ChilkatVFP 1.50 Released Last Week

[Bill Anderson]

https://github.com/billand88/ChilkatVFP

Sorry for the late notice, had a total knee replacement done two days after the release...

Chilkat Version 11 exclusively uses the Chilkat.<class> COM call. Prior versions could use Chilkat_9_5_0.<class> for the COM call.

Introduced the ChilkatVFP.H header file to handle this situation. If you use Chilkat v11 or greater, open the ChilkatVFP.H, set the CHILKAT_VERSION_11.0.0_OR_GREATER variable to .T., then recompile ChilkatVFP.VCX. If you support multiple Chilkat versions, set appropriately. Note: *Your* registry may not need it (depends on what's in your registry) but the intended runtime machine will most likely need it. And be sure to include the compiled ChilkatVFP.VCX/VCT to the runtime machine.

A big release. Some older classes were removed, all the undocumented PEMs were removed, documented PEMs were removed and replaced by new functions. Many other functions marked as decremented for later removal.

So, the list of items done for this release:

1) Added ChilkatVFP.H with compile-time switch. See Documentation/History.md for details.
2) Compatibility with Chilkat version 11.0.0.
3) Added code to test for removed classes/properties/methods.

Bill Anderson

 

[GTGeek88]

Is this your product?

 

[Bill Anderson]

Is this your product?

GTGeek88,

I wrote the ChilkatVFP project, yes. It’s free to use.

Bill Anderson

 

[GTGeek88]

Alright, just wanted to get that clear in my brain. Figured, of course. I don't know if you just didn't express clearly what the changes are about or I am just misunderstanding. This is what confuses me: "documented PEMs were removed and replaced by new functions"

I don't understand. That sounds disastrous. That'd be like MS taking the PEMs in VFP and replacing them. "Hey, developers, it's not REPLACE any more. It's CHANGE." I must be wrong, but that's how I read it. What am I missing?

 

[Bill Anderson]

>> That'd be like MS taking the PEMs in VFP and replacing them. "Hey, developers, it's not REPLACE any more. It's CHANGE." I must be wrong, but that's how I read it. What am I missing?<<

Not much, actually.

Well, many PEMs were "hidden" - the documentation was removed but if you instantiated the object in the command window and displayed the list, you'd see things not in the online documentation. Or load it in the Object Browser. Simply put, there were better mechanisms put in place to replace those commands, and the old PEMs hung around. Think FIND vs SEEK in VFP, for example. There were undocumented PEMs that returned VFP DateTime values - useful to VFP developers and exposed a bit in ChilkatVFP.

But because there were alternatives in place for years, it was a good time to get rid of the "dreck" with the permanent change in the COM call. Now realize, of course, that if you're in version, say, 9.5.0.83, ChilkatVFP works for you just fine as before. My support goes back to 9.5.0.22 based on the provided online documentation. But now in Chilkat Version 11, I had to account for the removed classes/properties/methods and put up a dialog of some sort.

Chilkat is supporting 19 different OSes (I believe) while VFP has just 1. I think Chilkat is aiming for more consistency across platforms as well as language consistency.

Bill Anderson

 

[GTGeek88]

Well, ok, but with that wording it did sound like you'd taken everything documented and replaced it with something else. Like if MS had replaced every VFP PEM with something else and removed all the originals. Talk about breaking existing apps! Of course, I didn't really think you had, but the wording made it sound that way.