>>>>>>>>>Can I get some opinions on a few of the frameworks that are on the market? I believe the two most popular are Visual Express and Visual ProMatrix. I have recently seen a few others as well. I am trying to select a strategic product to use in the development of multi-user software that will be marketed to private business and public organizations. I am looking for a much shorter development time, good performance from the end application, security, client/server support, and hopefully the framework will be easy to use, well documented, and have good technical support. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Steve,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I have asked this exact question before on the UT. I expect that you will get the answer "it depends". The advice that I have been given is to try each of the frameworks and choose the one that fits the way you work. Promatrix and Visual Foxexpress both have 30 day money back test periods.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Other frameworks are the Codebook,Codebook for Mere Mortals, Drew Speedies', Stonefield and then there are several books on how to create your own.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Check the files and KB for references to the above items.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>BTW I have yet to choose a framework...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Evan,
>>>>>>>Thanks for the advice, and you're right, most people have
>>>>>>>said to try one or two and choose which you like the best. I
>>>>>>>think this is probably what I will do.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Thanks,
>>>>>>> Steve
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Steve,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Don't ya just hate those "it depends" answers. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>Steve,
>>>>>
>>I bought visual maxframe, vfox express and promatrix and spent a fair amount of time with each. I never could get vfe to work and gave up after downloading updates every few days earlier this year. We recently received a cd so I'll probably give it another look. Visual maxframe is
>>>>>For what's it is worth, I just purchased most of them and am using Drew Speedie's Visual MaxFrame Professional.
>>>>
>>>>What is your asessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each and why did Visual Maxframe win out? (Hey it looks like GE Capital just bought VMF).
>>>
>>>
>>>I did not try: Visual Extend (did not like no money back offer and their stupid copy protection thing) or Codebook for Mere Mortals (have never been a Codebook fan)
>>>
>>>I tried Visual FoxExpress, ProMatrix, CodeMine and Visual MaxFrame.
>>>
>>>ProMatrix is OK but does not use views at all. They are coming out with an update to use views soon.
>>>Visual FoxExpress is OK but uses Codebook and I found it hard to figure out what was going on.
>>>
>>>I never really gave CodeMine a decent chance but it uses the Registry which I personally hate for troubleshooting reasons.
>>>
>>>I absolutely love Visual MaxFrame. But, it is a class library not an application generator. So, it is a little like comparing apples and oranges. I need to know what is happening and why. They have documentated the classes extremely well in a custom property called zreadme. I can go back and figure out what it happening.
>>>
>>>Their style also just seems to fit my style.
>>>
>>>My advice, is that all except for Visual Extend have the money back offers. Try some and see.
>>>
>>>But the way I see it, Visual ProMatrix/Visual FoxExpress if you want an application generator and Visual MaxFrame if you want a class library to run with yourself.
>>
>>I bought maxframe vfox express and promatrix and spent a fair amount of time with each of them. I never could make vfox express work in vfp5 and gave up after downloading several updates. We recently received a cd and I'll give it another shot before I give up. Visual Maxframe is a class library which is easy to interface to applications you already have. It has great hooks and documentation in each class in the readme method. We have gone through some rudimentary apps with ProMatrix and it looks great! If you use ProMatrix you will probably start your apps from scratch. I really like the seperate data dictionary they use. Define your tables with all of their referential integrity and keys and captions etc and stand back! They are working on an SQL interface which should be ready next year. The way I read the Codebook copyright you may have some problems if you really do come up with the killer app since, in my opinion, they are not entirely clear as to what you can
>>distribute royalty free.
>>It seems as though Promatrix was the most OOP solution of the lot. It is also the only app generator which implements an audit trail. This chews up a lot of time on update but can be turned off and left on only for certain tables.
>
>Bob,
>
>Does the lack of views in Visual Promatrix get in the way of creating good apps? I don't use a framework (or app generator), but found that I have had to use views in creating some 3 way tables joins in a grid. Without views one can't do ODBC or client/server.


I use Visual Extend 3.5 now for big client-server app, and found it great. What I like about this framework - it is pretty transparent to what you do - I mean that you may not even know of existence of some objects in the framework form classes, they usually don't come up with errors :). I am familiar also with the Codebook, and can't say that I am excited of it. :)

Nick