Category / Visual FoxPro

General items related to Visual FoxPro

by Kevin Ragsdale

Easy Transparent Forms with Visual FoxPro

Want an easy way to make your forms transparent in Visual FoxPro? How about a little class to drop on your form.

The TransparentForm class will automagically make your TOP-LEVEL form (ShowWindow = 2) appear semi-transparent.

Note: This works on Top-Level forms running on Windows 2000 or higher only. You won’t see any effect on Windows 98 or on any form that does not have ShowWindow = 2.

Also, this was created with Visual FoxPro 9.0 (it works unchanged in VFP 7 and 8). If you want to run it in VFP 6, you will need to change the references to ThisForm.hWnd.

How do you use it? Drop it on a form, and set the nOpaquePct property to the percentage of opaqueness that you want the form to have (the default is 90).

Here’s a few pictures of the sample form in action:

With 90% ‘Opaqueness’:

 

75% Opaqueness:

 

50% Opaqueness:

 

You can download the class and sample form here (4 kb).

This post originally appeared on the Foxite Weblogs site.

by Kevin Ragsdale

Hey Calvin, Why Do ToolTips Appear in Task Manager?

I just noticed something yesterday that I’ve never noticed before: tooltips in Visual FoxPro 9.0 SP1 appear in the Applications list in Windows Task Manager.

Freaky!

I’ve never noticed this behavior before. I just tried to recreate it in VFP 6 and 8, but no-go.

I first noticed this while doing some testing yesterday. I had Task Manager open, and when I hovered over an object with a ToolTip, the ToolTip “popped up” in the Task Manager window.

Hey Calvin, why do Visual FoxPro 9 ToolTips appear in Task Manager?

Update: Calvin answered my question here.

by Kevin Ragsdale

Fox-Phrases, 2006

A few (tongue-in-cheek) phrase ideas for Visual FoxPro in 2006:

  • Sedna. It does your data good.
  • Sedna. Betta than buttah.
  • (Sing to the tune of the Chili’s Baby Back Ribs song): “I want my VFP, VFP, VFP, VFP, VFP apps…”
  • Visual FoxPro. Does more before breakfast than other languages do all day.
  • Visual FoxPro Rocks!!!
  • Visual FoxPro RULES!!!

Update: Craig Boyd accepted my challenge for a new Fox-Phrase by creating a cool promo featuring the “breakfast” phrase above. NICE JOB, CRAIG!!!

by Kevin Ragsdale

The FoxShow

Craig Bailey notes on his blog that he’s glad to hear the FoxShow is still on the air. I missed the accidental post on the FoxShow site yesterday, but let me say I am also glad to hear it’s still on the air.

I believe Andrew MacNeill has been providing a wonderful resource for the FoxPro community with his podcast (as a ‘lone’ developer, I must say it’s been nice just to be able to ‘hear’ someone talking about FoxPro), and I really enjoyed the interview segments with Bill Sanders in episodes 16 & 17.

Andrew noted in today’s post that he’s looking for guests and guest hosts for the show.

Here’s hoping the community will support the effort. If you’ve listened to the show and looking forward to more, drop a line to Andrew (akselsoft at gmail dot com) and let him know. If you haven’t listened yet, give it a try.

Craig Bailey’s Thoughts: The FoxPro Show