>George,
>I hate to sound like a rube, but what is Foxtools and what does it do best?
>Thanks,

Foxtools first appeared with the release of FPW. Prior to that, a library similar to it (FPATH.PLB) containing some of the same functions was part of FPD.

After issuing the SET LIBRARY TO FOXTOOLS.FLL gives you access to the functions in the library (written in C) as if they were part of the language proper. You call the functions in the same way you'd call any function or UDF.

Quite a few functions, that began in either Foxtools or FPath have made it into the language itself. For example, prior to VFP's MESSAGEBOX() function, there was a function in Foxtools (MsgBox) which did exactly the same thing.

Another use for the library in FPW was accessing the Win16 API. In fact, the functions RegFN and CallFN were and are the only method of interfacing with that API.

As more and more functions have been brought into the language, the need, unfortunately, for the library has been diminished. Some more examples would be the filename manipulation function (JUSTDRIVE(), JUSTPATH(), JUSTFNAME(), etc.) were originally in Foxtools. With the release of VFP 7.0 more functions (some of the new string manipulation functions, and the addition of the hWnd property) have been brought in a well, and the number of useful functions has diminished greatly.

To name a few:

Reduce() - Removes multiple spaces between words in a string and replaces them with a single space.

StrFilter() - Filters out all characters in a string that do not appear in a second string.

RGBComp() - Returns the individual color component numbers from an RGB color value.

_WGetRect() - Returns the absolute co-ordinates of a form.