets the jaggies unless the user has imported a screen-

resolution .bmp into the .doc file. Even then, it looks no worse

than when it prints from Word. Anybody have a solution for this?

Each user must have access to Word at runtime even though

they can’t tell FoxPro is using it.

[Ed. Note: John will be giving a short demonstration of this

technique at the beginning of this Monday’s meeting.J

Very Special Announcement

From now until the end of June, MESLLC is offering a $25

discount on conference registrations. To take advantage of this

great opportunity, you must register by June 30, 1998. With this

special discount, your registration fee drops from $425 to $400

(if you’re paying by cash) and from $435 (full price) to $410 (if

you’re paying by credit card). All registrations must be post-

marked by midnight, June 30, and must contain the discount

code of "OICU812" in the lower right-hand corner of the registra-

tion form. If you use this in conjunction with the B.A.F. program,

you could realize substantial cost savings.

Spam Alert!!

Unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) is a serious problem on

the Internet. If you’ve been using the Internet for awhile, it’s

probably been showing up in your mailbox. If you’re new to the

Internet, rest assured that as you branch out and explore the

‘Net, advertisers will get your e-mail address. You’ll soon start

receiving get rich quick schemes, ads for sex or sex sites (and,

no, you don’t have to visit such a site to start getting advertising

from them!), ads for various types of software, etc, etc, etc. Not

only is this a bother for you and a waste of your time, it also

costs you money. E-mail advertising (spamming) is of almost

no cost to the advertisers, but takes storage space on your

ISPs server and consumes Internet bandwidth. All of this

translates into hard dollars, which then will be passed on to you

in the form of higher costs. This is a serious problem now and

will become worse in the future.

A similar problem with fax advertising cropped up a few years

ago. Marketers started acquiring fax phone numbers and

flooding fax machines with faxed advertisements. Again, this

was a waste of the recipient’s time and money. A great deal of

my own fax paper was wasted on worthless, unwanted adver-

tisements. Fortunately, Congress outlawed unsolicited fax

advertising in the 1991 Telephone Consumer Protection Act and

placed a $500 to $1500 fine on it. Additionally, the recipient

could enforce the law by filing in a local court instead of having

to rely on the government to move against anyone breaking the

law. This has almost completely stopped fax advertising.

Certain groups (one being the Coalition Against Unsolicited

Commercial E-Mail [CAUCE at http://www.cauce.org]) have

[Ed. Note: This is a subject that affects just about anyone that

goes on the Internet. It’s a subject of epic proportion...! call it

‘The Virtual Disease of the 90’s and Beyond". Contributors are

listed at the end of this article.J

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