Hi Kevin,

Some time ago I designed three ActiveX controls to be used with VFP applications: FileSystemWatcher, LanguageBar and ContextMenu. For different reasons, demand for these controls was less than I expected.

That does not mean that your project cannot be more successful.

The following are the items that in my opinion are important for this project to succeed.

- The control must be really useful, mainstream-useful. It should have intuitive interface, no bugs.

- The installation must be a no-brainer, sort of a click-and-forget. A distribution of VFP application that uses this control must be a no-brainer either. Consider testing the control on 32- and 64-bit systems ranging from XP to Windows 8. Add to that at least 2 last versions of VFP.

- The control must have an exhaustive collection of simple-to-medium usage samples, well-commented ones.

- The control must have a help file / manual. Of course nobody is going to read it, but just in case it's better to have it. Besides writing a manual will help you designing better structured control with consistent UI.

- You should be be able to provide quick responses to requests from end-users 24 x 7. Writing a control and launching it to the outside world is probably less that 50% of the business. Also end-users must have confidence that you'll be supporting this control for quite a while, at least beyond Windows 8.