Blogging Live From Essential FoxPro Keynote

Half the attendees were new this year, of 240 attendees.

VFP Road to Visual FoxPro 8.0

• Base it on wish list customer feedbvack
  
• Add new runtime features – end users
  
• Enhance SQL Server connectivitity
  
• Increase .NET interoperability
  
• Maintain backward compatibility

Goals – Overview

• Better smart / rich client (85% are desktop apps)
  
• Improved Distributed client (XML .NET, SQL Server connectibity)
  
• Improved Developer Productivity (new base classes, error handling)
  
• Increase Discoverability (navigation, documentation) – Task Pane, ToolBox

New News Item: VFP 8.0 Localization –

• VFP 8.0 Runtime Distribution Files
  German, Spanish, French, Russioan, Korean, Chinese
  
• VFP 8.0 Development Version – English
  
• This week: added the documentation to the Localization Kit.

Productivity Enhancement

• – Taskpane
  
• – Toolbox
  
• – Empty Classs
  
• – Add Property() an RemoveProperty()
  
• – Collection Classs
  
• – Structured Error Handling – TRY/CATCH/FINALLY
  
• – Event Binding – BINDEVENT() and RAISEEVENT()

Productivity Enhancements

• GetFile() dialog
  
• Auto-increment
  
• Table designer
  
• View Designer
  
• Child Member subclassing
  
• VCX support for more classes
  
• Many new features for Grid Control
  
• Code References Tool

New Report Writer Features
Page x of Y (many more)

XMLAdaptor

• Beyond XMLtoCursor/CursorToXML
  
• Hierarchical XML support
  
• Multiple VFP data cursors to XML
  
• XML to multuiple VFP data cursors
  
• XML diffgrams
  
• VFP data cursors, table, DBC
  
• ADO.NET compatible
  
• XMLTable and XML Field classes
  
• Full control of XSDschema used
  
• XML: The Universal Language

{Multi-language video showing Havier, and three other members of the development team explaining multiple data strategies in Russian, Hindu and Spanish – cute, but he had to explain it}

Cursor Adaptor Class

• Similar to DataAdaptor in ADO.NET
  
  • -ADO/OLEDB
    
  • -ODBC
    
  • -Native VFP cursors
    
  • -XML and XML Web Services

• Programmable events
  
• Stored procedures control

New Data Features

• DataEnvironement Subclassings
  
• DataEnvironment Builder
  
• CursorAdaptor Class
  
• CursorAdaptor Builder
  
• XMLAdaptor class
  
• Form BindControls property
  
• Enhanced VFP OLE DB Provider
  
• VFP 8.0 and VS.NET interoperability

VFP 8.0 XML Web Services

• OLEDB
  
• ASP.NET
  
• WinForm
  
• Phone
  
• Pocket PC
  
• Tablet PC

VFP 8.0 Performance
Loop of 10,000 instantiations of a custom object

in VFP 7.0: 24.5 seconds
in VFP 8.0: 0.45 seconds

Demo of FoxPro 8.0
– Toolbox

VFP 8.0 Features – laundry list of 14 bullet points in teeny fonts on features

VFP 8.0 and .NET

• Works well with VS.NET
  
• Greatly enhanced XML Support
  
• XML Web service
  
• ADO.NET
  
• VFP OLE DB Provider
  
• ASP.NET web forms
  
• .NET Windows forms
  
• Visual FoxPro Toolkit for .NET
  
• VFP and .net teams work together

VS .NET 2003 – released yesterday
(9 bullet points)

• smart devices
  
• web devices
  
• .NET Framework 1.1
  
• Deploying to Windows Server 2003
  
• Easy migration from existing .NET Framework 1.0 appliacations
  
• new managed data provides

Visual Studio Tools for Office
Extends .NET development to Office 2003
Developers using Visual Studeo 2003 can write code to run in Word and Excel

VFP Website – what’s new

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro
  
• Coming soon: New VFP 8.0 Evaluation Guide
  
• Consistency with related product sites
  
• Updated VFP OLE DB Provider
  
• VFP 8.0 samples, slides and tutorials
  
• New VFP 8.0 Whitepapers
  
• Task Pane, Toolbox, TabletPC

Biggest news week on the MSDN site, with the VS.NET release, VFP 8.0 is the top headline

Demo: MSDN VFP web site, GotDotNet, VFoxPro, Community Site

Video: Eric Rudder video endorsement (http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/vfp/)

Ken met with Eric on Monday and talked about features for Europa

• New feature list/preview
  
• – Background compile in the current line
  
• – Dockable User Forms
  
• – Anchor properties for controls
  
• – Word-Wrap for CheckBox captions
  
• – Array limit large that 65K
  
• – Command Button Picture Spacing/Position
  
• – Intellisense available in memo fields
  
• – SELECT: >9 Joins, Multiple Nested Queries
  
• – More designer hooks for extensibility
  
• – Significant enhancements to Report Writer!!! (Appluase)

Demo: Line-by-line compile,
Anchor Properties let forms size “naturally” as expected in a form. 16 options vertical and horizontal for each control, Checkbox caption wrapping

Summary and Call to Action

• Great new features in VFP 8.0
  
• VFP 8/.0 works great with SQL Server
  
• VFP 8.0 works great with VS .NET
  
• Commitment to VFP and community
  
• VFP 8.0 8.0 is the emost stable version ever
  
• MSDN Subscriptions for professionals
  
• Be active in FoxPro communtiy
  
• Talk about VFP 8.0!!!

(Applause)