Build 333

The latest addition to Guineu is SYS(8009). With this function you can send and receive data over the internet or intranet using the HTTP protocol.

Local lcWeb
lcWeb = Sys(8009,"GET","http://guineu.foxpert.com")
MessageBox( Left(m.lcWeb,500) )
lcWeb = Sys(8009,"POST","http://server/process.php","data")

You are not limited to transfer text data. For instance, you can have a web page that calls a Visual FoxPro COM server. The COM server could execute a query into a temporary DBF and then return the DBF file. In the same way you can transfer a DBF file to the server where server side scripts can process the content.

Instead of a VFP COM server you could also use a PHP script that accesses a MySql database.

If you want to pass on state information to a VFP application running on the web server, you can use SAVE MEMORY to save all current variables. On the backend you can use RESTORE MEMORY to load the variable set into memory. This is especially useful when the remote script executes a query and query parameters have been stored in local variables.

Build 331

I've fixed a number of bugs. Most importantly, there was a breaking bug in the desktop UI engine that is now fixed. If launching a form brings up an error right away, please download this build. Some minor issues in ALINES() and STRTOFILE() have also been fixed.

Build 329

Today's build implements SET NOTIFY. While there are currently no messages that are suppressed by SET NOTIFY, this is one command less that you would need to remove from your code. When Guineu encountered an unknown command, in the past you got an error message stating line 1 as the culprit. The latest version accurately reports the compiled code line that caused the problem

Tab order handling: The TabIndex property is now available for all controls on mobile devices. For desktop controls TabIndex has no effect, as of now, but doesn't cause an error, either. For desktop controls the property will be available shortly.

Two other reported bugs have been fixed: Passing THIS and THISFORM to a function doesn't raise an invalid type error anymore. Furthermore, accessing a non-existing object brings up a proper "Member not found" error message instead of a .NET runtime exception.

New online help

The online help (http://guineu.foxpert.com/help) has been enhanced. Not only does the help file now contain additional content. There's also a new search feature available that performs a full text search on the entire documentation.

Build 322

When a package is delivered to your home these days, you don't sign on paper anymore. Instead, the delivery person is asking you to sign on their mobile scanner. The same requirement came up for multiple Guineu applications, be it to sign for delivery, for receipts, etc.

I'm happy to report that such a control is now available in Guineu. Before you can use the new Signature control, you have to activate the Signature base class with the new SYS(8008) function. This SYS function provides additional base classes that are not in Visual FoxPro. To remain compatible with Visual FoxPro, these classes are disabled by default.

There's also a new Signature sample project with the form you see on the figure. Signatures can be stored in a memo field in either a binary format that can be loaded into the control, or as a bitmap. You can use an Image control and assign the content of the memo field to the PictureVal property to display the signature. PictureVal has been added to the Image control in this release, as well.

Build 317

Currently I'm at the SouthWest FoxPro conference in Phoenix giving various sessions. Among them is one session about doing mobile development with Guineu.

The last few versions have seen a number of bug fixes. GuineuIDE is now faster as forms and classes are only regenerated when they have changed. New in the language is the BOF() function as requested on the forum. During yesterday's session support for writing memo fields has been requested. That's also available in the new build. Forms now support the Unload event. Editboxes and Textboxes do have the ReadOnly event.

The help file has been updated. As it turned out, a number of functions have been implemented, but weren't documented.

Build 302

In the past I've been using a combination of Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 to develop Guineu. I finally upgrade Visual Studio on the build machine, as well, and moved development completely to Visual Studio 2008. As a user you aren't affected by this move since Guineu remains a .NET 2.0 application.

The past few releases mainly fixed a number of bugs: SELECT 0 does now move to the next free work area. Edit boxes have a vertical scroll bar just like in Visual FoxPro. Checkboxes deal properly with the Value property. Deleted records are not shown in the grid. Replacing a string field with an empty string clears the field now.