Very special guests and VFP gurus Marcia Akins and Andy Kramek will present Thursday night and all day Friday. This special event is only available to members of the Midwest FoxPro User Group (MWFPUG). Please note that anyone can join the group for a small investment of $50.00 for an annual membership. Anyone within a 250 mile radius and beyond should give very serious consideration to attending this terrific "mini-devcon" event. The ROI does not get much better than this!

The meeting will be held in room 234 of the Carlsen Center (CC) inside of Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS Here are the topics that will be covered:


Thursday - August 8th in room CC 234 beginning at 6:30pm
Programming To Interface, Not Implementation
Question and Answer
Programming To Interface, Not Implementation
'Programming to Interface' is a phrase which is often quoted as being "important", but what does it really mean, how can you do it, and why does it matter? Andy and Marcia draw on their experience with a real-life project where programming to interface enabled him to convert a potential disaster to a successful conclusion. This session has particular relevance for anyone who is starting a new project in VFP.


Friday - August 9th in room CC 234:
08:00 Registration
08:30 Extending IntelliSense
09:45 Break
10:00 Where Does the Code Go
11:15 Break
11:30 Design Patterns
12:45 Lunch
13:45 Office Automation
15:00 Break
15:15 Advanced COM
16:30 Finish Q&A

Extending IntelliSense (DevCon 2002 Session)
In this session, I explore how IntelliSense is implemented in VFP, and how scripts can be used to customize and extend IntelliSense. I'll show you how to create generic scripts for handling lists and text replacement, as well as how to hook into the IntelliSense event handler to get IntelliSense to respond in the middle of a line of code as well as at the beginning.

In this session you will:
· Learn about the different record types used by IntelliSense
· Modify the default behavior for native commands and functions
· Create generic scripts to manage custom lists and pop-ups
· Hook into the default script handler to create in-line functions


Where Does the Code Go?
Class design in an object-Oriented environment is difficult at the best of times and most of us don't get it right the first time. When sitting down to design a new class, how do you decide what methods to use, what new methods you need, and where to actually put the code? Like many things in VFP, it's actually easier than you may think - especially if you follow the rules. Marcia explains the rules, and shows some examples of good (and bad) class design. You will learn: How do decide when it is appropriate to create a new class The difference between the abstract and concrete models of class design How to decide which responsibilities belong to the class When the functionality belongs in a subclass How to manage the class and containership hierarchies

Key Design Patterns in Visual FoxPro
A knowledge of design patterns can make it easier to understand existing systems. When you can recognise patterns, and use the abstract names for them, you can describe complex systems and can communicate that design to other developers concisely and unambiguously.

Equally importantly, when you are familiar with design patterns you can recognise where those patterns can be applied and can begin to make use of them when designing your own code.There are many recognized patterns that are well documented and known, and more are being added to the list with time. However, there are certain key patterns which are so fundamental, and so widely applicable, that familiarity with them should be an integral part of any developer's store of knowledge.

In this session Andy will cover the four main patterns that all VFP developers should be familiar with:

Bridge
Chain of Responsibility
Strategy
Mediator

And illustrate how they can be implemented in VFP. The session concludes with a discussion and illustration of three extremely useful patterns which are often confused with each other:

Wrapper
Decorator
Adaptor


Office Automation With VFP
As we know, VFP is an extremely powerful development tool, but it cannot do everything on its own. Our application may need to send e-mail, display graphs, send form letters, or perform complex calculations. In these cases, we can use Office Automation to get results efficiently. In this session, Marcia shows you how to use Office Automation in your VFP application and how to do so as painlessly as possible. You will learn how to: Use the Object browser and intellisense to learn about the interfaces of an automation server Easily obtain the values for named constants Send and receive e-mail using Outlook automation Create graphs using Excel automation Automate Word to produce form letters

Advanced COM


Learn the meaning of the term "Public Interface"

Understand the importance of Public Interface in component development

See how to define an interface

Get tips on implications and requirements for cross-platform development (desktop, COM, Web service, Internet)
Presented by Andy Kramek, Tightline Computers Inc In this session, I'll illustrate how to use COM to make a desktop application available over the Internet. The session focuses on the details of n-tier design and shows how to implement the necessary middle-tier functionality using VFP classes which can be implemented either as COM components or used directly in a desktop application.