Converting Clipper applications to windows 2

[fbizzell]

Which of these products would provide the quickest and easiest track toward moving old Clipper 5.2e applications to windows:

Xbase++ (Alaska)
xHarbour
FiveWin

or any combination of the above?

 

[TonHu]

Just more questions ;-)
- What do you want to achieve?
- What do you know already?

And some directions to get your answers straight
- If you need to port some tried and true app to a new lifespan on Windows, Go for 'pure' xHarbour, it is free, and open source, but commercial support and additional libs are available (VXH for Windowing, SQLRDD for SQL database access, find all facts on

http://www.xharbour.com,

open source version on

http://www.xharbour.org)

- If you are (re)designing an app from the ground up, also go for xHarbour, but get a grip on a good 'GT', Graphic Terminal in Clipper speak, and if you desire to run on Windows as well as on Linux, FiveWin for xHarbour is a good bet, AFAICS (Haven't used FWH myself, just hear-say, facts on

http://www.fivetechsoft.com)

Alternatives are the (rather new) wxWidgets GT (Windows/Linux)(

http://harbour.fm.interia.pl),

or HMG (Harbour MiniGUI) (Windows)(

http://www.geocities.com/harbour_minigui),

and HwGUI (Windows)(

http://hwgui.sf.net)

- If you want to 'just convert' a character-mode app to a more Windows look and feel, xHarbour with the GTWVT or GTWVW GT's (both are in the free & commercial xHarbour) may be all you need, and the least time-consuming
- If you already are familiar with XBase++ go for their (closed source?) solution, there also is a FiveWin version for XBase++

http://www.alaskasoftware.com

HTH
TonHu

 

[fbizzell]

Thanks for the links and comments.

What we are trying to achieve is have applications that will run on the newer computers without the problems we have running clipper applications on Win 2000 and up. Rumor is that Vista will not support dos applications.

I don't know much. I can do almost anything I want to do in Clipper and I played around with FiveWin once and even managed to do an inhouse email application for our company before we got on the internet and outlook express. The thing I liked about FiveWin was the ability to use the DBFNTX of Clipper and share the databases with Clipper dos applications.

We are not adverse to junking our clipper applications and build from the ground up using the business logic contained in the old Clipper applications code.

 

[GriffMG]

Personally, I have tried converting to Alaska and think it only really gives you 2-3 years additional life.

Frankly, and I can expect support to be minimal now, the windows components are just too clunky and it is *definately not* 100% code compatible, well the code is good, but it does not *do the same things* if you follow me.

So, I would rewrite in VFP 9, it really is very very good indeed.

B-)

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

 

[Stella740pl]

I second Griff - get Visual foxPro.

You will be able to do anything you can do in Clipper and much more.

You can still use the business logic written in Clipper with some corrections, but you might want to rewrite that, too, at once or later, using OOP technology. You will need to rewrite the UI at the very least.

Once you learn it, you will be pleased with the results.

And if you need bigger or more secure databases than VFP (or Clipper, for that matter) offers, you can use SQLServer as the back end.

 

[fbizzell]

I have a feeling that VFP will get the most votes on here. Which version should I be looking for? I am wondering if you can also read btrieve files using VFP. We have some accounting data that uses btrieve files that we would need to access for both read and write purposes.

 

[Stella740pl]

The current one is v.9 (released in 2005, SP1 has just been published).
You can check its home site,

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/default.aspx,

or follow links in Griff's or my profile to get to any of five VFP forums here, on Tek-Tips.

 

[GriffMG]

VFP 9 is a really superb product.

It allows you to create very stable, supportable products with executables which are easily distributed - just like you are used to in Clipper.

You *DO* have a runtime support overhead - but it's manageable - I've even worked out how to get updated applications to prompt users for updated runtime files.

The built-in collection of interface components are rich and flexible. I've been using it since version 3 (although I did no deliverables of my own before version 5).

I am a BIG fan of VFP, just as I am of Clipper (and probably have been for just a little too long).

It's a learning curve, but not too hard.



Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing