Hi all,

Just an informational message before our week-end in order to say how much I am currently pleased with the relatively new additions I made my current VFP-desktop dev. environment! The old fox beast wants to stay an look young!

We deploy a relatively heavy application that still relies on VFP as its glue but we have learned to integrate external tools including some relatively recently.

You may be aware of some of them, but possibly some may still have escaped you:

1) a host of new widgets activeX as provided by dbi-tech to supplement the one we have been already using for quite a while. "Hats off" to Doug for the great intro he made recently on the subject during the great Virtual Fox Fest! I am looking forward to integrate the menu, the dropdown date, the "dbi-button" as replacement form our current VFP-styled ones, the fast, clean and really good-looking treeview, and more...

2) a recent pick, the chilkat COM-based 32bits library which we will use to replace legacy text-based VFP-built local file formats with a much more modern AES-encrypted zip format, I hope to explore this thick lib for other purposes but the in-memory zipping and unzipping made my day yesterday. Thanks Antonio for getting me up and running with the lib!

3) Refox for code-obfuscating... You never know for sure!

last but not least,
4) an old pick which I find more and more necessary, the BoxedApp packer, a fantastic bundler that literally makes deployment a dream.

The last tool, the Boxedapp packer allows for:
1) bundling all application parts and bits into a "single executable" (zero dll or ocx in view...),
2) the COM and activeX, encapsulated in the packed exe, run with no "admin right", no registry setup,
3) the installation may just be a plain "copy action", when the antivirus does not get in the way of course!
4) when properly setup the loading time is just brilliant, "in a snap" quite literally :-)

I remember deploying VFP application the standard way via admin-level "installers". No more installshield express (or not express) or any installer by the way. I like that:-)

This set is current working quite fine. I certainly need to make sure the executable code is "code-signed" and of course install Thor up in order to get my dev environment up to UT-users standards. Hope to get the whole stuff in place for Christmas time!

Have a nice week-end, Daniel

PS: I am a fully satisfied paying user of all tools above and certainly not working on the behalf of the individual owners of these great shops. Long life to them all!