Max,

If a client asks for the cheapest possible conversion from DOS to VFP, I would suggest this to them:

1) For the quick-and-dirty conversion, I'll make a copy of your DOS app's directory, make a VFP project file in it, put your startup program in it, and rebuild the project to pull in all the files. Then I'll run the startup prg, and fix programs where they crash.

2) While doing the "quick-and-dirty," I will be writing up specs for a new VFP system to provide the function of the old system, but be properly designed according to the current tools and standards. At the end of the quick-and-dirty, if the client is impressed with how fast and how well I get it done, they may be more interested in me doing a complete re-write, "doing it right."

3) The full-blown rewrite would start with designing the data structures, taking full advantage of the DBC (and probably Stonefield), and include a separate conversion app to bring their old data into the new structures.

4) I would use a commercial framework (probably MaxFrame because I'm familiar with it, maybe CodeMine because a friend recommends it as less overloaded) to speed up development and include features (like security) I don't want to reinvent.

I've started and stopped creating my own VFP framework from scratch several times. I'm still fiddling with it as an educational exercise, but I can't build up momentum, because no one's paying me to do it...and because I think about how many things the commercial framework builders have already built into theirs, which I would only think of as I used my framework to build several apps over several years.

Rich.