Stonefield Query SDK Version 3.3 Released

We released version 3.3 of the Stonefield Query SDK today. Other versions, such as for Sage Accpac ERP, Sage Pro, ACT!, and so on will be released over the next few weeks; watch our blog for release information.

The list of new and enhanced features in version 3.3 is extensive; see the online versions of the end-user help and SDK help for complete details. Here are the major new features.

Report Designer

• The new Formula Editor allows you to create your own formulas without using the Advanced Report Designer or customizing the data dictionary.
• The new Show percentage of total option in the Format page of the Field Properties dialog automatically adds a new column to the report showing the percentage that the field is of the subtotal in detail lines, of the next level of grouping in subgroup footers, and of the grand total for group footers.
• Turn on the new Show totals in group headers option in Step 5 of the Quick Report Wizard and the Options page of the Reports Explorer to display group totals in the group header rather than the group footer.
• Stonefield Query now supports Crystal Reports reports. You can add them to Stonefield Query using the External Report Wizard.
• The Preview window is no longer modal, meaning you can open multiple instances. Also, the new Preview reports in tabbed pages setting in the Options dialog allows you to determine whether different preview windows are used when you run more than one report or whether the reports appear as different tabs in the same preview window.
• There are several new output options available. You can specify that a timestamp is added to the file created to prevent overwriting existing files, that the file emailed to someone shouldn't be deleted after the email is sent, and what filename to use for the emailed file.
• Previous versions of Stonefield Query create a report as a PDF file when emailing the report to someone. You can now specify the type of file used as an attachment.
• You can now specify that each group in a report should be output to a separate file or email and that the email address should come from a field in the report itself. This can be used, for example, to email invoices to customers; the report is grouped by customer name and includes the customer's email address, so each customer's records are emailed to them.
• You can now sort fields in database order or alphabetical order in Step 2 of the report wizards.
• You can now tell Stonefield Query to display in the Tables drop-down list only those tables related to tables already appearing in the selected list.
• Reports are now stored as export files with an SFX extension in a folder structure that exactly matches the folders in the Reports Explorer.
• The new Send summary queries to database engine setting in the Options dialog allows you to specify whether Stonefield Query or the database engine does data summarization. This may significantly improve the performance of certain types of reports.
• The new Run report with no records option in Step 5 of the report wizards and the Options page in the Reports Explorer allows you to run a report when there are no records that match your conditions.

SDK

• The data dictionary now supports versioning. This is useful if tables and fields were added to or removed from the database between versions and you have some users using an older version and some using a newer version but they're all using the latest version of your customized Stonefield Query. To prevent users from selecting tables and fields that may not exist in their version of the database, you can specify the version number for each table and field that doesn't exist in all versions.
• Stonefield Query now supports scripting in VB.Net and C#.
• Like us, you may have a blog or news feed describing changes to your application. However, most users don't read blogs. So, Stonefield Query now includes a built-in news reader. If you fill in the URL for News Feeds configuration setting with the URL for an RSS feed, the news reader is available to your users.
• The Create Help Files function in the Configuration Utility now runs Stonefield Query and automates the generation of all customized screen shots, so there's no need to do that manually any more. That can save you a considerable amount of time.
• You can now refresh a single database rather than all databases if you wish by selecting the Refresh Database function from the Objects or shortcut menus.
• The new Number of Days for Demo Version configuration setting allows you to create a shorter demo period than the default 30 days if you wish.
• The code window opened when you right-click the code for a script and choose Zoom now supports find capability. Right-click in the code window and choose Find from the shortcut menu. Also, when you choose Build Expression from the shortcut menu, the Stonefield Query Expression Builder is now used.
• A new Test button in the database properties page of the Configuration Utility allows you to test that the connection settings are correct.

Southwest Fox Sessions and Speakers Announced

We announced the speaker and session lineup for Southwest Fox 2009 today. This year was the hardest yet selecting from the list of proposals because we had a record number of submissions. Once again, there are great topics such as using Visual Earth in VFP applications, implementing MySQL, getting the most out of FoxCharts, and adding full-text search to your applications.

Registration is now open, so be sure to sign up today for a fun three days in Phoenix in October. Take advantage of the “Southwest Fox Stimulus Plan”: if you register before July 1, you save $125 and get a free half-day pre-conference session, a $99 value. With sessions on Web development, source control, and refactoring legacy code, the hard part will be picking which one to attend.

We also offer an early-bird special: register before September 1 and save $50.

We're looking forward to seeing you in October!

Stonefield Software Inks Australian Distribution Deal with Sage

Stonefield Software has signed a distribution deal with Sage Business Solutions to expand the distribution of our popular database reporting software, Stonefield Query, to the Australian, NZ and Pacific Island Market. The new agreement builds on our dramatic growth as the premier end-user focused database reporting software solution in the U.S. and Canada, and expands into the Australian and New Zealand region with a prospective market share of tens of thousands of Sage Software users.

For details, see our press release page or press release itself.

2009 Ceil Silver Ambassador

We are pleased to announce that César Chalom has been selected as the 2009 Ceil Silver Ambassador. He will attend Southwest Fox 2009 and represent the Brazilian VFP community.

César, a software developer from São Paulo, Brazil, has worked with Visual FoxPro since 2003, and is an active member of the Brazilian VFP community. He has attended the Brazilian VFP conference since 2004 and presented sessions at the conference in 2006 and 2008. He is well known to the global VFP community for his contributions to several VFPX community projects, including GDIPlusX and FoxCharts. His blog is an excellent source of technical material on GDIPlusX and other VFP topics.

We are very excited that César can attend Southwest Fox 2009 and know that many attendees are looking forward to meeting him in person.

Controlling DisplayCount in ComboBoxes

The DisplayCount property of the ComboBox class controls how many items the user sees when the ComboBox is dropped down. Normally this is a fixed value, so even though there may be plenty of room to display more items, the user can only see so many and has to scroll to see more.

I like to set DisplayCount dynamically based on how much room there is between the ComboBox's position and the bottom of the screen. I used the following code in the DropDown method of my base ComboBox class to handle this:

* Set DisplayCount to an appropriate value based on how much room there is
* below the form.

local lnHeight
lnHeight = iif(Thisform.ShowWindow = 2 or ;
  (pemstatus(Thisform, 'Desktop', 5) and Thisform.Desktop), sysmetric(2), ;
  _vfp.Height)
This.DisplayCount = max(ceiling((lnHeight - Thisform.Top - ;
  objtoclient(This, 1))/This.Height), 7)

Check Your Bank Statements!

Here's a cautionary tale about banks that happened to us recently: http://www.softwareceo.com/products_services/hp_article.aspx?arttype=TT&page=0

Encrypting VFP Tables Using Advantage Database Server

J. D. Mullin blogged about a new video he posted showing how to encrypt VFP tables using Advantage Database Server (ADS). This is the latest in a series of videos on using ADS with VFP tables.

Southwest Fox Session Proposals Due Next Week

Just a reminder that session proposals for Southwest Fox 2009 are due on Monday, March 16. We are always looking for new speakers, so if you have some interesting ideas, submit your proposals by Monday.

Servoy Webinar for VFP Developers

Servoy is presenting a free Webinar discussing their product for VFP developers on March 26, 2009 at 10 am PST.

VFP DDEX Provider Updated

As Craig Berntson notes, Microsoft released an updated VFP DDEX Provider yesterday. The original, part of Sedna, had an expired license key so it wouldn't work if you installed it after March 2008. The new version is also a little easier to install, as there are fewer steps. I posted the new version of VFPX on the DDEX for VFP page.