vfp ide "mimic"

[okarl]

Greetins Experts!

I'am kind of inmerse in a personal project that uses a spa to mimic the desktop ide.
( hope I'm not promoting nothing here cause is my third attempt and it even hasn't a name yet nor sure if is going to see the light someday)

Anyway the question is, what additional functionality you would use it for apart from open files, compile prg's with popup errors, browse dbf's and a command window.
Create dbf's is now possible but nothing on dbc's yet

Of course no advanced options are possible like open vcx, class browser, etc but some type of basic forms would be possible in a near future ( to be defined) and there is serious security considerations using the command window that executes on the server... I know

but Hey ! prg's can be compiled in an Android/IOS tablet I'm somehow putting vfp in new areas

Thaks in advance


When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[okarl]

Thanks for your inputs guys, Mike I'll be back anyway, .... someday

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[okarl]

https://postimg.org/image/ulwbqhqr1/

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[okarl]

Olaf , one last try , What if this IDE would be able to create applications ? not pure vfp apps, but using some type of forms inside those ide-windows-like , so would be js/html UI, but managed by vfp prg's ( controllers) does it make more sense now ?
(a photo worth more than thousand words... I hope)

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[okarl]

And one last comment before I leave, Olaf you have to be honest with yourself, out there ( as Mike suggested)are many many many tiny clients, tiny proffessionals, tiny companies, searching for alternatives, and 'big' solutions does not match their budgets, so if you relies on your own company's budget, is up to you, but I will try to create affordable ways , with your help or without it.

Bye Karl

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Well, I can't tell you what you want to hear from others. I can only speak for myself and I can point you to what already exists and has been tried. You are partly redoing what already exists, partly what already has failed and had no interest.

You can exceute VFP code as controller with AFP and ActiveVFP, so there already are two candidates for that. Whole applications can be hosted as HTML application with FoxInCloud. Seems like you started implementing something without first doing some research. You can always do something for yourself. I would recommend you ask at two places more VFP centered than tek-tips is: At universalthread.com and at foxite.com. If you are capable to speak french there's also

http://www.atoutfox.org/.

It's likely you get a better resonance for you project.

Maybe it's wrong to ask foxpro developers, as foxpro developers do have VFP and you can put your VFP installation on a stick and use it anywhere, you can zip and upload it to a terminal server and use it remotely, you don't depend on your customer to provide that for you, which is the case for me. If you work as developer for a reasonable hourly rater you can afford windows VM hosting and host your IDE in the cloud, there is no need for a JS IDE for someone having VFP at hand, unless you can do a new IDE with renewed features and much more comfortable, a VFP10, but in a legal manner, I don't see this as a possibility, though. Neither by decompiling and extending nor by mimmicking the IDE and language.

Then on the other side I'm no big fan of the trend to say if something already exists anywhere in the world you can't be successful with the same idea again. A smallish IDE may have a use for a customer having a custom made for him VFP or FP app and no VFP at hand. The customer I work for is not that kind of customer, as already said they have their own IT operations and developers department themselves. But when a customer not having VFP needs some hands on data, though there already will be maintenance routines in his application, most probably, he may also act on DBFs via ODBC or OLEDB provider. But AFP and ActiveVFP also coexist with FoxWeb and WebConnect...

Bye, Olaf.

 

[okarl]

There is a real reason Olaf vfp desktop ide can't create HTML code and less linked it (bind) to the prg's controllers, so seems that you only say and see what you want somehow, anyway thank you for the criticism not solicited and a shame you didn't add nothing related the question.

Bye, Karl

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[Olaf Doschke]

AFP is like (classic) ASP, just with Foxpro as language and not VB, it is VERY HTML related. The same goes for ActiveVFP. Also FoxInCloud puts VFP forms as HTML Frontend to the end user, it even simply takes any desktop app and runs it on web as HTML form. I don't see I'm not relating to your question, you just don't have a deeper look at the things I already mentioned several times. You mentioned several aspects of what your tool can do and I related that to already existing solutions, I don't see what I'm missing to address.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[okarl]

The question should say ... what usefull things would you add to the vfp desktop ide to not use third party tools ? and then, an answer would be possible , I see it clear

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[Olaf Doschke]

If you ask for IDE features missing, that could be added to the original IDE: Mostly the features Visual Studio offers, of course, or any other major IDE like JetBrains PHPStorm. There are so many features VFP lacks which isn't even seen by VFP developers, when they only know the VFP IDE. Organising and adding features was added with Thor already, for example, but there is no broader integration of package managing. Refactoring tools, better intellisense and hints like Resharper gives on C# code, better ways to analyze with a better Coverage Profiler. Changing Code while debugging, ... that list is very long.

But your ideas go into redefining the compiler and its results more than redefining the IDE, as far as you told, eg compiling VFP code to something in the end running a HTML UI interpreting VFP code, you rather write a new compiler and/or runtime than IDE. This makes me wonder what you do want to know. It's a different topic to think about changing outputs of VFP code compilation to IDE features liek being able to code on an Android Tablet or in the cloud. You mix IDE with the full language and targets the VFP compiler has. In VFP the compiler is not a separate part, in Visual Studio it only doesn't get very apparent, but in .NET the studio really is just the development shell of the whole development platform.

If a company needs to maintain a VFP app, it doesn't profit from a prolonged or extended VFP. VFP devs are a dying species. You have to migrate into newer worlds and there is more than just enterprise Java and .NET to go to, besides you can do small apps with a Visual Studio, too. But there is Excel and Access for small to mid size business apps. There is PHP and other free software to create simple to mid size and even enterprise web apps, if you dare, and students pick these langauges up as they study, even when their core study is not computer sciences or math.

Many companies just having a VFP app running, don't "speak" VFP, they only have an application they need to keep up and running. To them it wouldn't help to be able to continue programming in VFP language as they are not the developers anyway and often enough don't have source code anyway. If they once had the money to get that software developed for them and now depend on it continuing to work as is, then they are bad at investments, you have to think about amortization also of software. Many companies still run 2.6 legacy software unchanged, but they also lack the chance for changes only having a final product and no sources and no developer capable to maintain it anyway, even if they had FP IDE licenses...That's the real problem and you don't solve it reimplementing a VFP IDE or give it more features.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Perhaps you define your audience better.

But even if you aim for an aged VFP developer to which his code and knowledge base means everything and who is not well versed enough to go to new worlds, creating an IDE with new features will not be enough for a VFP developer to move over, just because he can continue to write some VFP code you can compile into any more modern output. The value of his codebase to him is in that codebase working as is and being reusable as is and there are many ways to make use of that without a new IDE, because VFP can compile EXE and DLLs you can of course use VFP modules via COM interop or interprocess communication in other development worlds.

You also get the wrong idea you need AFP or ActiveVFP as third party add ons to be able to use VFP in a web server. Alone it's native capability to create COM Server DLLs together with ISAPI is what ActiveVFP uses to let VFP run as PHP and other languages run via a web server and FoxWeb simply is part of VFP in Samples\Servers\FoxIsapi\FoxWeb and what the Aegis Group made of this as FoxWeb is based on this sample. And ActiveVFP is free and also done in VFP as far as I see, nothing else involved here but IIS. But you know that, you did your tool with avfp as you say.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[okarl]

Thanks Olaf, I just did a few hundreds of apps under 2.5 and 2.6 , now what I am only trying to achieve is a visual-reduced-enviroment to manage data on the web , and do APP's in 20 minutes , like FP usually does, not more far than that, but usefull for many tiny bussnes and without using VS nor PHP nor 5 different tools, then ... get retired, and not going to touch a computer anymore. that's it

Bye, Karl

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Then you speak of a legacy world of Foxpro which isn't sufficient for me and many others missing a continuation of VFP9, if anything at all. If you see your tool as valuable for your own work, you may get an audience in your colleagues, but just because I also developed foxpro, I don't see myself as such, so don't be disappointed or discouraged, then.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[okarl]

Audience ? no please, prefer to be anonymous, I will leave the tool at VFPX at the end, but there is a big inconvenience with a license i'm using

When I said that I was concentrated on programming, so my state of consciousness was attenuated

 

[Olaf Doschke]

The audience for your tool, the people interested in it. The "Zielgruppe" the target group, potential target audience. That's what I'm talking about.

Bye, Olaf.