New Features

Update Subscription

Now you can purchase an annual subscription and get all the latest goodies from Foxfire!. For a low price, you get all of the updates as they come out, including new data dictionary (DBCX2) tools, object model and more!

Foxfire! v 6.04 - Available February 2003

Version 6.04 is now available for all customers with current update subscriptions and new purchases of the product. Existing customers should purchase the Update Subscription to take advantage of all the new features!

Sort Labels

When running summary reports, you can now label your Counts instead of the standard Item Count label. Make your reports mean something by using a Count Label instead!

Customizable Administration Menu

You can now customize the System Administrator menu to meld better with your applications! Add, remove and rename options to fit your needs!

Better SQL Connectivity

Foxfire! 6.04 now lets you work with virtually any ODBC source that uses SQL! With a new configuration option, you can link your data items to any ODBC source. Advanced SQL options may require some customization on your part.

More Implementation Options

Foxfire! 6.04 now lets developers control more about how Foxfire! integrates with their environment with brand new configuration variables:

Foxfire! v 6.03 - Available August 2002

Version 6.03 is now available for all customers with current update subscriptions and new purchases of the product. Existing customers should purchase the Update Subscription to take advantage of all the new features!

Sort At Runtime

You've always been able to Ask At Runtime but now with Foxfire 6.03, you can SORT at runtime. This makes it easier for users who want to keep the content the same but change the look of the report all at runtime!

Import and Export Joins

Foxfire 6.03 updates the Request Import and Export tools to include the Joins file, allowing you to update all elements of your meta data with a single export.

Foxfire! v 6.02 - Available April 2002

Version 6.02 is now available for all customers with current update subscriptions and new purchases of the product. Existing customers should purchase the Update Subscription to take advantage of all the new features!

PDF Support

Foxfire 6.02 now includes built-in support for PDF report writers from Adobe, Amyuni and the popular shareware Win2PDF! Don't have a PDF report writer - download a fully functional demo of Win2PDF from Dane Prairie!

Send Email from within Foxfire!

Foxfire! 6.02 now includes an email engine so you can email PDFs, spreadsheets, charts and more - all from within Foxfire!. Foxfire! supports Outlook (not Outlook Express) and CDO (Collaborative Data Objects in Win NT, 2000, and XP). You can even customize it with built-in hooks in the FFCONFIG. module.

Auto Import Facility

Foxfire 6.02 includes a sample program to show you how to auto-import requests that have been exported using our Import/Export facility! With Auto-Import, you can distribute new reports invisibly to end users!

Improved Charting & Excel Support

Foxfire 6.02 now creates charts faster and better than ever before, thanks to updates that use Excel's COM Automation instead of DDE. This also makes Foxfire! work better with international versions of Excel!

Add-in Support

Foxfire 6.02 supports developer add-ins such as our forth-coming DBCX2 Integration and Data Item Updater.

Improved Query

Foxfire 6.02 Enterprise Edition supports optimized date queries from various ODBC Sources!

Foxfire! v 6.01 - Available January 2002

Improved Excel Support

Foxfire 6.01 now runs better with Excel 97 and 2000, thanks to updates that use Excel's COM Automation instead of DDE. This also makes Foxfire! work better with international versions of Excel!

Custom Data Grouping

Have a lot of data items? Using our new Custom Data Grouping feature, you can make it easier on your users by grouping your data. One of the great new features of 6.01 lets you specify a field to use for grouping (it defaults to user group ids) When your users select data items for their report, they can immediately see the data items they want with a custom filter! Read our white paper to see how much easier you can make your data items!

Runtime Output Options

After you've finished previewing a report to the screen, you can now send it directly to the Printer, Excel and all of the other output formats (including XML!!), without having to go to the Output screen.

XML/XSL Support

Both Standard and Enterprise editions of Foxfire! now support XML as an output option. When using XML, you can choose to have Foxfire! generate an XSL stylesheet, build your own or just output standard XML. This feature works in VFP 6 and 7, so you can provide XML support today!

Importing and Exporting Requests

The Import and Export utilities allow a developer or users to distribute Requests between disconnected Foxfire! installations. A Request export file can be created and sent to another site for importation into another system.

When you select Requests to export, you can also specify to include associated Data Items used in the Request. This includes Data Items used for any part of the Request; Fields list, Filters, Sorting and Grouping, etc.

Any custom FoxPro report layouts associated with the Request can also be imported and exported.

To make the importing and exporting as simple as possible, all the exported metadata, the Request records, the Data Item records, and the complete Layout structure (.frx file), are combined into a single XML document. Using XML makes it possible to normalized all the detailed metadata that's stuffed into Foxfire! Request record structures, and just as importantly, allows for the creation of a single import/export file instead of having to bundle many different file fragments together for distribution.

Web Publisher

Foxfire! v6.01 includes the Foxfire! Web Publisher free. The Web Publisher allows users to run Foxfire! Requests from a browser over an intranet or the internet, using WestWind WebConnect!

Support for Access, MS SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase databases

The Enterprise Developers Edition supports querying the above databases using ODBC and SQL Passthrough.

Support for the SQL JOIN clause and Outer Joins (for qualified ODBC datasources)

Foxfire! v6.0 can build Sql joins using the JOIN clause syntax. This allows you to build Requests with INNER, LEFT, RIGHT, or FULL JOINs specified on each join in the Request. Previous versions of Foxfire! were limited to two table outer joins. Now you can specify as many outer joins as allowed by the particular database queried (VFP limit is about 9 joins).

Foxfire! will still build joins using the WHERE clause. You can configure Foxfire! to default to using either the JOIN or WHERE clause. Whatever the default, each individual Request can also specify the join style used, overriding the Preference default.

Improved User Interface

Foxfire! v6.0 has had an extensive user interface makeover. The Request Manager has been completely redesigned using Windows standard ActiveX controls. Nearly all screens have been rebuilt as VFP forms and all controls all subclassed from Foxfire! base classes. We have tried to maintain the look and feel of modern Windows applications (no bold fonts, etc.).

Request Folders

As part of the new Request Manager interface, you can now better organize all your Requests into folders. The Request Manager now includes the Request Tree, allowing you to group Requests into folders with a Windows Explorer like interface.

Request Wizards

There are now Request Wizards for each Foxfire! Request type. New users can now use a wizard to step through the Request creation process. The wizards are designed to conform as close as possible to the Windows 2000 wizard design guidelines.

User Login and User Manager

Foxfire! v6.0 has a built in user management system. You can control access to Foxfire! with a User Id and Password login, and you can specify a default printer, user permissions and privileges on a user-by-user basis.

Support for SQL TOP N/PERCENT (for qualified ODBC datasources)

You can now perform TOP N queries using the SQL TOP N clause. The new TOP N clause also supports a PERCENT option.

Improved Join Building Engine

Foxfire! v6.0 has an improved SQL builder to help resolve circular relationships in the database table schema. Previous versions of Foxfire! did not allow any circular relationships.

To support the new engine, Foxfire! v6.0 introduces the concept of the Join Tree. Foxfire! has always maintained metadata for how the tables in your application are joined. Using the Foxfire! Relationship Editor utility, you now can specify the hiearchial relationship between tables as well, which when completed produces a Join Tree of all the relationships in your database. The Join Tree makes it possible for you to specify outer joins between two tables by clearly representing which table is the Parent and which table is the Child in the relationship.

Custom Ask-at-Runtime filter UI controls

You can now specify for each data item in the data dictionary an associated user-interface control to be instantianted within the Ask-at-Runtime (AAR) filter dialog when the data item is used as an AAR filter. This allows you to utilize any custom UI controls you have within your application within Foxfire! as well, or you can create new custom UI controls specific for Foxfire! AAR filter data entry requirements.

Query Log

You can now setup Foxfire! to output all query statistics to a log. This log can then be viewed to analyze the activity within your Foxfire! system.

Visual FoxPro DBC Setup Improvements

When using the Setup Wizard to load tables from a VFP DBC, field name captions, inputmask, and format are captured into the dictionary.

Online Reference Manual

The Developer's Reference Manual is now available on-line in HTML format. This documentation is constantly improving as more useful information and tecniques become available. This "live" documentation can constantly be updated from the Micromega website. You can also choose to order End-User manuals to make it easier for your users to learn how to use Foxfire!

Updated March 2002