Microsoft PressPass – Microsoft Releases Visual FoxPro 5.0 to Manufacturing
REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 28, 1996 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the release to manufacturing of its Visual FoxPro
™5.0 Professional Edition relational database development system for the Windows® operating system. The new release of Visual FoxPro adds extensibility and interoperability for ActiveX
™Technologies, enhanced performance, improved connectivity, and a flexible development environment. With this release of Visual FoxPro, Microsoft widens the range of tools available for and types of applications that can be created with Visual FoxPro, while maintaining compatibility with previous releases of the FoxPro® database management system.
“We think developers will be as excited as we are about this new version of Visual FoxPro,”
said Bob Muglia, vice president, developer tools at Microsoft.
“Seamless integration of Rapid Application Development tools and ActiveX Technologies with the database make Microsoft® Visual FoxPro 5.0 a model of synergy for all development tools.”
Support for ActiveX in Visual FoxPro 5.0 significantly extends the potential for Rapid Application Development (RAD) and tight integration with other Windows-based tools and applications. Using ActiveX Automation, developers can now encapsulate Visual FoxPro-based applications and efficiently call them from Microsoft Office, the Internet and elsewhere, thereby broadening the environment in which their applications are used and leveraging reusable application components for even faster and more efficient development.
Extending Application Functionality With ActiveX Controls
ActiveX Controls (formerly known as OLE Controls) are reusable software components available from over 400 independent software developers that can be added to existing applications with minimal additional coding. Using ActiveX Controls, developers can add unique functionality to their applications using prebuilt and pretested components compatible with the other Microsoft Visual Tools. With over 1,000 ActiveX Controls currently available and many hundreds more under development, Visual FoxPro developers can access a rich inventory of components to extend and enhance their applications. Visual FoxPro further extends the power of ActiveX Controls by enabling the use of ActiveX Controls in Visual FoxPro classes. A control’s properties may be manipulated, adding binding to specific data, for example, and then saved and reused in a Visual FoxPro class library. The approach speeds development and simplifies application maintenance.
Extending Visual FoxPro Applications With Remote Automation Servers
With the release of Visual FoxPro 5.0, developers can now turn all or part of their FoxPro 2.x- and Visual FoxPro-based applications into Visual FoxPro Automation Servers. These Visual FoxPro servers can then be called by applications that support Automation, including the Visual Basic® programming system, Office, and, using an included Internet connectivity layer, intranet or Internet Web browsers. This enables developers to thus provide powerful database connectivity to a broad audience of users. Visual FoxPro Automation Servers can be run either on a local PC or on a network server for distributed multitier applications. This facilitates the reuse of existing FoxPro and Visual FoxPro-based applications and enables a whole new class of distributed Visual FoxPro-based applications. The distributed architecture can provide high-performance data access, reduced client-side machine requirements, and easier maintenance of the now-centralized components.
Visual FoxPro 5.0 continues the FoxPro tradition of providing high performance both at development time and at run-time. Version 5.0 offers enhancements in object performance, memory efficiency and data retrieval speed. With speed improvements ranging from 10 percent to 300 percent, Visual FoxPro 5.0 achieves its greatest gains on low-end (8 MB of RAM) machines. Form load and refresh are significantly faster, enabling developers to build applications that are more responsive to the user.
FoxPro-based applications are typically deployed in distributed environments, many with remote offices and mobile users. A new Offline View feature allows for applications that can run against data on a connected network, and then detach from the network and easily switch to a data set running on the local machine. Offline Views can be used to build applications that support traveling users, remote offices with minimal bandwidth to the central office, or other network-constrained situations. The faster and more efficient development environment of Visual FoxPro allows developers to save time and money on routine programming chores with enhancements such as the Visual SourceSafe
™
version control system, a multiuser database container, outer joins, improvements to the program editor, a new debugger, and many other Rapid Application Development features.
Microsoft Visual FoxPro is a member of the Microsoft Visual Tools family, which includes Visual Basic, the Visual C++® programming system, the Visual J++
™
development tool and Microsoft Access. All of these tools share a common focus on RAD, extensible architecture via ActiveX components, and deep integration with other applications and operating system services.
Pricing and Availability
Visual FoxPro 5.0 is scheduled to be available in October for approximately $499 for new users and approximately $249 for users upgrading from previous versions or competitive products.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Visual FoxPro, Windows, ActiveX, FoxPro, Visual Basic, Visual SourceSafe, Visual C++ and Visual J++ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
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