New White Papers for 2017

I added eight new white papers to my web site, all from sessions or articles I wrote in 2016: http://doughennig.com/papers/default.html. The new ones are:

• Need Help? HTML Help Builder to the Rescue: Creating documentation for an application is something most developers dread. However, using West Wind Technologies' HTML Help Builder makes working on a help file almost fun!
• Working with Microsoft Excel, Part 1: Microsoft Excel is one of the most widely-used applications ever. Because of its popularity, other applications often need to read from or write to Excel documents. This document, the first of two, discusses several mechanisms for outputting VFP data to Excel.
• Working with Microsoft Excel, Part 2: Part 1 discussed several mechanisms for outputting VFP data to Excel. This document looks at ways to read Excel documents into VFP.
• Advanced Uses for Dynamic Form: Dynamic Form is an under-used project in VFPX. Its ability to create forms quickly and dynamically isn't something every developer needs but if you need it, Dynamic Form is indispensable. In this document, Doug discusses some advanced uses for Dynamic Form, including data driving the markup code.
• A Generic About Dialog: In "Advanced Uses for Dynamic Form", Doug discussed a couple of dynamic dialogs built with the assistance of Dynamic Form. In this document, he presents another dynamic, generic dialog, this time to display application information.
• Processing Whole Words: Visual FoxPro has many text processing functions, including ATC() and STRTRAN(). However, these functions suffer from one flaw: they are character-based rather than word-based, so they can find substrings you may not have wanted. In this document, Doug presents replacement functions that word on whole words.
• Creating Beautiful Web Sites Easily Using Bootstrap: Laying out a web page using HTML and CSS can be challenging. Botstrap is a free, open source framework for developing responsive, mobile-first web sites. It solves many problems web developers typically face and makes it easy to create beautiful web sites in record time, even for inexperienced developers. his document shows how to get started with Bootstrap, examines using its grid system to easily layout your page elements, and discusses how Bootstrap components add attractive and functional elements to your web site. We'll do a "makeover" of a real web site to show how easy is it to make it more attractive, functional, and mobile-friendly.
• Lessons Learned in Version Control: Rick Borup's sessions at previous Southwest Fox conferences really helped me get started using version control for my application development. Since then, I've made a ton of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons the hard way. This document discusses what has evolved into my team's best practices for version control. It's intended for those who are familiar with version control but are looking for ideas about how to improve their processes.