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Overview of Visual FoxPro Features

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Microsoft Visual FoxPro gives you more of everything you have come to expect in a database management system (DBMS) — speed, power, and flexibility. In addition, Visual FoxPro leads you into the next generation by providing object and event models that help you create and modify applications faster than ever before.

This section is meant to walk you through some of the major features in Visual FoxPro. For information on the newest enhancements in this version of Visual FoxPro, see What's New in Visual FoxPro.

In This Section

  • Rapid Application Creation
    You can develop applications rapidly with help from Visual FoxPro wizards, builders, toolbars, and designers. Using the Visual FoxPro object and event model, you can create prototypes and implement applications quickly.
  • The Advantages of More Power
    Visual FoxPro is much more powerful than its predecessors. Object-oriented programming speeds up application development through features such as subclassing. The Visual FoxPro event model eliminates the need to use foundation READ or write event handlers. Optimizing your system settings and implementing Microsoft Rushmore technology improves the performance of Visual FoxPro.
  • User Interface Creation without Programming
    Visual FoxPro provides powerful controls that you add with the Form Designer that gives you interfaces that require little or no coding.
  • Application Development with Several Developers
    If you have several developers working on your applications, you can use Visual FoxPro to make it possible for simultaneous access to database components. In addition, for tracking and protecting changes to your source code, you can use source control programs with the Project Manager.
  • Interaction with Other Applications
    With Visual FoxPro, you can share data with other applications, such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, use objects from other applications, and control other applications using automation.
  • Client/Server Solution Development
    You can use Visual FoxPro as a front end for developing robust client/server applications. Visual FoxPro combines the higher-level support of updateable views of server data with direct access to native server syntax using SQL pass-through.
  • Getting Started with Visual FoxPro
    Visual FoxPro is the object-oriented database management system that makes it possible for you to create state-of-the-art enterprise database solutions.
  • Customizing the Visual FoxPro Environment
    After you install Visual FoxPro, you might want to customize your development environment. Environment settings include the main window title, default directory, project, editor, debugger and form tool options, temporary file storage, field mappings for drag-and-drop operations, and many other options.
  • Using Visual FoxPro
    Visual FoxPro programming features are designed to improve developer productivity, including Access and Assign methods, support for more graphic file formats, and language to simplify programming tasks.
  • Developing Visual FoxPro Applications
    This section includes conceptual information about how to develop Visual FoxPro applications, instructions for creating databases and the user interface, and other tasks needed to create Visual FoxPro applications.
  • Programming in Visual FoxPro
    Visual FoxPro is a powerful interactive data management tool, but you also can access the full power of Visual FoxPro by creating applications. Understanding object-oriented programming techniques and the event-driven model can maximize your programming productivity.