Author / Kevin Ragsdale

by Kevin Ragsdale

I Thought This Blog Was About Visual FoxPro!!!

I like to check out the site statistics for my blog to get an idea of how many people read the postings, which posts are most popular, etc.

I also like to check out the referrals, so I can get an idea of “how” people are finding the posts.

I just found something interesting in the referrals for my post about the day I spoke atFoxForward:

Most of the referrals came in from people searching Google for “hot showers” or “shower guy”!!! (I mentioned in the post that I had taken a hot shower that morning.)

I wonder if any of these searches came in from any of our esteemed congressmen…

Strangely enough, I decided to take a shot at doing a Google Blog Search on “hot shower”.

Out of 826,549 hits, my post was number 34.

It seems I may have found a new way to market our beloved Visual FoxPro…

UPDATE: After rechecking my Google Blog Search link, I found that my post was gone from the 34th spot. But, this post was NUMBER ONE!!!

This post originally appeared on the Foxite Weblogs site.

 

by Kevin Ragsdale

Desktop Alerts Source Code Now Available

After many stops and starts over the past couple of weeks, I’ve finally posted the source code for the Desktop Alerts System.

You can download the file here (558kb).

The zip file, DesktopAlerts.zip, contains three files: a README file, the PDF version of the whitepaper from the FoxForward 2006 conference, and an additional zipped file (all source code and a compiled EXE).

I have found in my testing that if I recompile the project in VFP 7 or VFP 8, the Alert form size and placement is “off”, so I recommend using VFP 9 SP1.

If you have the VFP 9 runtimes installed, you can ‘install’ the EXE by running the executable (vfpalert.exe) with the /regserver switch.

Once ‘installed’, you can start the Desktop Alerts System with code like the following:

oMgr = CreateObject(“VFPAlert.AlertManager”)

If you run Windows Task Manager, you will see a new process named “vfpalert.exe”. This is the Desktop Alerts System, waiting for you to create some alerts.

To create a quick alert, try the following:

oAlert = oMgr.NewAlert()

then

oAlert.Alert(“Hello World!”)

Check the source code for all available parameters.

If you want to do something with the return value from an alert, you will need to set up a callback object before you call the Alert() method (see the PROGRAM1.PRG, PROGRAM2.PRG, and FROMVFP6.PRG files in the source code directory for more info).

If you have any questions, comments, etc, please feel free to contact me via the contact information in the README.TXT file.

I have sent a proposal to VFPX for the Desktop Alerts System, because there is still a ton of work that can be done to improve it. In the meantime, have fun with this, and let me know how/where/why you make fixes to it!!!

This post originally appeared on the Foxite Weblogs site.