Anthony,

Wow. That is impressive. Ideally, I would like to be able to accomplish something similar. However, at this time, I have decided to take a few steps back, for at least a couple of months, before I dive into an attempt to work with a framework. I realized that I need to understand some of the underlying concepts more before I proceed, so I am reading Markus Egger and other recommended books.

Also, I don't have 7 years of experience with my own framework! So I am definitely WAY behind you in that regard. So for me I'm sure this wouldn't be a trivial task. Nevertheless, I am determined to a)use a framework on some level and b)now that you indicated that it can be done, to have a long term goal of trying to integrate a framework into my existing Applications.

In my case, I have considerable constraints. I am a reseller of Accountmate (AM) software. There is an executable, called the 'system manager' (SM), that is compiled in VFP 6. All forms are called from AMs menu. There are several system objects that are embedded in/instantiated in, the SM. I DON'T have access to the SM source! There are 4 class libraries that are also compiled into the SM. A 'stripped down' version of the class libraries is provided for the developer - methods and objcode columns are stripped out! AM only provides source for its SCX forms. AM does not have a global application object, with attached forms manager, error manager, menu manager etc. The few provided system objects are independent of one another. AM's SCX's are formsets - another no-no. AM does provide a developer hook, a prg called AMaddon, that is launched from within the SM code. The developer can createobjects, set classlibs etc, from Amaddon.prg.

The developer can add new forms of their own, and manipulate the data driven menu system to call them. Ideally, I would like to have all my NEW AM forms and/or forms as classes be 'MM' or 'CM' (codemine) compliant. Perhaps I could launch the MM or CM framework from within Amaddon? As for modifying existing AM forms - hmm, sounds like a hard one, so for now I won't even go there.

If you have any suggestions, regarding how these two environments could be integrated, or more general suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.







>David(s),
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>FWIW,
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>>Next, I would say DO NOT try to build framework pieces into an existing app. I did it, and it was a nightmare from start-to-finish. I finally just sucked it up for a couple of weeks and converted all my stuff. If you insist on doing it, buy lots of Xanax and use the framework as your foundation, and import your forms into the framework. If you go the other way and try to bring framework pieces into your existing app, you are asking for trouble. Lots of trouble. Don't do it. I would think this is true with any framework.
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>I did build framework pieces into an existing application and have had great success. I'm throwing this out there not as a recommended approach, but simply as a testament to the beauty of properly designed objects.
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>I have a home grown framework that I've been using/developing for about 7 years. I wanted to start spending less time developing my framework and more time developing business solutions. I wanted something ntier and something I could integrate a piece at a time into a huge corporate application. Converting the entire application was not an option, it would take over a year.
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>I decided to try this with the Mere Mortals Framework. I wasn't sure when I started what kind of mess I was gonna end up with, but in just a week, I had a beautiful solution. The hardest part was simply getting my head into the frameworks code, and as I did, I gained a huge amount of respect for the way it was put together. I took the MM Frameworks business object, data environment object, business rules object and connection manager objects and place them in my own framework under MY own application object! This was about a year ago and it's been working great.
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>I spent probably 85% of my time studing the problem, trying to figure out exactly which files of the MM framework I would need and just tracing through code to understand what was happening. 10% of my time testing, and only 5% of my time actually making changes. Most of which were to my own code to simply make the features of the new objects available. My changes to the MM framework were minute.
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>Anthony