VFP Developer Studio (beta)

This is our brand new Integrated Development Environment which brings a whole new experience for programming in VFP.

Some of the Features you get: 

• You can compile prgs, VCXs (Visual Class libraries), SCXs (Visual FoxPro forms), DBC (Database Containers) right from the IDE. When your project contains VCX, SCX, DBC you get Intellisense and support for deriving from VCX and SCXs.
• Command Window so you are more dynamic than the other .NET Languages.
• m. (m and dot) display all the current variables

1. Complete as you type, just typing the first letters of a var name displays the Intellisense with the usual list.  It also works with VFP Functions and VFP Commands.

3. Ctrl+Space activates the autocompletion.  

4. Full Intellisense for both VFP Classes and all the .NET Framework, including for Method Overloading, Help about the methods, move the mouse over an identifier and it display what it is.  
5. You can design visually Winforms, we are working hard at enabling VFP Forms / Visual Class libraries to be designed inside the IDE.  Right now you can add those to your .NET project and have intellisense and inherit from them.
6. Debugging.  You can run your programs from the IDE, also you can attach to an external process and debug your code.    Special care has been taken to make that possible even with Multithreaded code as in ASP.NET.

5. Now when debugging are available tooltips for LOCAL (or PRIVATE) vars, fields and aliased expressions (MyWorkArea.MyField) just move your mouse over the field or variable name to see the current value. Check the sample TestDatabase to see this feature in action. And of course you can add to the debugger watches LOCAL vars, fields and aliased expressions and see them as normal. This is a major feature that makes debugging database or table handling code really simple and powerful.

6. Code Folding.  You can expand or contract classes, methods, procedures, this helps a lot when dealing with large classes.  

7. Syntax Highlighting. Several different colors are available for different part of your code (PROCEDURES), Command, Command Clauses, VFP Functions and all that is customizable by you.

8. Code tips.  Move your mouse over a command, function, variable or method invocation in your code and it will display info about what it is, clauses, where it is defined, what are the expected parameters and the return type..  

9. Code Navigation.  Right click in an class name, variable identifier, method invocation and select Goto Definition to show where it is defined or where the method is declared.  

10. MSBuild integration.  Because it is based in the same building model used with Visual Studio, you can build your projects thru the IDE or thru the command line.  

11. You can extend the IDE coding your extension in the Visual Foxpro language. We are using the VFP Language to build the IDE and we can tell you it is a lot better than using other languages.
12. Powerful debugging you can start current project or attach to running executables including Web Applications and Power debug your code.
13. You can extend the IDE creating Addins in the VFP Language. We are doing this to support VFP Projects, VFP Intellisense and lots more.

 And as it is based in the AddIn Model from SharpDevelop you get access to all the great addins available or you can build your own addins, of course using VFP

Some interesting Addings available:

• Subversion.  You can setup your own repositories and connect to remote repositories as Google Code, SourceForge.NET, CodePlex and others to checkout project’s source code and track changes, merge changes and more.  
• Code Coverage.  This AddIn let you see how much of your code is executed, useful to evaluate if you Tests are extensive enough.
• Xaml designer.  This is only available if you install the .NET Framework 3.5.  It allows you to design Visually Windows Presentation Foundation applications and in the future even Silverlight Applications. We are shipping a sample named WPFVFPApplication that show DataBinding the VFP Way.
• Wix Setup.  To create your Deployment projects.
• Unit Testing.  To produce better code using NUnit and all the Testing Related functionality.

 You don’t even need VFP installed to work.  So you can start hiring new programmers and train them in VFP.NET without a VFP Copy.

And we already can code faster with the IDE than with VFP.  It is specially great for .NET Extender and for code heavy in .NET Use.

LOCAL oInfo as SomeNameSpace::SomeClass

oInfo dot && display all the .NET Intellisense so it is better than coding under VFP