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The Universal Thread Visual FoxPro Community Survey 2004 was running from March 10th to April 9th, 2004. It gathered a great amount of information about Visual FoxPro developers, their needs and hopes.

For that survey, we had great prizes for our participants. Five prizes were raffled among those who took the time to participate in the survey. Here is the list of prizes:

• One 300.00$ off the regular registration cost for DevTeach 2004
  The event will be presented in Montreal on June 19-22, 2004. Again, this year, DevTeach will present a new breed of conference. Sessions will include both presentation material and, whenever possible, hands-on training. Again, the developers community will meet in Montreal for this international event. DevTeach 2004 includes a Tech Chair, a Spouse Program and more additional goodies to its event. Winner: Jaffar Abbas Zaidi

• Two Premier Universal Thread Membership for one year
  The Premier Universal Thread Membership gives full access to the Universal Thread as well as other related advantages such as product discounts, free magazine subscription and product support. The Universal Thread offers a regular account, which is the default when you create it, and the Premier Universal Thread Membership which is used by a high percentage of our members. If you use the Universal Thread on a regular basis, you will probably find the purchase of a membership to be a good investment. The additional tools you will benenit such as using the messages area search engine and the ability to enhance your account setup, will make your presence on the Universal Thread much more productive. Winners: Ronny Mejia, Francois Lepoutre

• Two Universal Thread Magazine subscriptions for one year
  The Universal Thread Magazine offers the developers community a monthly magazine for developers which covers various facets such as technical articles, interview, conference coverage and book reviews. The magazine offers some special advantages such as being delivered in English, Spanish or Portuguese. This provides a greater exposure for writers involved in our magazine. In addition to its professional layout, the magazine is offered online, offline and as per an article basis. New readers and writers are joining the magazine on a monthly basis in an ever evolving entity. Winners: Patrick Stovall, Andy Eggers

• Ten 4-user license keys for ClickWork
  ClickWork is a no-nonsense, very-easy-to-use Time Tracker. ClickWork enables you to track the time spent on different activities. But of course, there are many very-easy-to-use features and reporting facilities. In addition to various obvious activity reports for management you can also print statistical reports and even display graphs, either within ClickWork or using Excel. ClickWork is multi-user. Moreover, it enables you to let certain users share the same table and let another group of users share another table. This construction is ideal for use in a department. The department uses a single installation of ClickWork and each member of a group in the department uses the group's table. Thus, in theory, reporting can be made on the department level, on the group level and on the user level. The current version only supports reporting on the user level, but the other levels will be implemented very soon. Winners: E. C. Teo, Clay Angelly, Harry Porter, Mauricio Henao Romero, Sylvain Bujold, Yalcin Armen, Jason Phillips, Spencer Redfield, Nadya Nosonovsky, Jim Philippi

In the question "What additional services would you like the Universal Thread to add to better serve the Visual FoxPro community?", some requests received were already effective. In such cases, we have contacted the sender to let him/her know that the option/request already exists on the Universal Thread or on the Universal Thread Magazine.

What Visual FoxPro/FoxPro version(s) do you use daily?
FoxPro DOS/Windows/Unix/Mac	24	9.84%
Visual FoxPro 3.0	2	0.82%
Visual FoxPro 5.0	6	2.46%
Visual FoxPro 6.0	65	26.64%
Visual FoxPro 7.0	114	46.72%
Visual FoxPro 8.0	188	77.05%

Which ones of the following magazines do you read frequently?
FoxPro Advisor	118	48.36%
FoxTalk	92	37.70%
Universal Thread Magazine	80	32.79%

Do you plan to use Visual FoxPro 9.0?
Yes	217	93.13%
No	8	3.43%
I will use it once and if a Service Pack is released	8	3.43%
I do not have an opinion	11
Total	244

Have you ever used Visual FoxPro as a Web Service?
Yes	84	34.43%
No	160	65.57%
Total	244

Have you ever used Visual FoxPro to access a Web Service?
Yes	129	52.87%
No	115	47.13%
Total	244

Have you ever combined the technologies of Visual FoxPro and .NET in an application?
Yes	45	18.44%
No, but I'm planning to	125	51.23%
No, and I'm not planning to	74	30.33%
Total	244

Have you delivered a Visual FoxPro application in 2003?
Yes	230	94.26%
No	14	5.74%
Total	244

How do you think the Visual FoxPro perception has evolved outside of the community during last year?
Better perception	57	25.79%
Worst perception	53	23.98%
No change	111	50.23%
I do not have an opinion	23
Total	244

Which ones of the following tools do you use in Visual FoxPro?
Class Browser	195	79.92%
Component Gallery	64	26.23%
Intellisense	215	88.11%
Object Browser	150	61.48%
Task Pane	74	30.33%
Toolbox	105	43.03%
Code References	141	57.79%
Task List	59	24.18%
Environment Manager	61	25.00%

Which of the following are you dynamically generating from VFP used as a middle tier component in your web farm?
HTML	99	40.57%
Java	10	4.10%
PDF	79	32.38%
XML	103	42.21%

Which ones of the following Web frameworks are you using for your Visual FoxPro Web deployment?
Active FoxPro Pages	12	4.92%
West Wind Web Connection	68	27.87%
Active VFP	17	6.97%
VFP-Only from EETASoft	4	1.64%

Do you utilize Visual FoxPro with Linux?
Yes	18	7.38%
No	226	92.62%
Total	244

If you are using Visual FoxPro with Linux, what kind of use(s) are you doing with it?
Samba Shares for data storage	15	6.15%
PHP usage on web servers with Adodb	6	2.46%
NT to Linux ODBC bridges	3	1.23%
Visual FoxPro on WINE	5	2.05%
RPC/COM bridges	1	0.41%
MySQL backends on Linux	12	4.92%
Firebird backends on Linux	5	2.05%
PostGreSql backends on Linux	8	3.28%
SapDB backends on Linux	1	0.41%
Remote Telnet encapsulation with Visual FoxPro	2	0.82%

What data storage are you using with Visual FoxPro in your applications?
VFP Native DBC/DBF	225	92.21%
Microsoft SQL Server	136	55.74%
Oracle	26	10.66%
MySQL	29	11.89%
Other commercial RDBMS	18	7.38%
Other Free/Open Source RDBMS	20	8.20%

How many Visual FoxPro books did you buy/read last year?
One	38	15.57%
Two	64	26.23%
Three or more	82	33.61%
I didn't buy any book	60	24.59%
Total	244

How many tiers are your Visual FoxPro applications?
1 tier - monolithic	127	52.05%
2 tiers	127	52.05%
3 tiers	107	43.85%
4 tiers or more	25	10.25%

Which types of Visual FoxPro applications do you develop?
Single-user desktop	97	39.75%
Multi-user file server based	192	78.69%
Multi-user with database server	152	62.30%
Web-based	81	33.20%
Middle-tier components for use with other programming languages	53	21.72%

Do you have some general comments to add in regards to Visual FoxPro?

Keep developing it. More user interface improvments to impress end users. Visual FoxPro is one of the most powerful programming languange. Visual foxpro is a great, great product. It needs some marketing. I Think Microsoft shoud do a not expensive marketing. Generally pleased. I certainly wish my employer would let us soon experiment with MSDE/SQL Server. Native VFP data storage, however, still does a wonderful job for the company. I am beginning to use VFP as a front end to MySQL and finding it to be a very easy learning curve. I'm still in love I love it vfp is a very powerful development platform. Would like to see menu in VFP as Object Oriented in VFP 9.0 and more productive when dev. it for C/S and more control of Server side. Improvement in DE for use with CA. It is really sad that Whil stopped selling Visual FoxPro books, ended Whilfest and halted FoxTalk. This will hurt Visual FoxPro greatly. VFP will always be the best tool for certain tasks (string manipulation for one). However, our existing clients are continually pushing for new development to be done with .NET languages (C# in particular). Most new clients have a mandate of using VS.NET 2003 with either SQL Server or Oracle as the database engine. My opinion is that VFP cannot compete with VS.NET 2003 or J2EE development tools. I base this on our clients' perceptions. In the past our clients were indifferent as to what development tool we used. That indifference has dramatically changed, though, and VFP is increasingly not an acceptable piece of their business solutions. Sad... VFP seem to getting aged. It is "isolated" from moderm technology. But I love FOX... Still the best environment for me ... nothing can top it yet. Fast development tool with some disturbing disadvantages. I wish I could use my VFP skills to develop solutions for other platforms like Linux and Mac as it was in the old days. This could make VFP unique in its class, make it shine again, community gets bigger and stronger and Microsoft makes money as well. In Germany we still have a great problem with Visual FoxPro it is not very well known and MS does everything to market .NET. So especially in big companiers it is nearby impossible to place Vfp even if it is the best and cheapest solution to a given problem. Still too cost-effective to leave as a tool. With the new version of .NET having improved data features - I will need to look at it. Database servers still don't make sense in smaller systems so VFP is clearly the superior tool there. VFP as a product has had lots of relatively inconsiquential additions over the years, with the core requirements lagging. This is now changing, and 9 should actually bring the product up to date with other competing IDEs. Hopefully this will continue, without the VFP team being sidetracked into putting fluff before substance. Also becoming disturbed by the requirements of installation now - if the developer is not creating a com enabled application, there shoul dbe no requirements to access the registry etc. You should be able to just copy the files to a folder an run, as in the old days. VFP never has let us down for all of our needs The product is slowly dying but still continues to perform well technically. We are phasing out all VFP development. It's a great tool, great community, needs more marketing from MS ! VFP 8 was great update but it is just not good that bugs in older versons are still not fixed by service packs for them. Best tool around. Without it, I would not be in software development. really god tool, but need more advertisement This is a first-rate programming language with very good object orientation and sophisticated features that most more highly visible programming languages do not have. However... Several (three) large companies that I have worked for recently have decided to move away from Visual FoxPro - all of them cite frequent index corruption as a prime reason. One company assigned their techno-wizard to write an unattended index analyser and auto-repair utility - it's log reported errors every day on tables with up to 10 million records. A full re-build required the 24/7 call centre to go down. I like it, don't get rid of it....... lol It's great, and getting better. Easy to develop in. Powerful. Still a slow language I've just got in to Version 8.0 and this version is the best ever. However, some people in the community are abandoning the product publicly and it hurts the product as a business solution among developers and IT managers. This final release is a true reflection of the developer's wish list. I would like to see more examples in the help files. Still supporting VFP apps, but our new apps are in .Net The lack of promotion Some system enginners think "it's not a real programming language" I don't see anything else that I can be as productive with other than Visual Foxpro. Great but missing some important features like multi-treading, callbacks and .Net. At this time VFP cannot be the ONLY tool for a developer. It's a shame it is dying in the marketplace. I'd like Visual Foxpro to stay alive (even if it's necessary to incorporate it into Visual Studio -- or switch to Linux -- for this to occur) VFP Rocks! I'm sick of the fading recognition of VFP. I'm sick of MS not marketing it at all. It's a great tool that does everything I've needed to and easier to do that stuff than in any other tool I've used including other MS products: give it it's deserved support, recognition, and marketing. Great tool with the best visual object model, .net needs containership, however Microsoft still has no clue how to market it. Hopefully they will have another chance with 9.0 maybe as a report tool or some such thing that won't conflict with their current marketing plans. I would like to by VFP 10 :) Visual FoxPro is a lot more powerful than people think. Please increase the 2 Gb table limit. And keep with the editors newsletters Can't wait to see what VFP9 has in store. I'm disappointed that the Menu/Designer wasn't overhauled to allow for OfficeXP like features. Glad to see that the Report Writer is getting some attention by the VFP development team. Keep those versions rollin' I love using version 8 and am looking forward to 9 I have been using it for 10 years and I have yet to find something I need to do that it cannot do. I have seen a major new positive attitude towards Visual FoxPro this year from senior IT managemnet for a large engineering consulting firm with 35,000 employees. I believe the new perception has come from 1) A solid commitment to support VFP 8 until 2010, 2) press releases about VFP9, 3) a proven track record with existing VFP applications. At the root of fear within senior IT management, is to stand behind a strategy that they might need to abandon within a few years. As soon as I show them that the best features can be obtained for the best cost with Microsoft support until at least 2011 (with VFP9) the na-sayers have nothing to say. Also, as .NET is not taking the world over as predicted by Microsoft mostly due to make it as part of Visual Studio.NET Concerning the long term, NO INTENTION ON C# or dot.Net or java by the way. Too far away from the initial fox spirit (been a fox user since 198666). To-day the fox spirit can be found in python not at ms neither borland (snip). I shall quit for open source. Not a question of money by the way or badmouthing anything or anyone but we need a stable and persistent technological base. IT is no fashion! It's more of a building industry. Marketing-driven change is the plague of this industry. Web services, done thru apache handmade modules (equiv to isapi modules - a snap and runs on win32 and *nix). Concerning UI, a lot remains to be done in the open source world because of the absences of a common UI footprint between graphical platforms. But we want to run our apps on all platforms. So my bet is on wxwidgets (ex wxwindows). Developers need more base controls so they can design more modern GUI's. Badly needs a better code writer with auto code completion and block cut and pasting within text. I still can't replace the efficiency of native VFP indexed tables for my application with a backend database. Increase database stability Ken Levy has just finished the marketing materials for VFP8, to be used by the individual developers for their own marketing and sales efforts. Quite a few people are now working on the translations into the different languages. Make those materials available through the UT as well, the more developers who kow about this stuff and use it the better it is for the perception of VFP outside the community, it is not only the responsibility of MS to make us more visible but it's our own responsibility as well. I wish Microsoft would promote VFP as much as it has done with .NET. This would show IT Directors/CIO's that VFP is a mainstream development tool. .net is one of the 'bugiest' languages its been my displeasure to work with, I will be most upset if fox moves to .net The outside world does not know that FP is still around, the comments I get from other Tech professionals is "I thought MS dropped that years ago" Most irritatingly, the release of a service pack after the official line at MS was that no service pack would be released. Given the number of sites using our software, this has generated a huge amount of unnecessary work. VFP is a great tool. However, I seen severl companies move away from VFP because they could get two dotNet developers for the cost of one VFP developer. VFP developers are becoming scarce. VFP Developers are moving on to other languages or out of the business and very few new people are taking up VFP. It is a vicious cycle that I have been seeing for atleast the last 6 years. Keep VFP up to date with current technologies! VFP offers just about everything a programmer need but the most enjoyable is the flexibility. The only deception was that we couldn't see and modify all of Intellisense, I would have like an interface that'd give me 100% control on all scripts and the .app itself. I love new capability associated with full backward compatibility It's allowed my business to grow from 3 employees to 60 over the last 20 years. I love working with Fox. Using VFP 8 to create and update automated manifest applications that use barcode, optical memory card, and RF tag tecnologies. These apps are in use by all U.S. Army and Marines shipping depots and transfer points for the transfer of supplies. Needs more support from Microsoft. It's a very good development environment. I don't know why MS don't support it as well as .NET. In general, I am happy to VFP, since we can "see" alot of enhancements in next version of VFP - Europe. I think all VFP developer must put somekind of 'Powered by VFP' logo in their apps. We want the clients know that the apps they are using are created with VFP. That way, --- hopefully --- VFP will have more values in the outside world. VFP Rocks. Too bad it doesn't get better press and recognition. In general there seems to still be a perception the foxpro is a fading language. While that perception may or may not be true. I currently develop with foxpro for a unique industry and with foxpro we are able to deliver in a incredibily short period of time major functions and features to our software offering which I truly feel cannot be done with almost any other programming language. Of course may I am just prejudice. Its unfortunate that FoxPro doesn't get the same treatment as .NET with the marketing folks... We need a better marketing from MS. It's a good and fast tool wich I know better. Assuming Microsoft makes little if any profit from VFP (since its only source of revenue is from developers who purchase it), I'm not surprised that they don't advertise its capabilities. We continue to use VFP because it still runs rings around its .NET alternatives. But we're not putting all our eggs in the VFP basket. I just love it No VFP needs more 'marketing' I'm very unhappy with what I perceive as a two faced attitude from MS. Keep us happy and under control while they slowly poison or starve us to death. por favor garanticen la continuidad del producto, pero en forma clara y que sea bajada de las mas altas lineas de desarrolladores I have used FoxPro since 1990. I am a one man shop with applications installed on over 1000 pc's all over the country. My customers include Chevron, Domino's Pizza, Baskin Robbins, Winn Dixie, Hess, and more. I could not have built my business and reputation with anything else. I love the product and I would love to see it more widely used! I think that the VFP team are doing a good job. But, we need more and more market services and better support. The idea is that we know the benefits of using VFP, but the non VFP users do not know this benefits and sometimes the decisions for using VFP in future developments are on hands of peoples that do not know the VFP product. After many development dollars poured into the black hole of C++ and .net, I am absolutely convinced that Visual Foxpro is the best development environment out there... period. Pity that Microsoft doesn't put that message out. The best tool ever! No The Product is aging very well. The addition of OOP Reportwriter and the other planed features seems very good It's a very good tool, but Microsoft does not like because its runtime and native databese are free. I love it and have been able to use it for all my database programming needs. FoxPro is a very nice - all in one box - programming solution. I hope MS wil continue with developping the product after they release vfp9. If Microsoft ever decides that VFP is not a competitor to .Net, but rather a complimentary, pro-Microsoft technology, they could clear up the market's confusion about VFP being "on the way out." But as long as they are fuzzy internally, they will continue killing off what remains of a once strong and loyal market. I'd be very happy to see it advertised all over the place. Still needs better marketing and further integration with MS technologies, plus numerous long-overdue bug fixes. I know where I'm going with Visual FoxPro. I wonder if MS knows it too I think that it is without doubt the best language that i have used. No advertisement.. No way to sell more !! I like it, I hope MS keeps shipping new versions of it. I am happy, mostly, with the body of work put out with Visual FoxPro 8 over the past year. I am exceptionally upset about VFP 8 not being available in the retail channel for 2 months past the RTM date. Visual FoxPro Rocks.... and the best is to come If the Microsoft still exists for me and my customers, is because the VFP exists, if not, already we would be in the Linux the much time. VFP is the most flexable and open development environment available. I like some features of .net but the environment is too restrictive for me. For small business enterprise solutions VFP cannot be beat. That's its nitch. No need for expensive backends when dealing with small data stores. Great tool, great community. It's already Great in VFP6 and getting greater Due to the limitations of the report writer I tend to generate a lot of Postscript files from within VFP in order to generate properly formatted print outs. I use GhosScript in conjunction with GSView32 to display or print the results from within VFP.

Which directions would you like Visual FoxPro to take?

As above. Better integration with MS SQL Server. .net invironment. Somehow permit current users whose work environment is unlikely to move to .NET in the near term to not fall irretrievably behind. Help us leverage our VFP skills as future programming technologies develop. Web integration needs to be built into the system and some simple examples need to be presented. With the better report builder antipated in version 9 ... everything is going to be just perfect. May be the inclusion of some tools to generated HTML component (web form). Strong integration with .Net - More integration with .Net, i.e. handling .Net datasets etc better. - Get rid of VCX, SCX, (all table formats for code basically) and use a PRG format. This will allow us to utilise it better in our larger team, at the moment it is difficult to get a report on when a line in a method in a VCX was changed for example whereas in our C# code this is simple because of the text based nature of the code. I'd like to be able to build internet apps directly with VFP improve the report generator and web service support More functions for C/S app with better control, more imprevement of CursorAdapter. Would like to use VFP in portable devices conecting to Database Server. I would like to see Visual FoxPro be able to make DLLs that can be xcopied up to a live webserver without having to use IISRESET /STOP. Much like .NET can be copied up. I would like to see VFP market itself as more and more of a compliment to .NET (or even J2EE) based solutions. I realize that it will likely never occur but adding strong typing to VFP would be a major improvement. Concentrate more on modern Web and Mobile technology. Better internet integration with VFP only ... an alternative to .NET .NET I think the major obstacle which makes VFP weak on the market is not related with the features, capabilities or performance, it a common belief that VFP is nonstandard. I beleive full compatibility with .NET will help VFP to gain popularity. Better still would be new versions for Linux and Mac platforms. The tool is wuite optimal for our use. Especially for Germany the marketing of VfP must be improved. The focus of the tool should be published the right way. But I'm in doubt if this will happen because it is not the focus of Microsoft. Glue for different database severs and a tool for knowlegde workers. Lifting the size barriers for most of vfp's items like array elements and string size in europa is the way to go - but the 2GB table/file size barrier must also fall. Vfp basically can handle the same amount of data as in FP2.0 - which was huge in the early nineties but is becoming only "playstuff" nowadays. Better and faster GUI. It must at least keep pace with the .Net world Cleaner IDE and end-user visuals along the lines of VS.NET, possible owner drawing for menu system. Longhorn support? Keep interopability high on the list of priorities - especially web/xml/soap etc. etc. More generic, with less reliance on OS and DBFs (particularly in the IDE - projects, forms, classes and reports should NOT be stored ina DBF! - at the very least, the saving of metadata to these DBFs should be in a transaction to avoid corruption! Also should be set up as an individual business unit so it can go in its own direction and not tied to VS and .NET More interaction with TabletPC Built in features to serve data on the web without third party tools. A server component that could work as a local data server on a work station or as a data server on a network server. It would be nice if VFP could serve data to any TCP/IP connection so you could use your desktop app over the Internet. It will slowly die in the same way DOS applications slowly died. DOS applications still exist and are in use today. However, a DOS application is not the preferred development environment. Very few new applications are developed in DOS. For some types of applicaitons a DOS solution can meet the user requirements. VFP is fine... It's Microsoft's positioning with VFP I would like to see improve. They need to actively overcome the negative perception that IT departments have regarding VFP as a serious, enterprise capable development tool. 1. Go above the 2GB file limit. Up and up :-) I guess more interconnection with the .Net framework. More built-in controls like tree view, slider, progress bar, etc or a brige to .NET WinForms classes or at least update to Microsoft Common Controls 6.0 ActiveX library. Built-in menu classes. Support for aplha-blended bitmaps. VFP.NET !!! Strong Typing, Smoother win32API calls. include it on .Net stuff, This product could become a key development tool if the Microsoft executives ever discovered what they owned: decent marketing is now critical, since long-time, high-profile developers are giving up on FoxPro. Critical errors - such as frequent index corruption - MUST be fixed, and seen to be fixed. For FoxPro to survive in an environment where the manufacturer is ambivilant about it's placement, it must be able to easily work with all other RDMS. Data access is great! But I would like to see more cool controls. Pretty things that the people like. It should go to more of a front end tool. More improvements to the report writer, better integration of sql, better integration into .net. Take just one sp and finaly fix the annoying little flukes that still remain. I would like to see Foxpro become integrated with .net More integration with .NET. I like the strong type concept even if I have to give away backward compatibility. Developers can't ignore Linux and it would be nice if we can run VFP apps in this OS as well. Beat Oracle Better and easy Integration with Windows API Better capabilities as a general programming language Real executable generation Continue evolving the product while making it more stable. More and more integration with SQL Server (maybe debug stored procs?). Create a VFP to .Net conversion helper program. I think it's great creating better functionality with SQL Server. As MS's choice for small & mid-range businesses. Easier or even native support for SQL. Increased stability (less C00005 errors). Better reporting (I know VFP 9 will include it). Better security. More modern visual controls (like a treeView-grid native control). I'd like to see Microsoft: (1) fix the bugs, (2) improve the report writer, and (3) make object-oriented menus. I'd also like anything that could somehow change people's (negative) attitudes about Visual Foxpro -- at best, it's seen as "not a real programming language", and things are getting worse... Continue improving VFP. If the goal is eventually migrate developers to .NET, then provide some kind of migration kit at the appropriate time. More interopp with .net and stay alive. I would like it to be integrated in .NET with a VFP data access engine accessible through the common language more direction to .NET Become .net development tool, same level as VB, C#, C++ and others I would like to see Visual FoxPro take a more proactive stance in promoting itself as a programming language. Mora integration with WEB, and also to keep growing as is now. I think taht one big place of opportunity for VFP are Schools, if you teach the students VFP, it can have a bigger market in the future Stronger language enforcement, such as expicit variable declaration. Also I find the compiler to be weak in catching coding errors. Don't be part of .NET, but at the same time, keep evolving to maintain compatibality with newer technologies (upcoming generations of Windows OS, .NET). MS should allow VFP to run (legally) on any platform that can do so (Linux). The only way that VFP will ever be aggressively sold by MS is if the db engine is stripped from it and vfp developers, just like all others, become defacto sellers of sql-server or msde (even though it's free, msde helps keep MS's name in the minds of users/customers). MSDE, which is free, covers small business clients. Large clients have the money to spend in SQL Server licenses anyway and they need it because of its added scalability/capabilities. By having a free, built-in db engine, microsoft is not really doing us any favor. It's helping us dig VFP's grave. Multiplatform. The one thing that concerns me most, about Visual FoxPro, is that versions for platforms other than Windows are neither supported nor planned. This may eventually force me to switch to other programming languages. I would like it to remain separate, but fully able to communicate with other technologies Like many, I think that technically it is already on an excellent path. I would hate to see it crippled by becoming another CLR language. Also, like many, I would like to see Microsoft acknowledge what we are talking about. At the very least, another database comparison spreadsheet from Microsoft that shows features, speed, capacity etc of VFP, SQL*Server, and Access would be very helpful. make it as powerfully and userfriendly as VB and compatible with .NET & C# Workstation UI please!!! Keep up to date with the latest controls & interfaces. I'd like optional strong typing. Tighter integration with .NET while remaining the flexible tool it has always been. Develop more towards a generic datatool, even if that means letting go of the DBF files we work with now, (Hey, MySQL is cheap as well!) For VFP to have a higher profile among senior IT executives, which would, in theory, make it a viable choice as a development tool. Better integration with SQL Add a word or two about VFP/Net interop in the .NET advertisements. Remove need for visual component libraries: provide native Treeview control, and better list control (column headers). Better development environment - basic usability of window handling, code editing etc. The only direction left to go is to make VFP natively support the Internet. It takes too many third party tools and time to develop acceptable web applications. web, web, and more web - this could take the form of more interop with .NET I would like much more integrated features to interact with web servers directly from VFP. There exists a few great products to interfact VFP and the web. However, VFP would be much more powerful and much more used as a dev. tool if those kind of products were easily usable natively in VFP. Better intregation with Microsoft SQL Server. UI that matches the current version of Windows. More consistent way to populate controls. Objects, cursors, arrays for all of them. .NET integration LET IT RUN ON LINUX EASILY!! I would like for Microsoft to continue make VFP work well with their SQL Server back end as well as keep up with XP system standards. Continue along the current lines of product evolution with increased visibility as a useful component builder and integrator in dotNET applications. Would like to see scaling for development and deployment of small apps on PocketPC and TabletPC with synchronization features to DBC or SQL Server backend data repositories. More report and printer control. More Sql enhances Faster access through ADO. More web oriented tools. Better integration with other RDBMS (commercial or free). I think VFP is good to keep on it's track - datacentric programming language. However, it would be good if VFP able to support web development natively. As you can see, most of other programming language like Java, Python, PHP and etc. Also, I hope VFP can support Window services natively without need ActiveX, overcome versioning problems and attribute programming as .NET I think VFP should work closely with .NET The reason is simple: .net is (IMHO) currently a big wave on software industry. VFP should be part of it so that it won't drawn to the bottom of the sea! Have a VFP.NET version (this would probably require giving up some of VFP's features such as macro substitution, but that would be ok). Better support for true database operations. Especially in regard to Triggers and Security We need a better marketing from MS. managing of data is perfect...but we need grafic support to make competitive applications, so, more controls with better grafics and complexity. More Client-Server stuffs, more n-tiers As long as it continues to work with new MS Operating Systems, I'm satisfied. More marketing from MS and books, events, etc, OUTSIDE USA. Integration with .NET usable with Linux More connectivities with .NET Very difficult to say. Perhaps the better way is to integrate more and more with the dot net platform, including Yukon. Continue to add features. It is up to the community to raise awareness of VFP in the business world. To a new Owner with some money and not one of the other majors that can't recognize what aint broke! Maybe the best place would be open source. www.portalfox.com I have embraced the interoperability of VFP including the Windows API, and will eventually look into .NET for web deployment. I want to see VFP continue on the path of becoming more at home with the other development languages, yet continue to be enhanced as it has. I am very excited about 8 and 9! VFP must stay in the same line, remaing like a standalone product, but full integrated with the new tecnologies like ADO.NET .NET and RDBMS like SQL Server Integration in .Net Higher profile, more Microsoft corporate evangelizing VFP and for companies to choose VFP for their software application projects. Needs more publicity and marketing in International markets. In Israel for instance, Microsoft Israel never even pronounced the word Foxpro. Make VFP run on top of the CLR NOT A VS language just compile to the CLR Even if no new upgrades features in that version .... So VFP 10.0 only adds CLR compile that would be ok for me... I have looked at VS 2003 and will wait till VS 2005 to test the waters to much work with ADO to get databased programs to work... Don't change. It does exactly what I need it to do. I'd like internal support for Win API structures and I'd also like support built in for callbacks. I think the Fox is running in the good direction. Maybe (and I'm aware of the problems) it is time to upgrade the 2gb limit. About 10 years ago we could hardly image what 2gb was. In the near future, 2gb is nearly nothing. It should be further tailored and optimized for writing the kind of apps that are not suited to .Net development: quick-turnaround, data-centric, highly data-driven applications, components, and web services. It should continue to get new base controls to enhance the *obviousness* of a version upgrade (from 8.0 to 9.0, for example). For instance, an all-new *super grid* would be a welcome alternative to the 9-year-old VFP grid control, one that drops all the baggage and kludges and makes grids really useful for data entry and display. VFP is all that's left of what used to be known as the "desktop database" product category. The business needs are not being satisfied by other products, so the potential market is huge. Unfortunately, all vendors (not just M$) are so enamored of the *enterprise* that they don't see how many medium-sized businesses need a high-productivity tool like VFP for line-of-business apps. I'll consider a switch to .Net as soon as it's as good as VFP, or when VFP is finally murdered by Microsoft. From where I stand, .Net appears to be about on Beta 2. I expected much better considering the amount of money Microsoft has poured into it. Newer tools should be clearly better tools, not just ones with a different set of problems and compromises. And it should take less time, not more, to get the same result. On these measures, .NET must be judged a monumental failure - not of the marketplace to recognize the merits of the product - but an abysmal failure of its designers who failed to develop an obviously superior product to its predecessors. VFP .NET [though I know it won't happen] .NET Portability to Linux, further evolution of VFP as a viable, general purpose programming tool. MS should get it out of its closet. This would be a good start. I would like to see VFP rules loosened so that it could be used on linux. Same strategy of marketing used for dotNet with less budget Actually market the darn thing. VFP generates a lot of revenue for MS (VFP developers buy other stuff too)....plus I'm getting tired of everytime I tell someone I use VFP the first thing they say is "wow that's old technology, why you still using that?". It would be nice if MS would make a bigger effort to prevent this. I love the focus as it is now, and would not want to see VFP integrated as a programming language in Dot Net . Just keep going! continue on the same way To support the new Microsoft technology (SQL Server 2005, Longhorn) To create applications for portable equipment. Market as a development language not a database solution .NET Mother of all business and general application languages Much better report writer, better web integration, better ODBC driver, native Linux version.

Which ones of the following conferences do you plan to attend in 2004?
Advisor Visual FoxPro DevCon 2004	27	11.07%
DevEssentials 2004	18	7.38%
DevTeach 2004	14	5.74%
German Fox Conference	16	6.56%
OzFoz	6	2.46%
Portal Fox 2004	9	3.69%
SouthWest Fox	17	6.97%
Visual FoxPro DevCon, Praha 2004	16	6.56%

How would you describe 2003 in regards to Visual FoxPro?

Good. VFP8 rocks. Hitted by .net promotions. Our upgrade from VFP 7 to VFP 8 has been very rewardnig. A very sucessful one for me. I have expanded my knowledge with the introduction of accessing MySQL. Lost some ground to .NET VFP 8 was very positive. VFP 9, particularly the report designer will be great. the best release More steps to integrate as a C/S frontend App. dev tool. It was a good year, but 2005 has started off poorly due to Whil's three announcements. It started out with some promise (possibly due to the still relatively new VFP 8), however that quickly faded as more and more clients either frowned on (or rejected) VFP as part of their business solution. Depress A year to learn ... stuff ... but good. Tried to move to VFP8, but have no chance getting the app from VFP6 into it without spending 2-4 Weeks. Delivering the DLL's and setup routines means additional costs. VFP is evolving in its own path. I had difficulties to convince enterprise managers to adopt VFP solutions. Some of them were ignorant about VFP (more marketing efforts needed) some others beleive VFP is nonstandart and its future is no clear. The product itself has grown in the right direction. Problematic is the acceptance in corporate environments. While the web-enabling tools for vfp are quite good, java and sometimes .net are seen as "strategic" and not much discussion will follow. First time in a long time that Microsoft has shown they are concerned about peoples perception of VFP. This has been further reinforced by FoxTalk 2.0 and the book situation. VFP8 was a good release. A few more concerned developers in the sector but not too much change. Product improved, and Ken doing grand job slowing the decline, but still in decline.... Moving to VFP8.0 has been exciting and rewarding slowly dying. Market share shrinking. Very little opportunities for VFP in the area. Am able to utilize it as a middle tier for dotnet though. 2003 was a period of phasing out VFP development for us. A year of steady progress behind the scenes. Transitional. good above the average, good improvement with V8 With many key members of the VFP community having moved to other languages/environments as their prime focus, it cannot be seen as a banner year, even with the welcome improvements in version 8. I had a good year with it. 3 apps. No complaints by clients on the language. And I converted some C users that used VB, to go with Foxpro. Not Good. Not because VFP is a bad product, but because even in the VFP community, there is to much negativity and no sence of direction. Everyone want's VFP to be something different.... IMHO One of VFP's problems as a product it that it tries to be to many things to many people. It's often confused about it's role in the software world. What is VFP... It't the jack of all trades. Great if all you want is odd jobs.... Good A turning point, It's been proved that this product can be a solution, specially for short term solutions. steady progression, but limited articles from MS to support it. My personal experience: Putting VFP on the back burner to learn new technologies (.Net, C#) In 2003 we see the translation of VFP8 dll's and help to spanish for the spanish community (see www.portalfox.com). This it's a great step ahead. Another good year of development with this tool. In my opinion FoxPro is always getting better, but it is very difficult to convince other non FoxPro people because FoxPro jobs are far and few between.... While I.T. has experienced a shinking job market generally, Fox continues to lose in greater proportion. I think VFP has evolved quietly and at the same pace through the years. So 2003 was like other years, nothing revolutionary and nothing bad. Simply evolution. A year when the future of Visual Foxpro seemed increasingly uncertain. Particularly with so many MVP's switching to .Net, it seems that Visual Foxpro is doomed... Positive in terms of Microsoft's continued development of the product and support of the community. Same old story regarding marketing. ok. I see 4 camps in the market place: if its microsoft - .net. if anti microsoft - java. Small companies what ever the programmer knows. Every thing else legecy run all over the place. I see VFP still used in projects that the designer gets to choose the tool and knows VFP. New projects that VFP has to compete with other tools it loses even though it may be the better choice. It all comes down to what makes the not knowing customer feel better and VFP it not as well preceved as other tools are. it was a good year It was good year. I was saddened by the departure of Whil Hentzen and the new direction he was taking. It has been a better year, VFP 8 was a great upgrade, I'm waiting for the new beta version to donwload. The year when the best VFP's version ever has been released: 8.0 May have had slightly more exposure than in previous years but still not enough to influence question #8. Possitive year. A fantastic year, many awesome enhancements. A turn for the best... Ken Levy has done a lot of work, mostly bending backwards trying to make the community happy, which is no easy task. It was the biggest year yet for the number of people that just didn't want to make their DOS and 2x apps work in a new operating system (XP) and decided to finally rewrite in VFP. In spite of the hot air expressed in the forums, I think that VFP is holding it's own in 2003. At least in my case, my reduction in conferences and the need for new book purchases in 2003 is largely due to my feeling that the Universal Thread has essentially replaced the need for both. Recovering thanks to the limited but helpful MS VFP team A step better. It's getting interesting with the XML adaptor etc. Helped us to deliver good apps clients like quite ambivalent, on one side the release of VFP8 with all the rich features it has is a big step forward for VFP to becoming a generic datatool with unbeaten speed in development and processing. OTOH, the continued lack of marketing for VFP from the side of the marketing dept at MS never seizes to surprise and disappoint me. It is so obvious, a few years ago nobody ever heard of .NET, with all the giga marketing $$$ the whole world is now talking about .NET asif it is the gospel of Bill G. Just a small share of that money for marketing of VFP would make a big difference in the visibility of VFP. I tried to contact those salespeople at MS but they simply deny any mails concerning VFP, which is not just impolite but simply cowardish. They duck and run for any comments from the VFP side. Personally, it was very productive as we released several VFP8 apps to our users. And also started the task of completely updating our major VFP6 app to VFP8. Our Company seem to be happy the VFP and are sticking with it as the primary dev tool. Productive Shops are dropping VFP. There seems to be less attention from Microsoft Seeing how satisfied were most of the VFP community after working with VFP 8 for some time was great, but many great actors of the VFP community seems to slowly go away. I hope 2004 and VFP9 will make them stay with us! With the availability and purchaseof VFP 8.0, the development and application delivery was greatly improved due to the new tools and features provided. Great Sad, because Whil Hentzen decided to leave the camp. But even if everyone left, I still have another 10 years of VFP work to do for my own growing (industrial) company. VFP Continues to slowly die on the vine as Microsoft tries to focus on technologies that bring in per-seat revenue. From a Department of Navy (DoN) perspective, all Visual FoxPro applications were basically given 'sunset' status with the enforcement of DITSCAP certification criteria in 2003 and the rollout of the Navy Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) and it's list of approved development platforms. The DoN did not kill outright the existing VFP apps that are were in use but DoN will not be approving new development with VFP unless a waiver is in place. The thing is, if you ask them, nobody has a good reason not to use VFP, they just say "It isn't an approved platform." The end-around that we have used in the past and continue to use is to say "We are developing in SQL Server" which requires no further justificatin to them. In reality we develop front end and middle tier using VFP and use MSDE 2000 as the back end database unless they have actually have multi-user license for SQL Server or Oracle. The irony is the various Navy commands often do not want to pay for RDBMS back ends but are unwilling to think about a robust app developed with VFP. Also, if you tell them you are using MS Access they nod in studied agreement, raising no objections and have nothing more to say. It's as though they know what performance parameters are worth considering for there database applications and Access meets them all with flying colors (Sheesh!). Thankfully, our Army and Marine customers either don't know or don't care that we program their apps with VFP and have been happy with the results. A good year regarding release of version 8 and all its new features. Exicting, because VFP is alive again. (From what we can see alot of comments, wonderful news and hard work done by VFP community, FoxTeam, Ken Levy and others to support VFP) Same as 2002 Moderately disastrous. The general perception that VFP is dead appears to have gained ground and it is increasingly hard to find people who are either willing to acknowledge that VFP is a viable product, or to consider learning it. A consolidation year. Bizarre. .Net didn't take off as planned. Seemed like the best scenario for VFP to take on, yet MS wouldn't let it. Now, Whil Hentzen stops publishing the bes series of VFP-related books. Fox Talk calls it quits, then it doesn't. Linux rising, big potential. I wish Borland would buy VFP. A good year Keeps fading out of software development picture 2003 is a low year for IT. I think the VFP flame is burning a little brighter in the VFP community, but it is still very dim in the prest of the computer world. Overall it has been a good year for Visual Foxpro. 2003 was tough for me as a developer and that of course reflects on my favorite language. VFP8 came into it's own - nice new features for the developer community. - I think 2003 was a great year for VFP. YAG came to our user group and got us really excited about the direction of VFP. I continued to improve my applications by adding techniques I read about, learned about at our user group and asked about on the UT. I better year.. The comunity is doing betters efforts and the results seems to success... Promising VFP 8 is great. A great year with the appearance of Visual Foxpro 8 and SP1. Bien A good year and am very excited about VFP 9.0 I attended a Les Pinter conference in my city (In Colombia), it was very interesting but he didn't see a good future to VFP Exciting as we are working fine with VFP 8.0 and look forward to all the new features of VFP 9.0. Good... I think MS takes the Fox still serious. Some years ago, I was not so sure of that. Pent up demand from the past 3 years seems to be warming up the market, but the customers out there are afraid of starting any new VFP apps because they are 1) afraid it's an end-of-life product, and 2) afraid they cannot find VFP developers in the future because of #1. Note that "afraid" is the common word in both reasons. In 2003 I heard a number of times, "VFP is a great tool, but we can't afraid to do much more with it in the absense of a clear and undisputed plan for its continuation and support." The continuation of the decrease in use for new applications that began several years ago A good year. Promising in some respects (continued product enhancement), disappointing in others (lack of marketing, lack of regard for existing customer base, rip-off upgrade and bundling policies). Did something happened in 2033 related to VFP? Darn did I miss that event? Perhaps because it happened during the night Great year for VFP. 2004/2005 should be even better with the release of version 9. Improved product -good, decrease in VFP users - bad. Another nail in the coffin! People trying to killing him.. But, in the end, was the year of ripening.. Stillllll here! I had a banner year with new projects, new clients, and integration. Long Live the Fox! Excellent. An adjustment to the much improved dynamic environment of VFP8 VFP is still unknown for most people. Very nice Tame.

What additional services would you like the Universal Thread to add to better serve the Visual FoxPro community?

Some sample applications that all could follow using the Web, SQL and VFP. Continue raising the bar with the Magazine You are doing good. Keep it up. I do like also having .NET info at "my fingertips" here. Have alert functions for all content, such as books, faqs and more. Just like for news and articles. I think that the UT does an excellent job as-is. Additional services that I would find useful would be special attention to examples/cases where VFP could be a strong compliment to VS.NET 2003. VFP is getting aged, Microsoft does not commit to evolve VFP. MS does not throw any new idae or bring innovation to VFP. I hope UT highlight,help and influnce VFP Team to do more R&D job, to make them more creative, and finally make VFP more innovative. I would like to see something where firms can list their specialties and/or products. Like a VFP yellow page. Code Samples, Reported Bug Tracking for all the VFP Versions. Thanks, you are great. the service is great. I don't have any issue which is missing. I haven't looked recently, but the bug list was not what I had hoped for. I like the MySQL bug list which also shows fixed bugs (if you have to code in an older environment). I also think there are many duplicates in the wish list. My Pet peeve: on some pages rightclicking and selecting "open in new window" doesn't work, since it needs some jscript. I can never remember on which pages that was and fall into the same "trap" again... Doing a good job. Host a forum for 'Other Products' - a bit like the old Databased Advisor, where we can hear about Clarion/WinDev/Omnis Studio/Powerbuilder/Progress etc UT has been so valuable to me as a developer that it is hard to make anymore recommendations Have the Universal Thread Magazine include as many VFP articles as possible. These articles should be at a very advanced level. There is plenty of information out there that is at a basic or intermediate level. If I were learning VFP I could draw upon the writings in 1996-2000 in the many different foxpro publications. Focus on .NET. VFP is essentially dead as far as I am concerned. Continue what you are doing... ?? Maybe some kind of business forum? I think I got screwed last year, with costs. Customers got a good deal from me, but I'm just winging it. So, since we are mostly individual developers, I would like to see some more of the business side of things as well. The Question: How do you think the Visual FoxPro perception has evolved outside of the community during last year? has poor choices for answers. How about, Improved,No Change, Worsened, No Opinion. I would have selected, No Change. They don't know about VFP so how could it have changed? I have none to suggest. The UT is doing an excellent job. UT virtual foxpro development teams. Groups of UT developers work on the same project and share in any revenue generated by it's sale. A great company could evolve from this. UT has been and will continue to be a great resource for me. I was disappointed to see the UT Magazine go to a subscription basis. A better user interface and offline reader. In fact, I would upgrade to PUTM if the offline reader had comparable features to OzWin (for Compuserve). Ability to post JPEG within a thread. I can't think of any -- the Universal Thread is the best resource in town... Free search . repository of user group presentations I can't think of any thing of the top of my head. You are doing a goog job keep it up thanks. I would like to get access to the message right from the VFP task pane w/o having to log in, just select and it downloads messages to a local dbf - I can't think of any off the top of my head. Universal Thread does a wonderful job in my opinion of keeping me abreast of Visual FoxPro topics and news. Try to promote more VFP in other countries not only USA. You can contact with people for those contries so they can help you, I'm very very interested in help to promote VFP here in Guatemala I feel UT does a great job as it is. Any additional features will just add to it. Bring back the free UT magazine :) Keep up the great service guys. FOX ROCKS! None. It is great resource for VFP programmers Make the magazine part of the subscription again. There is a need for certification within the FoxPro community. It provides a standardization that is lacking. As most FoxPro developers use UT, it makes sense for UT to take leadership on this. How about the ability to buy single issues of the UT magazine? Hope you're Fine, Michel. Best regards! Alex I wish you had a better key word search for messages. The restrictions (i.e. not being able to search for XP) and not for all dates is annoying. Continue the good work Specific articles on using certain controls, i.e Grids, ActiveX a more consistent and easier to use interface. Can't think of any, but I'm sure there are ways to better an already excellent service. Encourage independent developers to contribute tools, and techniques in the download area, currently there ar a glut of commercial/shareware products in the downloads. You need polls from within messages like Leafe.com and other forums. Better examples of Interop between Foxpro and .NET - maybe as part of the UniversalThread itself. Only God could do better I think. Great job guys. Your magazine should be free to PUTM members. I cancelled my PUTM membership after learning I also had to pay for the magazine. Code is free if I'm a PUTM. Generally it's pretty good. But do you really need to charge so much for a 'premium' membership? We don't get that much more. If you drop the price, you'll get a lot more takers. None come to mind at this time. It's good as is. I wish UTMag is free... ;-) well, at least the online version... Come on Michael... you can profit elsewhere... UT Mag should be FREE to PUTM and past released (3 months old?) should be available free online for everybody. Make searching messages available to basic membership It's ok just like now You guys are great. Consider the spanish community. Ken Levy in last letter: Page Options Archive February 10, 2004 January 23, 2004 December 19, 2003 November 13, 2003 September 5, 2003 October 7, 2003 July 31, 2003 March 2004 Letter from the Editor There are many exciting announcements in this month's letter, so we'll dive right into the details. There is life on Europa... Visual FoxPro 9.0! Announcing here formally (insert mental drum roll here)... the next version of Visual FoxPro from Microsoft, code named Europa, will be named Visual FoxPro 9.0. Visual FoxPro 9.0 is scheduled to be released during the second half of this year. Announcing the official name of the next version of Visual FoxPro now will allow upcoming articles, conferences, events, etc. to freely use the name Visual FoxPro 9.0 instead of the Europa code name. Oh, beta! This coming June, Microsoft will release a public beta version of Visual FoxPro 9.0 on msdn.com for anyone world-wide to download and install for free! Life is like a box of Visual FoxPro 9.0 We have recently started the process with the packaging and branding group within Microsoft to create the product box for Visual FoxPro 9.0. It is very likely that the screen shot used on the back of the Visual FoxPro 9.0 box will be of the enhanced Report Writer. For the Visual FoxPro 8.0 back-of-the-box product highlight listing, I was unable to convince the team that we should include a bullet item for the return of the Puzzle: ACTIVATE WINDOW Puzzle FoxTalk Reloaded FoxTalk has been in existence for many years and is a great technical resource for FoxPro developers. I was a contributing author and editor of FoxTalk during the early days of GenScrnX and the new object-oriented features of Visual FoxPro 3.0. The publishers of FoxTalk, Ragan Communications (which acquired Pinnacle Publishing 15 months ago), have recently been making some big decisions concerning FoxTalk. After talking with the FoxTalk team at Ragan, we've come up with a plan to make the publication better than ever. FoxTalk welcomes to the team David Stevenson who is an experienced technical editor. Additionally, FoxTalk will now include a monthly column submitted by the VFP team at Microsoft called "Tips from the VFP Team", to give an insider's view of how to get the most from VFP. Along with the editorial changes, Ragan has decided to offer a new lower subscription rate! Ragan has confirmed with me that all of these changes will begin with the May 2004 issue of the publication now called FoxTalk 2.0. While Microsoft will be contributing monthly to the FoxTalk 2.0 publication, editor David Stevenson and the FoxTalk team will of course make all of the decisions regarding content, editing, etc. For example, if the VFP team suggests an article on the FoxPro "Puzzle", they may decline for other content readers would prefer to see. You should expect to see articles in FoxTalk 2.0 submitted by VFP team members as well as the top FoxPro authors world-wide. Stay tuned for more information about FoxTalk 2.0 and visit to subscribe at PinPub.com or renew your subscription today to show your support for FoxTalk while obtaining great upcoming Visual FoxPro content. The June issue of FoxTalk 2.0 will be dedicated exclusively to articles and information on Visual FoxPro 9.0 to complement the upcoming free public beta download on msdn.com. The May issue of FoxTalk 2.0 will include more details from the editor on the plans for exciting upcoming issues. Hocus pocus, more CoDe Focus David Stevenson, while previously working at EPS Software, worked with the VFP team on the special CoDe Focus issue for Visual FoxPro 8.0. The VFP team is currently working with Markus Egger at EPS Software on another great CoDe Focus issue for Visual FoxPro 9.0. That special issue is scheduled to be released and given to attendees at Advisor DevCon in Las Vegas, September 29, when we launch Visual FoxPro 9.0. The Visual FoxPro 8.0 issue of CoDe Focus, as well as a new issue on the topic of Office 2003, can be found free online at code-magazine.com/focus. FoxPro books in your FoxToolbox.com The online e-commerce store FoxToolbox.com, owned by DBX-Technologies, is a great resource for obtaining Visual FoxPro, Visual Studio .NET 2003, and MSDN Subscriptions as well as third party add-on products for Visual FoxPro. Our friends at FoxToolbox.com, including Jim Eddins, are busy working on plans to create, publish, and sell Visual FoxPro books on the upcoming release of Visual FoxPro 9.0. David Stevenson, the new technical editor for FoxTalk 2.0, is working part-time with the folks at DBX on their Visual FoxPro book publishing plans. The Eight FoxPro wonders of the world Yet more exciting news in the FoxPro community is the fact there will be eight conferences world-wide this year focusing on Visual FoxPro. DevEssentials - June in Kansas City, MO DevTeach - June in Montreal, Canada Praha DevCon - June in Prague, Czech Republic Advisor DevCon - September in Las Vegas, NV SouthwestFox - October in Phoenix, AZ Germany DevCon - November in Frankfurt, Germany PortalFox Conference - November in La Coruna, Spain OzFox - November in Sydney, Australia Where is PortalFox Conference - November in La Coruna, Spain in question 20? UT is great as it is. Free PDFs Your great wish I had the time to spend. excelente I think the UT does a great job for the community. I can't think of anything other that more assistance with user groups. I (biased opinion) think that user groups are instrumental to learning. Change your background so that text is easier to read...:-) I think UT does the best job possible to server the Visual Foxpro community all weekly / monthly interviews with MS group leaders not just Ken L but other guy/gals VS people . SQL etc... You have a very different conduit to your members not like a Magazine which is stagnent but more like a group BLOG.... Although I'm not posting in the Support Area (still lack of good knowledge...), the UT is a very good source for me to learn. Keep doing the good work. None that I can think of. I know some people have an axe to grind in regards to UT, but I have found it to be a most valuable reasource and well worth the price. Unfortunately, the great assistance offered on UT (at least in my humble opinion) to appears to have adversely affected the market for VFP books. I don't blame Hentzenwerke for dropping a market that isn't making money, but it's a real shame. A free e-zine. Improved search facilities, both in message forums and other areas, e.g. wish list, bug list, downloads). Searching should support capabilities more in line with modern web search engines, e.g. boolean expressions, wild cards, remove archaic restrictions that are a royal PITA. I continue to be amazed at how the UT continues to evolve. Your and your staff/consultants' creativity continue to come up with innovations that make this on-line service the best. I can not think of anything more that I would like to see here. Stop taking away free services such as UT Mag viewing and dashboard. it would be nice to see at the bottom of a message how many people have read the thread. i know that this was removed as there are privacy issues with users seeing who read the message but just having the number that was already there would be nice. AN INSTANT MESSENGER!!!!!!! (Like ICQ) comments Webhosting for audio/video streams for User Meetings. offline reader You are doing pretty good! I find UT services great. No idea of additional services You have it all, this is a great community

See the 2003 results.

See the 2002 results.