HOWTO: Use the Visual FoxPro Solutions Application (156036)

SUMMARY

Visual FoxPro ships with a Solutions sample application, in VFP\Samples\Solution\Solution.app in Visual FoxPro 5.0 or the MSDN directory under Samples\vfp98\Solution\Solution.app in Visual FoxPro 6.0, that provides examples for accomplishing common database and programming tasks. This article offers some tips on how to find particular examples in the Solutions application and more information about each example.

MORE INFORMATION

The Solutions sample has a separate help file, in VFP\Samples\Solution\Solution.hlp in Visual FoxPro 5.0 or the MSDN directory under Samples\vfp98\Solution\Solution.chm in Visual FoxPro 6.0, that provides an overview of the sample and a description of every element in the sample.

You can choose the Behind the Scenes button on any form to open the description for that form. If you run a query or report from SOLUTION.APP, open the description by pressing the F1 key. You can see a list of all components by clicking on "List of Components" in the non-scrolling region of the Solutions Sample topic. When you choose the Index button in the Help file, you can search for samples by keywords. For instance, you could search for BEGIN TRANSACTION to find the topic for the Nest Transactions sample.

You can also filter samples by category in the Solution form by choosing the "View samples by filtered list" Option button. If you were interested in examples using arrays, for example, you could choose "Array Manipulation" in the drop-down list to display the samples that use arrays, whether or not that is the primary focus of the sample.

Another way to look at the sample applications is to open SOLUTION.DBF. For example:

   USE SOLUTION

   BROWSE FOR type != "N"

A type of "N" indicates that the record is not a sample, but rather a category for the treeview in solution.scx. The DESCRIPT field contains a record for each component in the Solutions sample and a brief description of the sample.