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There are 4 pre-conference sessions and 35 conference sessions. Click a track's icon
to jump to the sessions for that track.
Pre-Conference Sessions
This session discusses the basics of writing a client server application featuring MySQL.
You will learn: - Why to use a Client Server model for an application
- What options are available for a back end and what the relative advantages and disadvantages of each are.
- How to set up a development environment in MySQL
- How to create tables in MySQL and Working with the server
- How to create forms and reports in VFP to work with back end data
Suggested prerequisites: Visual FoxPro development with local tables, GUI development, DML
Transact SQL (T-SQL) is Microsoft SQL Server's native programming language. Although it is by no means as rich as VFP, nevertheless it has capabilities which can be used to extend VFP applications that utilize SQL Server as a back end database. In this session Andy covers the basics of working with Transact SQL constructs including Variables, Table Variables, Temporary Tables, Cursors and Common Table Expressions. He also shows how to create stored procedures, Table and Scalar Functions and Triggers and discuss the various ways in which they can be made available to Applications through Roles and Grants.
You will learn: - How to work with T-SQL built-in functions and execute T-SQL code interactively
- How to use the different types of T-SQL construct including Variables, Table Variables, Cursors, Temporary Tables and Common Table Expressions
- How to create and execute Stored Procedures
- How to create and Implement Table and Scalar Functions
- How to create and implement Triggers
Suggested prerequisites: Understand the differences between remote and local data servers and the process of creating connections from a VFP application to a back end server.
The Visual FoxPro Report Writer isn't always intuitive and it leaves many new VFP developers confused. In this session you learn how to create reports that leave your customers impressed. We start with the basics and continue to progress until you've learned how to add all the pizzazz and functionality you need to solve your reporting needs. This is the first of a 2-part session.
You will learn: - How to approach reports
- How to prepare data for reports
- How to take advantage of report variables and data groups
- How to use multiple detail bands
- How to hack .. er .. fine tune reports
This is the second of a 2-part session.
Conference Sessions
Advantage Database Server is a full-featured, high-performance client/server database engine. Interestingly, it can use Visual FoxPro DBF files as its data store and provides a number of benefits over accessing these files directly. This session introduces Advantage and discusses how to access it from VFP applications.
You will learn: - What Advantage Database Server (ADS) is and its features
- How to install and set up ADS
- How ADS supports VFP better than any other client/server engine
- How ADS' full text search abilities can dramatically improve performance of queries
- How to access ADS from VFP using remote views, SQL passthrough, ADO, and CursorAdapters
Suggested prerequisites: Minimal knowledge of client/server technologies would be useful.
Have you ever had the need to retrieve serial numbers of various components on a computer? How about just trying to figure out what kinds of hardware or software are installed? WMI can help you with these problems and a lot more! This session gives an overview of WMI, including samples of the kinds of information it can provide and how to use it. A VFP wrapper to make WMI calls easier is provided with this session.
You will learn: - Where to look for a wealth of information on WMI
- Some of the limitations of WMI
- Basics of using C structures
- How to connect to a remote computer with WMI
- Things you never thought were possible
Prerequisites: A solid understanding of OOP
Developers who create software solutions for small and medium-sized businesses are often asked to integrate their products with the popular QuickBooks accounting system from Intuit. While Intuit provides the QuickBooks SDK, a free software development kit for this purpose, the SDK can be somewhat challenging to work with. QODBC is a commercial product that offers an alternative to the QuickBooks SDK by enabling access to QuickBooks data files through ODBC using standard SQL commands. In this session, Rick demonstrates the installation, configuration, and use of QODBC to automate QuickBooks, while also exploring some of the intricacies of the QuickBooks database schema itself.
You will learn: - What QODBC is and how it is licensed
- How to install and configure QODBC for use with VFP
- How to read data from a QuickBooks database using VFP and QODBC
- How to insert data into a QuickBooks database using VFP and QODBC
- Details of the QuickBooks database schema for several frequently used tables
Suggested prerequisites: A working familiarity with VFP SQL is required. Some familiarity with accessing data via ODBC would be helpful but is not required.
Visual FoxPro has great support for collections. Virtually all of the objects that can contain other objects have a native objects collection that can easily be traversed to access their members. Object collections provide a great access point for performing the same or similar actions on groups of objects. They also provide the means necessary to locate and act upon objects in a loosely coupled fashion. In this session, Mike introduces some utility functions and classes that:
- make it easy to dynamically create and act upon collections
- dramatically reduce the amount of redundant code you write in dealing with collections
- helps you to eliminate object dependencies and write code that is more adaptable and easier to maintain
- eliminate drill down code
Visual FoxPro also has a wealth of functions for dealing with arrays, however; developers often write very redundant code when it comes to dealing with arrays. Mike also provides a set of utility functions and classes that streamline redundant array operations and add more power and flexibility to arrays.
You will learn: - How to easily access objects and groups of objects from anywhere within a containership hierarchy with a single line of code without drilling through the object hierarchy or writing error prone lengthy object references
- How to perform operations on groups of objects that are not contained within a single container
- How to make single line calls to convert an array to a string, merge arrays, remove specific items from arrays, remove duplicates from arrays and more
- How to create loosely coupled object references that won't break when controls are moved or even renamed
Suggested prerequisites: A basic familiarity with collections and arrays.
This session shows how to create custom controls for use in VFP 9 reports. Bo discusses how to utilize the ReportListener class with the GDIPlusX library to render custom objects onto the report canvas with a focus on easy implementation and performance. He walks through several how-to examples including rotated text, dynamic text formatting, graphs, custom shapes and advanced image rendering. He also shows how to modify the VFP report designer to make it easy to incorporate these custom controls into a report. The session will also cover how to maximize compatibility with 3rd party reporting tools.
You will learn how to: - Create report controls
- Render graphics onto the VFP report canvas
- Optimize report code for maximum performance
- Modify the report designer
Suggested prerequisites: Played around with the ReportListener class and know what REPORTBUILDER.APP is.
Explorer-style user interfaces are among the most popular for today's applications. However, working with and integrating the controls necessary to implement an Explorer interface can be challenging. This session presents a set of classes and techniques that makes short work of developing Explorer interfaces for your applications.
You will learn: - How the controls necessary for an Explorer interface work
- How to deal with the many idiosyncrasies of certain controls, including the TreeView
- How to design an Explorer interface for your applications
- How the classes presented in this session collaborate
- How to use the classes in this session in your own applications
They have been popular in Visual Basic and other languages: Owner drawn controls. Instead of combining shapes, images, labels and textboxes into a compound control that looks close to something we want, we can exploit the power of GDI+ to create our own controls. Whether we are talking about new pageframes, progress bars, formatted text, chart controls, basic text input or Unicode text output, we can create all these with GDI+. This session covers some of the fundamentals of creating your own controls in GDI+ including dealing with mouse and keyboard input. We also see some the possibilities as well as some of the limitations.
You will learn: - how to use GDI+ for your own controls
- how to handle input
- how to handle focus and tab order
- what you can do, and what you can't do
Writing a vertical market application can be very rewarding. You write one application, sell it numerous times, and sit back while the money rolls in. Well, that's the theory anyway. The reality is that often times, new clients want to buy your software, as long as you can change this one little thing. Managing custom code for various clients within your application can easily turn into a nightmare as your client base expands. This session shows you how to implement a customization methodology in your vertical market application that keeps your standard code independent from your custom code, yet have the two code bases play nice together.
You will learn: - How to provide custom menu options
- How to implement companion tables for storing additional data
- How to customize existing forms and controls
- How to implement new forms and controls
- How to implement custom reports
The enhanced Data Explorer shipped with Sedna has improvements to help VFP developers be more productive with data of all types (VFP or backend SQL). This session will show you numerous ideas to extend this powerful tool and inspire add-ons you can share with the Fox Community. During the session Rick demonstrates and walks through several extensions he has written to help make his life inside the VFP IDE easier when it comes to working with data.
You will learn: - What is new in the Sedna version
- How to leverage existing extensions
- How to alter behavior of the drag and drop features
- How to write add-ons to the Run Query dialog
- How to extend the functionality of the Data Explorer by adding features to the menu
Suggested prerequisites: Familiarity with the Data Explorer in VFP 9
The Visual FoxPro Foundation classes are a valuable yet often overlooked resource for the Visual FoxPro programmer. Comprising one hundred twelve classes in thirty-nine class libraries, the Visual FoxPro Foundation classes provide access to all kinds of functionality that might otherwise be more difficult to achieve. This session surveys the foundation classes and looks at several of them in detail, with the goal of helping developers learn to use them to their advantage when building applications.
You will learn: - What the Visual FoxPro Foundation classes are
- How they are arranged and categorized into class libraries
- How to use selected foundation classes, with sample code
- How the foundation classes can be sub-classed and extended
- How the foundation classes are licensed
Suggested prerequisites: Working knowledge of Visual FoxPro and experience with VFP classes, sub-classes, and class libraries.
Persistence Ignorance means that an application has no intimate knowledge of where data comes from and how it is stored. Benefits of persistence ignorance include a more maintainable and flexible architecture able to support different data sources and deployment scenarios. We examine how we can best abstract the source of data from the logic accessing the data. We will use XML as the transport method for our data from a variety of backend sources including VFP tables, SQL Server and SQL Compact Edition. We examine the options for accessing our data repository through local objects, web services and COM+.
You will learn: - How to deserialize large XML streams using MSXML when XMLAdapter cannot
- How to use a factory to create application components
- How to use the CursorAdapters to connect to disparate data sources
- How to create and apply XML DiffGrams with the XMLAdapter
Prerequisites for the session: Some familiarity with XML, comfortable working with OOP, understanding of N-Tier Architecture
Mobile devices are a natural extension for many Visual FoxPro applications. They allow you to collect and retrieve information whenever and whereever needed. This session is an introduction for developers that haven't yet developed for mobile devices. We cover the basics of Windows Mobile, limitations of mobile devices, differences to desktop systems, creation and installation of FoxPro applications on mobile devices using Guineu, setting up an development environment, and transfering files between mobile devices and desktop PC.
You will learn: - what Windows Mobile is
- how mobile development differs from desktop development
- how to develop a mobile application
- how to deploy a mobile application
Visual FoxPro is an extremely powerful back-end development language for web development. Third party tools such as Web Connection, Active FoxPro Pages, FoxWeb and others allow VFP developers to seamlessly take their skills from the Desktop to the Internet. In the world of Web 2.0 applications JavaScript has become the language of choice for front-end development. This session introduces you to JavaScript from a Visual FoxPro perspective.
You will learn.:
- JavaScript basics, such as operators, types and syntax
- How to manipulate the Document Object Model (DOM) using JavasScript
- JavaScript error handling
- How to emulate classes using JavaScript
- How to use AJAX/Web 2.0 Techniques to communicate with Visual FoxPro on the back-end
Suggested prerequisites: A basic familiarity with HTML would be helpful but not necessary.
eTecnologia.NET's .NET Extender for VFP makes it possible to use any .NET class from within VFP without requiring ActiveX or COM registration. .NET Extender provides a pain-free way for VFP developers to access all of the power of the .NET framework, while still writing code in VFP. A few custom functions, CLRCreateObject, CLRNewObject and SetCLRClassLibrary make the .NET framework completely accessible within VFP. CLRBindEvent even makes it possible to bind VFP code to .NET event handling. .NET Extender for VFP also makes is possible to include .NET controls directly on VFP forms as well as use .NET non-visual classes in VFP applications. .NET Extender also includes tools, such as an assembly browser, that allows .NET assemblies to be browsed from within VFP. This tool is one more way to bring power and pizzazz to your VFP application with very little cost.
You will learn: - About the foundation classes included with the .NET Extender
- How to access .NET framework classes programmatically from within VFP
- How to make use of .NET controls, such as ToolStripMenus directly from within VFP
- How to use the various tools included with .NET Extender for VFP
Prerequisites: Basic OOP knowledge
Software development is complex business. In order to deal with this complexity, agile practices have been developed to break development into manageable cycles of development called iterations. The rapid application development features of Visual FoxPro make it very well suited to the constantly changing nature of agile software development. We examine the use of user stories to gather requirements. We practice refactoring code aided by unit tests. We examine ways to automate our build and deployment process in order to produce more frequent releases. Finally we look at ways to implement each of these practices in existing projects.
You will learn: - iterations
- user stories
- unit testing
- refactoring
- automated processes
Prerequisites for the session: Some experience with the full lifecycle of application development is beneficial, familiarity with OOP principles and practices
Sometimes optimization means to make things faster, sometimes it only means to change what you measure. Before you can optimize an application you need to define what and how to optimize. If you find that you need to take out the slow parts, there are various tools that help you identifying those. We cover monitoring and coverage tools extended by an in-depth explanation of how to make sense of the results.
You will learn: - how to use monitoring tools
- what makes an application slow
- how to debug more efficiently
- to understand testing results
Sooner or later, almost every developer has to take over an existing application. This session looks at tools and techniques for understanding how such applications work, improving the data model, dealing with non-developers who wrote the original code, and more.
You will learn: - What legal issues to address up front
- How to dig into the application
- How to improve the data model without losing existing data
- How to work with fragile code
Refactoring is the art of clean-up and can be useful. Many books have been written about it, so it can seem daunting but the VFPX Code Analyst does make it easier. In this session, we see how the Code Analyst along with existing tools like the Coverage Profiler can make figuring out how to clean up your code can be made easy, simple and dare I say it, fun!
You will learn: - How to use the Code Analyst to identify common programming mistakes
- How to customize the Code Analyst to handle environment specific approaches or techniques
- How to integrate Code Analyst into regular daily development
- Using the Coverage Profiler logs in ways that can be more useful than just the standard Overview process through add-ins
With the increasing size of tables and changing application requirements, many seasoned FoxPro developers are being forced to move their data out of FoxPro and into a real database server. This would be an easy task if we all had the time to completely rewrite our applications from the ground up. Unfortunately most business cannot just be put on hold while 15+ years of development is evaluated, refactored and rewritten for client-server. This session will look at ways to easily migrate existing applications into client server architecture without much disruption to the business.
You will learn: - The many ways in which remote data can be queried and modified
- Methods for integrating the client server data access into existing application code
- How to choose the best access method for distinct purposes in the application
- How to build a data dictionary and use it to simplify the migration
- Pitfalls to watch out for during migration
- Tips for making the migration easier and less painful
Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of SQL programming syntax.
This session will cover SQL in depth.
You will learn: - SELECT/INSERT/UPDATE basics
- Structuring data (Normalization)
- Aggregating Data
- JOINS (INNER and OUTER)
- UNIONS
- Optimizing SQL
Suggested prerequisites: Understanding of tables
Do you know the difference between global, private and local variables? What about PCOUNT() versus PARAMETERS() or PARAMETERS versus LPARAMETERS? Why should you declare variables and arrays? And what is a form property anyway, and why would you want to use one? What happens if you have a RETURN statement in the middle of a WITH…ENDWITH section? This session answers all these questions and more. Included are real world examples to help solidify these concepts in your mind.
You will learn: - Standard variable naming conventions
- Best practices for use of variables
- Techniques to avoid difficult-to-debug problems
- Some debugging pointers
Prerequisites: Basic understanding of programming constructs
We live in a connected world and Web Services are an increasingly more common part of business applications. With the SOAP Toolkit discontinued and never having supported Web Services with complex types very well, FoxPro has always had limited tools for accessing and hosting Web Services. By leveraging the .NET runtime from FoxPro code, it's possible to plug in sophisticated Web Service client and server functionality into your FoxPro application. In this session Rick looks at using .NET as an intermediary to access Web Services by using COM Interop to .NET generated Web Service proxies and hosting .NET Web Services in ASP.NET and using COM Interop to access FoxPro business logic to serve FoxPro data to Web Service clients.
You will learn: - How to use COM Interop to interact with .NET Web Service Proxies
- How to create .NET hosted Web Services and use FoxPro code for business logic
- How to manage type differences and data conversion between Fox and .NET
- About problems with the COM based Web Service solutions
Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with .NET and COM Interop
JavaScript, Ajax and client side development is becoming more important in Web development as users expect Web applications to be more responsive and interactive than the static post back based HTML interfaces of the past. This session introduces Ajax concepts and the powerful free jQuery client JavaScript and uses these tools in conjunction with Web Connection to create rich Web user interfaces.
You will learn: - How to use HTTP communications to send and receive data from the Web
- How to use XML in the message layer to pass data between client and server
- About different approach to use data for communication
- Choose the right persistence mechanism for data and objects
Suggested prerequisites: Some familiarity with Web Development
The components developed for the open source VFPX project on CodePlex have matured quickly over the last couple of years. Rick is using components like the Themed Controls (OutlookNavBar, ExplorerBar, and Toolbox), the ctl32 project (StatusBar, Scrollable Container, BalloonTip), Desktop Alerts, and GDIPlusX in the applications he develops. This session will deep-dive into as many of the controls as fit into the session. It will show you practical real-world usage of the controls and then show you how he implements them with code examples and cookbook style instructions. The white paper for the session will cover several controls not discussed during the session to provide you a jumpstart.
You will learn:
* Practical uses for the controls
* What controls are available from VFPX for you to use
* How to implement VFPX controls in your Visual FoxPro applications
* How you can help accelerate the development of more controls
* About the resources available to help you implement the controls
Prerequisites: A open mind to improving the look and feel of your applications.
This session shows the fundamentals of the VFP 9 ReportListener and what's new with SP2. This includes an explanation of the ReportListener object model and how to leverage this class for your reports, what's required for VFP 9 reporting distribution, how to extend the VFP 9 reporting APPs and an introduction to the many new features in SP2. The session also includes tips and tricks for getting the most out of VFP 9 reporting including some productivity and performance enhancements. We will also cover the fact that the VFP 9 Reporting components are now part of the CodePlex/VFPX project and how to submit bugs and enhancement requests.
You will learn: - Why you should use VFP 9 SP2 reporting
- What is required for distribution
- How to maximize reporting productivity
- What SP2 has stuffed under the hood
Suggested prerequisites: Must know what "MODI REPO" means
This session takes developers through the process of creating a commercial-grade Visual FoxPro application. Craig walks you through all of the steps he takes to produce a professional, polished Visual FoxPro application.
You will learn: - How to set up the directory structure for a new project
- How to properly subclass the VFP base classes
- How to create a main.prg, a database, and professional looking screens and reports
- How to implement advanced error handling that allows users to email exception reports
- How to provide automatic database backup
- How to automatically update the application using a Loader application
- How to protect the application from piracy using Armadillo
- How to create an install for the application using Installshield Express
Microsoft's Isolated Shell allows us to create a new integrated development environment for Visual FoxPro that provides the same features used by C#/VB developers in Visual Studio. Coupled with Microsoft's Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), the Visual FoxPro language can even be extended to include .NET. This presentation of VFP Studio shows one of the best approaches for extending the life of Visual FoxPro moving forward.
You will learn: - What the Isolated Shell is and why it should be of interest to Visual FoxPro developers
- What the DLR is and how it can be used to extend the Visual FoxPro language to include .NET
- What features VFP Studio provides and what is being considered for future inclusion
- How to get involved
Each new version of Visual FoxPro has brought new ways to do things, but breaking old habits is hard. Now that the VFP language has stabilized, it's time to hone our skills. This session examines some of the changes in the language over the years and demonstrates that learning to use the newer constructs can result in better, more maintainable, faster code.
You will learn: - How to easily parse and build filenames and paths
- Easy ways to work with text data
- Why you never have to work area work areas again
- What kind of loop to use when
- Much more
So you want to help out in VFPX? This session goes through how to get started with the VFPX Project and dealing with issues like source control, the Wiki-style attitude of Codeplex and more.
You will learn: - How to attach to the Codeplex using at least 3 different techniques for source control
- How to effectively vote up issues to bring them to a higher point
- How to propose a new project in VFPX
- Techniques for managing open-source projects on VFPX
In this session Andy takes the example of a simple form that performs a look-up on a ZipCode database and traces how the code and design structure changes as the implementation moves from Instance level programming (where all the code is directly in the form) through three different class-based implementations, first using Composition, then using Aggregation and finally using Delegation.
You will learn: - The difference between classes and objects
- How VFP implements inheritance, what the "inheritance trap" is and how to avoid it
- How, and when, to create composite classes
- How and when to use aggregation instead of composition
- How and when to use delegation
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