Visual FoxPro 9.0 bietet Ihnen unter anderem:

• Wesentliche Erweiterungen im Bereich der Datenbankengine, insbesondere der SQL-Syntax sowie Aufhebung vieler der bisherigen Einschränkungen von Visual FoxPro.
• Viele Jahre lang insbesondere im deutschsprachigen Raum gefordert und ersehnt, erfolgte endlich die komplette Neuerstellung des Berichtsdesigners und eine grundsätzliche Überarbeitung der Berichtsausführung mit überzeugenden Ergebnissen.
• Diverse Verbesserungen in der Benutzeroberfläche wie Docking/Anchoring für Masken, verbesserte Grafikunterstützung, Autotext u.v.m. - und Format Z ist auch wieder zurück.

Aber auch viele Kleinigkeiten wurden bei der neuen Version bereinigt, verbessert und erweitert. Die tatsächliche Liste der Verbesserungen wollen wir hier natürlich nicht komplett abdrucken.

PS: Gehen Sie unbedingt davon aus, dass die Endversion von Visual FoxPro 9.0 von der lange Zeit verfügbaren Public Beta erheblich abweicht und wesentlich umfangreicher geworden ist!

There are so many new features that it’s hard to limit the discussion. We’ll start with the flexibility to build all types of database solutions, move on to reporting system enhancements, and finish up with data handling and interoperability. But these only touch on some the great new features you’ll want to explore on your own.

Flexibility to Build All Types of Database Solutions

Using Visual FoxPro 9.0, you can create .NET-compatible solutions with hierarchical XML and XML Web services. You can also exchange data with SQL Server through enhanced SQL language capabilities and newly supported data types. You can build and deploy standalone and remote applications for Windows-based Tablet PCs. You can create and access COM components and XML Web services that are compatible with .NET technology. Visual FoxPro 9.0 allows you to build end-to-end solutions, from data entry forms to complex report outputs.

Reporting System Features

To Visual FoxPro’s already strong reporting system, we’ve added extensible new output architecture that provides precision control of report data output and formatting. There’s multiple-detail band support for data with multiple one-to-many relationships. You can customize the Print Preview window with improved display quality and multiple page support. Our new output reports support XML, HTML, image formats, and customizable multi-page print preview windows.

The enhanced report writer is backward compatible with existing Visual FoxPro reports. And flexible report chaining allows for more complex print jobs. The new ReportListener class provides access to report generation and rendering events at runtime. And there are powerful design-time hooks with customizable builders that you can use to make your development experience smoother.

Data-Handling and Interoperability

The three new data types, VarChar, VarBinary, and BLOB, allow for improved interoperability with SQL Server. There are extended SQL language enhancements as well, such as more capabilities with SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE statements. A new function, CAST(), allows you to convert different data types. You can use the new binary index to improve performance using the deleted tag, and the XMLAdapter provides improved nested hierarchical XML and XSD schema support. There are new string functions and a new inline function—ICASE()—that is similar to DO CASE statements. For international solutions there even greater support for use of FontCharSets in applications.

There are many improvements to client UI features. You can dock forms, anchor form elements to control movement on a form during resizing, and control the position of images on a button using text alignment. There’s new word wrap support for checkbox captions and rotating text for label captions. Using shapes and lines, you can create polygons and Bezier curves. The property sheet provides support for new font and color display options, extended characters, and long expressions. You can bind images to non file-based pictures. You can use List and Combo collections as databinding row sources.

Member data extensibility adds the ability to specify custom property editors and favorites. With the extended system capabilities, there are no limits beyond available memory for arrays, procedure size, and nesting levels. Single line background compiling allows you to see whether or not your syntax is valid as you type command lines. There are new and improved task panes such as the Data Explorer pane.

Visual FoxPro 9.0 System Requirements

A PC with a Pentium-class processor
Windows 2000 with Service Pack 2 or later operating system
64 MB of RAM; 128 MB or higher recommended
165 MB of available hard disk space for a typical installation, 165 MB maximum;
20 MB of additional hard-disk space for Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 Prerequisites
A CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
A super VGA 800 X 600 resolution monitor, or higher, with 256 colors
Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device