Visual FoxPro is in the news again

Many of you know that the Donor Manager is written in Visual FoxPro, a wonderful database programming language by Microsoft.

These days, VFP seems a bit out of favor with Microsoft, who is pushing their also very nice Visual Studio.NET as their premier programming environment.

But, it is interesting to note that VFP is now rated higher that VB.NET in terms of programmer interest. Here is an interesting article on that. Be sure to read the comment at the end trying to explain why VFP made a huge jump in popularity in the past few months:

http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2006/4/17/1892314.html

VFP is truly a workhorse programming language.

What's coming ...

Once I get the Visual FoxPro 9 update done, then I hope to work on the personalize bulk email routine, and the "Donor Manager for Organizations" additions.

The organizations routines will add support for more fund ids, more reporting options, receipts and statements.

Oh, and more categorization options. The 10 user definable lists just are not enough for many people, so I'm thinking of how to expand that.

Oh, and multi-currency support is coming as well, but I'm not sure just how soon.

Version 5.36 posted

I posted version 5.36 the other day. I can't believe it's been in beta so long, but I work a little on it here, and a little there.

Finally, I figured, enough is enough. Let's get it out there for everyone besides the beta testers.

So far, it's gone pretty well. I've had the usual few bugs to get out that were not caught in the beta testing period, but not too many.

A bunch of new organizations have been added, and just today, I got request for 2 more.

These are generally pretty easy to add, although the WBT ones that come in an RTF file are really, really a challenge.

The next big leap, after getting this version launched is to make the switch to Visual FoxPro 9.

This will add nice screen resizing, plus a number of goodies to the programmer right away. It will require a big download for everyone, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I've already done a "trial run" of the upgrade process and it looks like I should be able to do it in just a day or two. Then, once that Fox 9 version is stable, I'll start adding goodies again.

Visual FoxPro 9 CDs ... at last!

I'm excited. I finally got my CD with the latest version of Visual FoxPro.

I know, not many people get excited about a new compliler, but I'm one of those who does!

There are a lot of new features in version 9, especially in significantly enhanced reporting features. I'll have to figure out what to use, and then begin the migration from Visual FoxPro 6 (which I used for the Donor Manager) to version 9.

I skipped version 7 completely, and used 8 for several projects, and now will move everything to version 9.

Rumours of Visual FoxPro's death continue, but the program still is a wonderful language for putting together nice database applications. I do remember when the Garner Group (one of the largest computer consulting firms in the world) announced to their clients that VFP was dead and that no new releases would be coming, and that people should be making the move.

Oh, and that announcement was made in 1992 when Visual FoxPro 3.0 was released.

Version 5.33 released

After a long period in beta, I released version 5.33 this past weekend.

And, of course, no sooner did I release it and send out the announcements that I found a few bugs and added a few new goodies.

I put in support for those using Firebird as their email client (at least I hope that it will work now for them ... feedback is invited), as well as a few small things.

I have several more import routines to finish writing ... each one is stuck at some stage and what they need is just a good evening of coke and pizza fueled programming effort.

We've relocated back to Kenya now and are living in Nairobi. My ministry assignment has me travelling a LOT throughout central and western Kenya, doing mostly significant things for the Kingdom, and I have a lot less time for programming. But, hopefully I'll be able to keep adding new features.

more development on the next DM

I've had a good chance over the past few days to continue working on the enhancements to the giving details part of the Donor Manager.

I now have changes made in the history grid cross-posting to the giving details list (these terms can be confusing!). Plus, I think I fixed a bug in the detail posting routine.

I'm hoping to get a good bit done this weekend on the personalized email engine (aka: spam routine). I'm about ready to release it so a few select beta testers, then see how that goes on their systems. It runs on my system, but that's not guarantee it will work elsewhere!

I continue to watch the development of the upcoming version of FoxFire. This is a real nice upgrade and people will really like it. The report designer is much easier to use.

I'm continuing to work on learning some .NET stuff. There are some things that are very easy to do in Fox that are hard, hard, hard in .NET. And, there are some things that are the other way, too. I took a few free online seminars offered by MS$, and they send me a free book ($40), some free CD based training, plus a fully licensed copy of VB.NET. Free. What a deal. They are sure encouraging people to move into .NET.

Meanwhile, Visual FoxPro 9 continues to move toward it's public release, some time in early 2005. The DM will definately make the jump to Fox 9, and I'm playing around with some interface enhancements as well that I think people will like.

5.32 beta 4 posted

Almost as soon as I posted beta 3, I got a call and some emails reporting some bugs whenever you leave the "touches" screen. Fixed in beta 4.

Also, I rewrote the routine that calculates the dates when generating the new giftdetail file. The old one made all dates some day in January ... oops. I was thinking "british" style dates when I wrote that routine, and the program (internally) wants american format dates.

Beta 4 fixes this, also.

To get the program to re-generate the giving detail with correct dates, do this:

1. download and install beta 4

2. quit the donor manager, and then go in (using Windows Explorer or My Computer) delete the files giftdetail.dbf, giftdetail.cdx, and giftdetail.fpt (in c:\donor5\data ... or wherever you are keeping your data files).

3. then, restart the DM, and it will re-generate the giving history files.

Note: please consider these giving detail file experimental at this point. Don't spent a lot of time customizing the information until we get this a bit more stable.

Thanks!

starting a new beta cycle: 5.32 beta 3

I've started a new Donor Manager beta cycle to put in some new features that folks have requested.

I'm also going to try using the blog as a way of documenting what's new in the various updates. We'll see how that goes.

I've just uploaded a beta (I'm calling it 5.32 beta 3 ... When released, it will probably be version 5.40).

This beta adds several new features:

The "personalize / customize" screen has been changed. This is mostly to give me more room for future customizations.

The user can now optionally specify a default country that will be added to all new records. In addition, they can fill in all records that don't have a country filled in with this information with one click. This is on /Personalize /Editing Options

I have added the ability for users to specify the font used on mailing labels. I've had some reports that some of the labels are "off" a bit in their layout on the labels, so feedback will be helpful on this. I don’t use labels much, so your feedback (via email to john@donormanager.com) would be most helpful.

I've fixed a few bugs that had been reported in some previous versions.

I'm beginning to add the ability to track individual gifts, not just monthly totals. Look at the "giving details" tab on the partner master record. There's more to be done here.

In addition, by tracking individual gifts, we can now track the "account" or "fund" that this gift is applied to, and the "motive" or "appeal" or "reason" that the gift came in. There are no reports or analysis on this yet... What would you like to see?

Support for UK style addresses. Basically, the "state" field has been made longer so that "province" or "county" names can be put in here. On /Personalize /Editing Options take a look at the new "address style" option. Set it for "UK" and then look at a partner detail screen. You'll see what I mean.

If there are reports that are messed up by these changes, be sure to let me know!

There are several other small things added that I can't think of just now!

FoxFire 8 ... not out yet, but looking better and better!

The next version of FoxFire appears pretty close to release.

Take the tour at the link above. It looks pretty impressive and will be a very nice enhancement to the Donor Manager.

As I was looking through the latest update to the tour, I was impressed with the ability of the program to run a report, and e-mail sections of the report (as the report is running) to different people.

Imaging your mission printing account activity reports .... one report .... and as each account changes, the report writer emails (as a pdf) that section of the report to the person in charge of that account.

One account .... a thousand accounts. All handled in one batch action.

If it works, I'll be impressed, and I can already think of at least a dozen uses for this. Maybe not in the donor manager, but in other apps I have helped with.

We'll see!

Neck deep in Pro-Matrix work

The past month has seen just a little development on the Donor Manager. In between a lot of travel and speaking as we try to finish up our support raising, most of my programming efforts have been concentrating on the Academic Records software that I'm re-writing for Wesley Seminary (www.wbs.edu).

The program is in use daily and it has been going quite well. There have been the usual minor glitches, plus a few errors in data design that have shown up quickly and were easily fixed. We were even able to make a link to put the data (FoxPro) up on their website so that students and faculty can access their academic records via the net.

The app also has to talk to GoldMine (contact manager) and AccPac (accounting) software, and that part isn't done yet.

Most of the stuff yet to be done is minor bells and whistles and additional special needs reports.

ProMatrix with it's robust and active data dictionary has been a real boost to this project, and I continue to be impressed with it.

I'm more and more impressed with Visual Pro Matrix

In addition to the Donor Manager, I've also been working on another major software project. It's an update to an Academic Records Management program that I've been working on at various schools in various versions over the past 10 years.

For this latest version, I decided to build it on the Visual Pro-Matrix framework. Although the learning curve is not insiginificant, the more and more I work with Pro-Matrix, the more I like it.

Basically, it is an add-on to Visual FoxPro that helps manage the development of complex software projects. It is a framework, an advanced data dictionary, plus a very rich set of object libraries that can really enhance the development of programs.

I don't like the way that it does everything, but everything is customizable it has a tremendous feature set. It is going to be a major asset to this software.

I'm writing this for Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi (www.wbs.edu). We're making it as flexible as possible so that other schools who might have need of a program like this could benefit as well.

If you track things like this, it has a similar feature set as TROUSERS (www.trousers.org), but goes beyond it in a number of area (way beyond it in several areas).

If you have a need for database programming, I'd recommend taking a look at ProMatrix. They are also working on a .NET version and a ASP.NET version as well to help automate .NET development for the desktop and the web.

It can use about any back end database (native Fox Tables, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, etc.), and fully supports an n-tier architecture (if you know what that means, you know why it is important).

New version of High Impact E-mail has been released

For the past several years, I've been using a really great program called "High Impact E-Mail." This program works as an add-in to Outlook and Outlook Express and give very nice, very professional predefined html e-mail templates.

I notice the other day that they have a new version out (version 3.0). Read about it here.

Highly recommended.

I noticed that this new version includes personalized html emails. What fun! Actually, that's a feature that is in the newest Donor Manager (as I write this it hasn't been released yet -- still some more testing to do before public release), but the professional templates they give are are simply beautiful.

I know that some people dislike html email (really dislike it!), but I like it, and this is a great app to help the design challenged, like me!