Thanks for the information on VMP Louis. I really appreciate it.
Tracy

>Hi Tracy,
>
>Obviously, I'm biased because I've been using VMP on a daily basis. But, to answer your question: Yes, you can incorporate existing VF apps into your MaxFrame app. We've been doing it here for the past year.
>
>When we first started doing this, we tinkered with what would be the master application control interface. We wrote a little program that dynamically created buttons based on the user security. We toyed with executing existing .EXEs by making use of ShellExecute. We thought about various version checking techniques and automatic updates. We looked into trying to tie the application in with the NT security.
>
>We decided upon merging everything into one monolithic MaxFrame app. One of the major reasons was the built in security features and security interface.
>
>We've been taking existing apps that have been working for years and slowly merging them into one monolithic MaxFrame app. We have a MAIN directory which has a standard set of subdirectories: DATA,PROGS,REPORTS,etc... We also have an APPLICATIONS directory under MAIN. When we take an existing app we wish to incorporate into the master MaxFrame app, we create a directory for that app under the APPLICATIONS directory, and create the same set of subdirectories: DATA,PROGS,REPORTS,etc... One neat trick is that MaxFrame builds the CONFIG.FPW into the executable. So if we stick with the convention of every application subdirectory having a DATA,PROGS,REPORTS,etc... subdirectory structure, then all we have to do is change to that application subdirectory and all the pathing stays intact. The changing of directories to the sub-application directory and back is done via menu procedures. This gives us the added bonus of using MaxFrame's security to allow or deny access to various menu
>items. Since MaxFrame uses GenMenux, I prefer to have the menu options removed all together for the users that do not have access.
>
>Some other fringe benefits to this approach:
>
>We have one app with security control for everyone that accesses the app either on the LAN or remotely.
>
>We have a nice version checking routine built in so that client apps are automatically updated. Therefore, we don't have to keep installing stuff on client computers.
>
>MaxFrame has a cool hack tool for forms. When you are ready to convert an existing app to MaxFrame (if needed), you can hack the forms to change the base classes. Of course, this is where most of the tweaking is done.
>
>We can see who is in the system from one of the security screens and bump people out of the system if necessary (Only had to do this one time near the very beginning).
>
>Louis