From Information Week...

Microsoft To Upgrade

Visual FoxPro Database

Development Tool

by Rich Levin

At its Visual FoxPro developers’ conference next week,

Microsoft will kick off a significant upgrade of its Visual FoxPro

database development plafform, a key ingredient of the

company’s Visual Studio 6.0 tools suite, slated for release this

summer.

Version 6.0 of the object-oriented rapid application development

tool will sport a new object framework, visual component

management facilities, automated year 2000 compliance tools,

and an integrated database application performance profiler.

Turnkey support for Microsoft’s Active Document Internet-based

fat-client technology has also been added.

The feature certain to be of most interest to FoxPro shops will

be t ue product’s new “strict date” format and associated tools,

which can automatically identify noncompliant and ambiguous

dates, and generate application errors that can be trapped.

Once the dates are identified, developers say it’s a simple task

to repair broken applications and certify them as year 2000

compliant.

‘We definitely need the year 2000 enhancements,” says VFP

6.0 beta tester Jeremy Lanctot, senior process engineer at the

commercial aviation systems division of Honeywell Inc. “Our

FoxPro applications take in data from a number of global legacy

systems, and when we get the data, it arrives in two digits. We

have a whole task force that is addressing this issue, and these

tools are helpful in that area.”

Microsoft officials claim the new strict data format and year

2000 compliance tools are backward compatible with all past

editions of FoxPro tools and, as such, all FoxPro databases in

use today.

The new VFP foundation classes provide 100 ready-to-go

libraries that deliver prebuilt application functionality that would

otherwise have to be coded by hand, Microsoft officials say. The

(Con’t, page 3)

At LA Fox...

May 18,1998,7:30 PM. - To be Announced. La FOX wfll be

meeting this night, even though this meeting falls right at the

beginning of DevCon in Orlando, FL. So if you’re not going to

Orlando, you can still get your “Fox fix”. Bill Anderson, LA Fox

Vice President will be presiding.

Elsewhere...

VISUAL FOXPRO DEVCON 98 May 17-20, Orlando, FL.

Come learn all about Tahoe, the next version of Microsoft Visual

FoxPro at Visual FoxPro DevCon, presented by MSDN and

FoxPro Advisor Magazine. For more information visit: http:ll

www.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/http://www.advisor.com/fc9805c.nsf/

wPages/main.

MICROSOFT TECHED 98 June 1-4, New Orleans, LA. This

is the definitive technical conference for building complete

solutions with Microsoft technologies. For more information or to

register visit: http://www.microsoft.com/events/teched/.

August 20-23, 1998 - 2nd Annual Southern California Visual

FoxPro Conference. Sponsored by Microcomputer Engineer-

ing Services, LLC, this conference was one of the highlights of

the 1997 “conference season”, providing a chance to see

nationally-known speakers in a somewhat smaller, more

intimate selling. Last year, the conference drew attendees from

New Jersey to The Phillipines. This time out, the conference is

going to be held at The DoubleTree Hotel in Orange County.

The conference WebSite is up and running (http://

(Con't, page 2)

The LA Fox Developer

A Newsletter for FoxPro Application Developers in Southern California

Visit our WebSite at: http://www.mesllc.com/Iafox.html May 1998

Out and About

by Barry R. Lee

The May meeting of LA Fox will be held on

May 18, 1998, at 7:30 PM at our regular meet-

ing place (the Torrance Airport, 3301 Airport

Drive, in Torrance). For details on how to get

there, see the map on the back page.

In this issue Free VFP Sample Programs

Cascade Function

Add Field-Level Help

Page 3

Page 5

Page 6

and much more