FOXSTUFF

Articles, tips, FAQs and downloads for Visual FoxPro developers

Welcome to Foxstuff. If you are a VFP developer, we hope you will find the articles on this page useful. We welcome your feedback; please contact us.


FoxStuff Articles

Top five articles

Introducing ShellExecute(). Forget the ancient RUN command. If you need to invoke an external application from within Visual FoxPro, this handy API call is all you'll need. July 2002.

Validating UK postcodes. Use this Visual FoxPro function to ensure your postcodes are in the correct format. March 2006.

SQL SELECT in VFP and T-SQL. Watch out for these language differences when moving between Visual FoxPro and SQL Server. January 2006.

Using Crystal Reports with Visual FoxPro. Your questions answered about this popular report writer. June 2001. Revised January 2006.

Taming the Visual FoxPro report preview window. How to improve the way your VFP reports appear on the screen. December 2007.

More articles

Using the Software Update Wizard with Visual FoxPro. A simple tool to help you update your application's files on end-users' systems. August 2011.

Fixing broken backlinks in DBC and DBF files. How to deal with invalid pointers in your FoxPro database. September 2008.

Create a scrolling region within a form. How to add scrollbars to just part of a FoxPro form. November 2007.

A utility to document your Crystal reports. Use this FoxPro program to list all the tables and fields in your reports. May 2007.

Add a dash of colour to your menus. How to use colour pairs in menu pads and bars. February 2007.

Generate a database automatically from a schema document. Use this utility to convert a Word document to VFP program code. December 2006.

Keep track of your application's graphic files. A simple utility to help you manage the icons, bitmaps and other graphics that you use in your application. August 2006.

Add a fading effect to your forms. By creating forms that fade in and out gradually, you can add a pleasing visual effect to your Visual FoxPro applications. June 2006.

Solving the "padded varchar" problem. How to avoid unwanted spaces in back-end tables. February 2005.

Copying and spell-checking RTF data via the clipboard. Rich Text Format can liven up your applications. But copying it to other programs isn't as easy as you might think. Contributed by Phil Hawkins. May 2004.

Switch off unwanted Intellisense expansion. Fed up with seeing SET PATH TO TO in your code? Here's how to banish it for good. January 2004.

Use #DEFINE to navigate your code. A simple tip that will make navigating large blocks of code a littler easier. November 2003.

DBCs or free tables? The pros and cons. If you're not sure whether to put your Visual FoxPro tables into a database container or leave them as free tables, read on ... November 2003. Revised January 2006.

Tracking down compilation errors. If you get an error message when building your VFP project, how do you know which file to blame? July 2003. Revised January 2006.

Installing new copies of VFP executables. How to install updated EXE files without forcing users to log out of your application. Contributed by Andew Connor. May 2003.

Controlling TWAIN devices from within Visual FoxPro. Need to drive a scanner or video camera from inside your VFP application? Here's how. February 2003. Revised January 2006.

Taming the Microsoft ListView control. Let SimpleList take the hard work out of list views. September 2002. New version issued March 2003. Revised January 2006.

SimpleChart revisited. Your comments, questions and suggestions on our VFP charting control. July 2002. Revised September 2002 and January 2006.

Simplifying SQL Pass-Through. Use this time-saving class to eliminate SPT house-keeping. May 2002. New version issued September 2002. Revised January 2006.

Prompt your users for a file or directory name. This simple class makes an easy task even easier. Contributed by Barbara Peisch. April 2002.

Add graphs and charts to your Visual FoxPro applications. A free download which takes the hard work out of charting in VFP. March 2002. Revised January 2006.

An easy way to send email from a Visual FoxPro application. Use this simple technique to help your users compose and send email messages. February 2002. Revised April 2005.

Use keyboard macros to speed up repetitive actions. How a little-used Visual Foxpro feature can boost your productivity. September 2001.

Controlling Visual FoxPro grid data dynamically. How to give your users more control over the contents of their VFP grids. September 2001.

Creating desktop icons for VFP applications. We show you two ways of getting a shortcut to your application onto the user's desktop. April 2001. Revised August 2001 and November 2001.

Enable report toolbars at run-time. VFP lets you open the report designer in your application. But can you be sure the correct toolbars show up? January 2001.

Putting Foxspell Checker to work. Need to add spell-checking to an application? Here's a tool that will help. Contributed by Alan Fleet. October 2000. Revised January 2006.

Parsing comma-delimited strings into an array. An easy way of unpacking comma-delimited data. July 2000. Revised November 2001.

Printing and reporting Q & A. A few things you might not have known about the printing and reporting features in VFP. June 2000. Revised January 2006.

Creating an HTML table from a Foxpro table or cursor. Use this generic function to help generate your web pages. May 2000.

Controlling report settings at run time. How to let users choose printer options for VFP reports. April 2000. Revised January 2006.

Find out what applications are running on the user's system. Does your Foxpro program need to know if a given application is running? We'll show you how to find out. March 2000.

Generate a table of "notable dates". Does you application need to know the date of next year's Labor Day? Or when Easter will fall in two years time? HOLIDAYS.PRG could be just what you need. Contributed by David Aherron. December 1999. Updated December 2006.

Three SQL SELECT traps. SQL SELECT is one of the most versatile command available to FoxPro programmers. But watch out for the pitfalls. December 1999. Revised January 2006.

Watch out for the ActiveForm trap. Some good advice to keep in mind when using VFP's ActiveForm property. November 1999.

How to avoid the Cannot Quit Visual Foxpro message. Ever tried to close your application, only to be told you can't? Here's the story. April 1999.

Use version information to keep track of executables. A user is phoning you for help. Are you sure you are talking about the same version? April 1999.

Add a Cascade function to your Window menu. Use this generic code to give your Visual Foxpro MDI application a professional Windows feel. March 1998 Revised November 2001.

Take care with dates and times. Don't let VFP's date and datetime anomalies catch you out. January 1998. Revised April 1999.

18 productivity boosters for Visual FoxPro. A bunch of time-saving tips that all VFP developers can use. January 1998. Revised November 2001 and January 2006.

Do your application icons always show up? Assigning an icon to an application is not as straightforward as you might think. January 1998. Revised January 2006.

An easy way to add field-level help to your data-entry forms. Use this generic help panel to guide your users through your data-entry forms. January 1998.

And finally ...

Looking back: How Visual FoxPro looked in 1995. To mark VFP's tenth birthday, we are re-printing Mike Lewis's original review of Visual FoxPro 3.0. July 2005.

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FoxStuff is maintained by Mike Lewis Consultants Ltd as a service to the VFP community. Feel free to download and use any code or components, and to pass around copies of the articles (but please do not remove our copyright notices or disclaimers).

Caveat Emptor

The information given on this site has been carefully checked and is believed to be correct, but no legal liability can be accepted for its use. Do not use code, components or techniques unless you are satisfied that they will work correctly in your applications.

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