Another FoxPro Success Story

FP2 Success Story

VFP9

Scobleizer blogged about his impression of VFP9 demo given by Ken Levy. [Source : WildFire]

Ken Levy stated that the release date for VFP 9.0 is scheduled for December 15 at OzFox. [Source : Andrew Coates]

MS Graph Again

VFP is a very powerful tool. You can do almost everything related with business application, but NOT Graphing. VFP developers got to use third party tool to generate and print graph. One of the most common graphing tool for VFP developers is MS Graph. MS Graph is come with MS Excel. Therefore, make sure MS Excel is installed in order to use MS Graph.

You may notice that, questions about using MS Graph are posted to forum again, again and again. Therefore, I decided to blog abit about it.

There are couple of way to use MS Graph. AFAIK, there are :

1. Automate Microsoft Excel via OLE Automation
2. Use VFP AutoGraph FFC or VFP GenGraph wizard
3. Use General field to link data to MS Graph.

Each of them has its pros and cons:

Automate Microsoft Excel via OLE Automation
Pros:
Since we are automating MS Excel, then we can do anything MS Excel offer, instead of just graphing. In other words, we can not only generate graph, but also can use MS Excel features such as formatting, table drawing, formula calculation and etc. It makes our graph report looks more attractive and modern.

Also, the generated graph could be saved on disk for future use.

Cons:
It is slower and required more resources since not only MS Graph is initiated but also MSExcel.Application.

Use VFP AutoGraph FFC or VFP GenGraph wizard
Pros:
This is the easiest way to generate graph. We only required to follow the wizard steps by steps with informative guideness on wizard form and press "Finish". Graph will be generated. No coding is required.

Cons:
Refresh MS Graph content is not straight forward for VFP developers. For more info about it, pls check my previous blog.

The generated graph couldn't be printed. We can't bind it to VFP report field control.

Use General field to link data to MS Graph
Pros:
We still have 100% of control to our graph via MS Graph automation provided without need to automate whole MSExcel.Application. We can allow user to preview it on form, and also print using VFP native report system. Alot more information available on web, help files and VFP sample code.

Cons:
I can't think of any for now.

This is a simple sample code file I created using General field appraoch. In fact, I use this appraoch alot for graphing and it works very well till now.

For preview and print graph in VFP report

1. Create a report.
2. Place Picture/ActiveX Bound Control on report's details band.
3. Select Field option in Picture From option box.
4. Key in "csrGraph.myGraph" in field textbox.
5. Resize the control to size as need.
6. Preview report.

I hope this could help anyone who new to MS Graph. If anyone has any comments or more info or anything I mentioned is wrong, pls comment here. Thank you.

BTW, remember to get VBAGR10.chm help file. It would save us alot of time.

Updated: Article Graphing in VFP by Ted Roche. Thank you.

Run your code in response to a new drive being inserted

Calvin Hsia, posted his source code of Run your code in response to a new drive being inserted which presented at Advisor DevCon 2004.

More on creating VFP Sreen Saver tricks.

Run Dynamic Code

Andrew MacNeill blogged how he uses ExecScript() to have ability to allow advanced user to run their own script and business rules in his application.

Running Dynamic Code with ExecScript

Visual FoxPro 9.0: Still Here, Still Relevant

Many Fox folks have blogged and posted the link of this article, and I think most of FoxPro users know about it. Therefore, I won't talk about it anymore.

Lets post this link to non-FoxPro communities and your IT friends, not to persue them to use VFP, just to raise awareness! :)

Visual FoxPro 9.0: Still Here, Still Relevant

Are you tired on chasing technology?

Do you ever feel tired on chasing new technology? Recently, I alway read blogs mention about this. Any comments to us?

Serena Unleashed
Jay Bloggy

FoxCast : Debugging Essential

For those who hasn't have a look on Debugging Essential FoxCast event, I highly recommend to register and download it immediately. It shows alot of tips and good practices while debugging FoxPro programs. Do you know that, VFP7 and above have ability to report any undeclared variable or array to log file or debug output window? Check out help topic of :

_VFP.LanguageOptions

This webcast file size is about 300MB. Anyone who doesn't high bandwith connection to download such a huge file, can download its whitepaper, slides and examples. Download single ZIP file for everything.

[Resources : White Light Computing, Inc. Developer Resources]

New FoxPro WebRAD Tool : FoxFusion

FoxFusion, a FoxPro WebRAD tool.

The website is in French, therefore I can't get any info about it in details. (May be I should start learning French). AFAIK, it relies on ASP (Active Server Pages) model, COM, IIS. It also supports xBase code as scripting language.

I hope English version of FoxFusion website would be avaiable soon. Then, I can know more about it, especially what is the difference between FoxFusion and other FoxPro WebRAD tool such as AVFP, AFP, FoxWeb, WebConnect and etc.

Seem like most of FoxPro WebRAD tools are more focus on backend. As this moment, only Voodoo provides a set of classes for use in Web applications that behave very similar to the Visual FoxPro base classes used to build Windows® applications which is inspired by ASP.NET. Of course, some of them (backend focused) have integrated with Voodoo such as AFP and WebConnect.

Encrypt EXE

For those who may concern, here is the screenshot to enable/disable encryption feature for building VFP EXE.

1. Select menu Projects | Project Info ...
2. Check and uncheck "Encrypted" checkbox to enable/disable encryption.

Check/uncheck red highlighted checkbox to enable/disable encryption.

Encrypted EXE VS Compression Ratio

Many of us may concern about security of our application. We never hope our hard work (source code) being "stolen" (decompiled) by other developers. Because of that, some of us may choose to encrypt our EXE using VFP native encrytion, ReFox or other decompiler tools.

However, that is a downside. The compression ratio of encrypted EXE is usually less than 2% while "normal" EXE can achieve about 30% and above depend on your code. That means, it takes more disk spaces and longer time to update client application via WAN, Internet and diskette.

So, we better think about it, is security more important or ease of maintenance (speed of update application)? Alternately, exclude certain VCX, SCX, FXP files from project may solve the problem. What do you think?

Website for Report Listener

Ed Leafe, has setup a web site Report Listener HQ for sharing of custom Report Listener classes among the members of the Visual FoxPro community.

Have you created any custom report listener and would like to share? If so, upload here. Also, Get a list of all uploaded report listener program file.

New FoxPro website : FoxCast.org

The goal of FoxCast.org is to provide a community for VFP developers who are not able to participate in a local user group or who want additional information on developing in Microsoft Visual FoxPro.

FoxCast.org supports user groups by providing top VFP speakers, presenting from locations around North America and abroad. User groups can connect to the live, interactive monthly meetings or replay recordings of past events at their monthly meetings.

FoxCast.org is sponsored by Vision Data Solutions.

The very first event announced, "Enhancements in the VFP 9 Reporting System" presented by Doug Hennig at 17th November 2004.

Register for FoxCast.org upcoming event.

Kevin McNeish start blogging

Kevin McNeish, C# MVP, chief architect and lead developer of the Mere Mortals Frameworks from Oak Leaf Enterprise is blogging here. I found that the most interesting info from his blog would be "Did you know???" section. It provides some .NET tips that we rarely read/hear from .NET book, MSDN articles and etc.

Two new Southwest Fox articles from Craig

Craig has posted two articles which he presented at SouthwestFox conference.

1. Introduction to Object Oriented Programming
2. Using the Windows Event Log from Visual FoxPro

Thank you Craig for sharing :)