Hi Craig,

Actually, I think (IMHO) that the ActiveX developers are half baked and M$ is half baked making the whole situation totally baked :-) Seriously though, M$ should have the same standards enforcement for ActiveX controls in all of the languages. This would eliminate the problem because then developers would have to strictly adhere to the standards and their control would work in all products. You can't really blame the ActiveX control developers when they have a larger third party market for VB to go after and their control works in VB but not VFP. Their opinion is most likely, "Oh well, it must be VFP."

I agree with your opinion on M$'s improvements in marketing VFP. Could it get better? Most definitely. But the advertising in magazines (other than in FoxPro Advisor...yea, that's really useful), the continuation of DevCon and it's attendance, the rebirth of FoxTeach here in Toronto, Ontario which sold out are all good signs. Hopefully, M$ keeps this upward momentum going.

Cheers,

>>Case in point. Today a friend hands me a copy of Pinnacle's VB Developer. On the back is an ad for some OCXs by Total Controls, one of them allows dynamic resizing of forms and the other is a splitter bar. I go to their website www.fmsinc.com and I see sections for Access products and VB products. Nada about VFP. I download the control anyway thinking "what the heck it might work". I try it on a "Hello World" form and VFP crashes. 3 times. I tried the SYS(2333) (after looking up the call in help (arrrrrgh with the SYS functions)) and tried it both ways with the same results.
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>I'm not surprised that the resizer doesn't work. VFP doesn't use native Windows controls and VB/Access do. My guess is the splitter doesn't work for the same reason.
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>>Since FMS, Inc. is in business to make money I wonder why they don't bother to sell to VFP users, or even make their product VFP compatible. This seems to prove at least two of my points 1)VFP support for OCX is half baked and 2)MS doesn't market VFP well.
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>Actually, it is the control developers who are "half baked". There is a published standard for ActiveX controls. VPF adheres to the standard more than VB does. If the control developer doesn't follow the standard, it won't work.
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>As for marketing...I've said this before. VFP marketing is GREATLY improved from where it used to be. Could it get better? Probably. But, they are doing a great job. Go back to earlier this year and look at the full page VFP ads in PC Week and InfoWorld or the back cover ad in Visual Basic Programmer's Journal (yes..VFP). Also, witness attendance at DevCon this year...1200 for a non-launch year is amazing...and the number of people there for the first time was huge. Also, the VFP team at MS is bigger than it has been for some time. This indicates two things to me: 1) Even more commitment from MS and 2) Increased market share.