A-1 FoxPro resources | Microsoft Office Automation with Visual FoxPro

FoxPro resources

The granddaddy of them all, the place where it all started, is CompuServe. There s been a Fox presence there for nearly as long as there have been Fox products. Starting as a single section in a multi-vendor forum, like Topsy, Fox Software s FoxForum "grew and grew" so that it needed an entire forum. A second, less technical, forum (FoxUsers) was added in the early 90s. Both weathered the migration to Microsoft s sponsorship, then finally to a third party when Microsoft left CompuServe for the Internet. For a brief, glorious period when Visual FoxPro first came out, there were even three FoxPro forums. That quickly settled back down to two forums, divided roughly into one for Visual FoxPro, and one for FoxPro 2.x and general discussions. Then, in December 1999, the two FoxPro forums were merged with several other forums devoted to Microsoft software to form the MSDevApps forum. Four of its sections are devoted specifically to FoxPro and Visual FoxPro, while a number of other sections address more general development issues and topics related to Microsoft-centric development (like HTML Help). CompuServe forums are a pleasure to use because of their rich threaded messaging model each original message is followed by the replies to that message, as well as the replies to the replies and so on. In addition to being threaded, it s easy to find replies to messages you posted, something that s hard to do in many web-based messaging systems, even those that are threaded. In addition, CompuServe does a tremendous job of keeping out spam you won t find abusive messages or ads for get rich quick schemes or porno sites. As of April 2000, many CompuServe forums are open to the general public, so you can participate in them, even if you re not a CompuServe member. Point your browser to go.compuserve.com/msdevapps?loc=US.

Microsoft sponsors newsgroups for FoxPro and Visual FoxPro on its public server, msnews.microsoft.com (Microsoft has assured us that if there are any changes to the addresses of any of their FoxPro sites, there will be information on msdn.microsoft.com/vfoxpro or at least that address will be redirected to the new address). Look for groups with names beginning with "microsoft.public.fox". Although Microsoft tries to keep out solicitations and other way off-topic posts, there s more of that stuff here than in any of the other FoxPro sites we list.

One of the busiest places to talk FoxPro on the Internet is the Universal Thread at www.universalthread.com. Like CompuServe, it offers threaded messaging with a way to find replies to your own postings. It s privately owned, and offers free access to all messages with a limited user interface. A reasonable monthly fee gets you a Premier Membership that gives access to some more advanced tools for using it.

A newer site that s gotten a lot of attention is www.foxforum.com, which has a different approach to looking at a message and its replies. It puts them all into a single message so that you don t have to keep clicking on Next, Next, Next to see the whole thread.

Unique in the FoxPro community is the forum s sister, the FoxForum wiki, fox.wikis.com. Rather than a discussion group or forum, it s an evolving knowledge base where anyone can post information on a topic and others can add to it or edit it. You can find entries there on everything from object-oriented frameworks to naming conventions and just about anything else to do with FoxPro and the Fox community you can think of. If it s not there, you can add it yourself.

Advisor Media sponsors forums for a variety of products, including FoxPro, on its web site, www.advisor.com. Choose Advisor forums from the home page.

Brand-new as we were putting this list together is www.vfpguru.com. The site is impressive-looking, featuring forums and a chat area, as well as space for downloads and articles. It remains to be seen whether it will attract enough users to make it worth stopping by.

Also a new addition is a discussion group for Visual FoxPro sponsored by Fawcette Technical Publications. Unlike vfpguru.com, however, devx.com is well-known in the developer community for its other discussion groups, so we expect this one to quickly become active. You ll find it at news.devx.com.

In addition to all this, a number of companies and individuals working with Visual FoxPro provide useful information and downloads on their web sites. You ll find links to them either as advertising at some of the sites listed here or in the messages themselves.