Have a look at https://www.xsharp.info/

Using the web for your app takes a lot of conversion in thinking about how you code to get things done. What do you pull ahead of time, and what will the interface need. The oh by the ways that you are confronted with is respect to local data you are using is another major issue to overcome.

Face it you will have to learn a web-oriented coding technique.

On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 9:09 AM Dave Crozier DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk wrote:

Looking at it as a basis for some web development that at the moment converting from strict VFP desktop onto a browser based solution as the desktop solution ships so much data when opening DBF's with their associated indexes.

Have looked at FoxInCloud but it won't do what we want it to do without a great amount of rewriting and restructuring unfortunately.

M$SQL server is obviously a candidate as we are up to speed but from looking at Lianja it seems to be a midway point between a complete rewrite of the software and a "black box substitute" for using native VFP tables. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems like what was sold as the "Advantage Database ADS" VFP DBC container replacement some years ago, but I may be wrong in my observations.

So, I want to know if possible, learning curve timescales as well as scalability but from a developer and not a Sales point of view so I can decide on the best platform for development. We already have SQL datacentre so spinning up a new SQL, database would be the cheapest option obviously but I'd like to examine other possibilities for their strengths and weaknesses.

Dave Crozier Software Development Manager Flexipol Packaging Ltd.

Flexipol® Packaging Ltd T 01706 222 792 E DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk W https://www.flexipol.co.uk/ Follow us: Unit 14 Bentwood Road, Carrs Industrial Estate, Haslingden, Lancashire, BB4 5HH

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​​ ​Terms & Conditions: Notwithstanding delivery and the passing of risk in the goods, the property in the goods shall not pass to the buyer until the seller Flexipol Packaging Ltd. ("The Company") has received in cash or cleared funds payment in full of the price of the goods and all other goods agreed to be sold by the seller to the buyer for which payment is then due. Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer, the buyer shall hold the goods as the seller's fiduciary agent and bailee and keep the goods separate from those of the buyer and third parties and properly stored protected and insured and identified as the seller's property but shall be entitled to resell or use the goods in the ordinary course of its business. Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer the seller shall be entitled at any time -----Original Message----- From: ProFox profox-bounces@leafe.com On Behalf Of Stephen Russell Sent: 17 August 2018 14:34 To: ProFox Email List profox@leafe.com Subject: Re: Lianja anyone?

Any particular environment are you interested in such as mobile, web or desktop?

On Thu, Aug 16, 2018 at 9:40 AM Dave Crozier DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk wrote:

...

Anyone here using Lianja in a production environment?

Would love to hear your comments on performance and ease of use.

Dave Crozier Software Development Manager Flexipol Packaging Ltd.

Flexipol® Packaging Ltd T 01706 222 792 E DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk W https://www.flexipol.co.uk/ Follow us: Unit 14 Bentwood Road, Carrs Industrial Estate, Haslingden, Lancashire, BB4 5HH

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be unlawful.

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If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone or email.

Flexipol Packaging Ltd. has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise the risk of virus transmission through email and therefore any files sent via e-mail will have been checked for known viruses. However, you are advised to run your own virus check before opening any attachments received as Flexipol Packaging Ltd will not in any event accept any liability whatsoever once an e-mail and/or any

attachment is received.

...

It is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that they have adequate virus protection.

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---

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​​ ​Terms & Conditions: Notwithstanding delivery and the passing of risk in the goods, the property in the goods shall not pass to the buyer until the seller Flexipol Packaging Ltd. ("The Company") has received in cash or cleared funds payment in full of the price of the goods and all other goods agreed to be sold by the seller to the buyer for which payment is then due. Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer, the buyer shall hold the goods as the seller's fiduciary agent and bailee and keep the goods separate from those of the buyer and third parties and properly stored protected and insured and identified as the seller's property but shall be entitled to resell or

use the goods in the ordinary course of its business.

...

Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer the seller shall be entitled at any time

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/related multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html image/jpeg image/jpeg image/png image/png image/png image/png

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[excessive quoting removed by server]

The browser doesn't maintain data that you could check for validation such as this was the initial data and to compare against what the user has presented. Does an update need to happen or did they just look at it?

In a server farm, there is no reliable cached data on the web server.

There is no append from cursor.

All data calls need to open and close connections.

Security is now less of a restraint on the file server and more on the how to not pass data out of plain text to the back to the server.

Just a start on tiny differences.

On Fri, Aug 17, 2018 at 10:05 AM Thierry Nivelet tnivelet@foxincloud.com wrote:

Hi Dave

Never seen that on any project … can you share an example of such « rewriting and restructuring »? On west wind forum if you prefer. Thanks

Thierry Nivelet http://foxincloud.com/ Give your VFP app a second life in the cloud

...

Le 17 août 2018 à 16:08, Dave Crozier DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk a écrit

:

...

Have looked at FoxInCloud but it won't do what we want it to do without

a great amount of rewriting and restructuring unfortunately.

[excessive quoting removed by server]

Have looked at FoxInCloud but it won't do what we want it to do without a great amount of rewriting and restructuring unfortunately.

No matter what you choose, this is the world of web applications and will require a huge amount of restructuring and a huge amount of scaffolding to even deal with security properly, even before you get to actual business problems.

FoxInCloud has the advantage of providing a framework for getting you some of the way there from an existing VFP solution.

You might find that putting the existing solution on a Windows server in the cloud and allowing the users RDP access is a path of less resistance - in that scenario all the DBF access is happening locally on the server.

Dave,

I have a VFP COM object to get access to a VFP Desktop data set to build a web interface for parts of it. I recently discovered that using the XMLAdapter, I can return nested XML to the C# project. There it can be easily turned into standard objects that C# can manipulate. It's strange sometimes as I think about it. C# Web gets a request, it asks VFP COM to complete it. VFP returns XML, that C# turns into an object, then either converts it to HTML or JSON to send to the client.

I feel blessed that I have someone else doing the front end work so I can just work in the data and business logic.

Have an adventure! It's worth it!

Tracy

-----Original Message----- From: ProfoxTech [mailto:profoxtech-bounces@leafe.com] On Behalf Of Dave Crozier Sent: Monday, August 20, 2018 8:17 AM To: profoxtech@leafe.com Subject: RE: Lianja anyone?

Alan, We already use VFP to RDP in where non complex applications are required or when using remote access.

Just looking for a fairly quick method of data access to DBF's for a small project that doesn't involve a large learning curve... Ultimately we will be using SQL for data access like all the other systems we have.

Apart from that, I'd like a play with "other technologies" ... lol!

Dave Crozier Software Development Manager Flexipol Packaging Ltd.

Flexipol® Packaging Ltd T 01706 222 792 E DCrozier@flexipol.co.uk W https://www.flexipol.co.uk/ Follow us: Unit 14 Bentwood Road, Carrs Industrial Estate, Haslingden, Lancashire, BB4 5HH

​This communication and the information it contains is intended for the person or organisation to whom it is addressed. Its contents are confidential and may be protected in law. If you have received this e-mail in error you must not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. Unauthorised use, copying or disclosure of any of it may be unlawful. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately by telephone or email.

Flexipol Packaging Ltd. has taken every reasonable precaution to minimise the risk of virus transmission through email and therefore any files sent via e-mail will have been checked for known viruses. However, you are advised to run your own virus check before opening any attachments received as Flexipol Packaging Ltd will not in any event accept any liability whatsoever once an e-mail and/or any attachment is received.

It is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that they have adequate virus protection.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ​​ ​Terms & Conditions: Notwithstanding delivery and the passing of risk in the goods, the property in the goods shall not pass to the buyer until the seller Flexipol Packaging Ltd. ("The Company") has received in cash or cleared funds payment in full of the price of the goods and all other goods agreed to be sold by the seller to the buyer for which payment is then due. Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer, the buyer shall hold the goods as the seller's fiduciary agent and bailee and keep the goods separate from those of the buyer and third parties and properly stored protected and insured and identified as the seller's property but shall be entitled to resell or use the goods in the ordinary course of its business. Until such time as the property in the goods passes to the buyer the seller shall be entitled at any time -----Original Message----- From: ProFox profox-bounces@leafe.com On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 20 August 2018 12:41 To: profoxtech@leafe.com Subject: Re: Lianja anyone?

Have looked at FoxInCloud but it won't do what we want it to do without a great amount of rewriting and restructuring unfortunately.

No matter what you choose, this is the world of web applications and will require a huge amount of restructuring and a huge amount of scaffolding to even deal with security properly, even before you get to actual business problems.

FoxInCloud has the advantage of providing a framework for getting you some of the way there from an existing VFP solution.

You might find that putting the existing solution on a Windows server in the cloud and allowing the users RDP access is a path of less resistance - in that scenario all the DBF access is happening locally on the server.

-- Alan Bourke alanpbourke (at) fastmail (dot) fm

[excessive quoting removed by server]

On 2018-08-22 10:54, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:

On 2018-08-20 07:41, Alan Bourke wrote:

...

You might find that putting the existing solution on a Windows server in the cloud and allowing the users RDP access is a path of less resistance - in that scenario all the DBF access is happening locally on the server.

Why doesn't this approach happen more often or why isn't it commonplace? (I get the imnpression it's not.) Is it not professional in its style?

And wouldn't this approach be very secure?

On Wed, 22 Aug 2018, at 4:05 PM, Stephen Russell wrote:

Not sure you can RDP into Cloud today. Maybe you can but not with what we are looking at.

Absolutely you can, one of our products depends on it.

On Wed, 22 Aug 2018, at 3:54 PM, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:

On 2018-08-20 07:41, Alan Bourke wrote:

Why doesn't this approach happen more often or why isn't it commonplace? (I get the imnpression it's not.) Is it not professional in its style?

It involves purchasing RDP licences is maybe one reason, you would normally need to implement Citrix XenApp or something to manage it properly.

There are alternatives to RDP like ThinStuff that can work very well.

On 2018-08-17 10:08, Dave Crozier wrote:

Looking at it as a basis for some web development that at the moment converting from strict VFP desktop onto a browser based solution as the desktop solution ships so much data when opening DBF's with their associated indexes.

Just a quick comment that the VFP dbf app I did at Sylvan has the same challenges in its old age. They've got 500MB of data in some centers with 20+ years of data, and for whatever reason, running some reports takes FOREVER on the client machines at their learning centers (where it's just a handful of machines on the local server). Corporate's workaround was to give folks direct server access so they could run it faster on the server. I'm glad I switched to MySQL back in 2004!

On 2018-08-22 12:27, Alan Bourke wrote:

On Wed, 22 Aug 2018, at 3:51 PM, mbsoftwaresolutions@mbsoftwaresolutions.com wrote:

...

On 2018-08-17 10:08, Dave Crozier wrote:

...

They've got 500MB of data in some centers with 20+ years of data

Not *that* big in Fox terms ...

...

running some reports takes FOREVER on the client machines at their learning centers

Are they on the same LAN as the server with the DBFs?

I agree...not huge for VFP but for reasons I can't explain, it's slow. Of course the tech folks at Corporate think it's pulling the entire dbf file etc over the LAN (and maybe they've done analysis to support that with SysInternals...not sure), but I've seen it to be slow. Many lines of legacy code that weren't written for full optimizations, so it is what it is.

Yes, I believe the same LAN. Workstations connecting to the inhouse Corporate server box...which then communicates with the MotherShip and sends all their data back there too. I believe the servers are underpowered and not configured correctly but of course that's off-limits to anybody but The Man at Corporate.

If someone else is in the program with the tables open, reports will be slow, and the client interface will be slow. It's a network share thing. Some of our customers see this when their data gets above 3000 records.

Where I have seen biggest impacts to VFP in recent years is increased use of "virtual drives" - aka not a real hardware drive. Where I work they "hand out" virtual drives - but they are controlled by corporate IT. So I could not get to the details of how those drives are set up. What I saw was that VFP performance was impacted by around 1000% (yes 10x slower, in some cases I think even worse). When I placed the database on a "dev" server (which was an actual hardware box) where several of us could just map a drive, performance was the usual snappy, nearly instantaneous results (except of course where we expected it to be slower - like processing a couple hundred thousand records). In one app I created a "background" sync framework where the entire DB was local (one of the Big Data replication methodologies). It worked well, but it was a bit of effort to implement.

Don't get me wrong, virtual drives are great and satisfy a certain need. And they essentially look "identical" to a hardware LAN drive. But I imagine this will get worse as time goes on, even for hardware boxes (look up the junk about SMB, SMB2, blah blah blah). Maybe if they drop windows servers and go Linux with Samba...???

Oops, too much talking. Suggestions in probable order of ease of trying: - I assume you can modify code and can change the VFP DB design: first, double check indexes of tables: VFP does not pull down the "whole table" when a table is "used". But uninformed/uncaring "REPORT" designs may well be scanning the whole table. Check that out: generally it is better to do a "SELECT..." statement into a temp cursor, and then do the REPORT FORM from that. If the DB indexes match the SELECT clauses essentially only the matched data will come over the wire. And then, since the temp cursor is "local" there is no locking contention whatsoever as the REPORT FORM is running. - find out if they are using virtual drives: if they are, and if the app is a priority, checking performance on an actual hardware box might be worth it (if IT cooperates... ha) - if it is a hardware box, may need to do research into SMB settings (Ops lock, etc) (but IT has to help with this... ha ha) - Seriously, putting Ubuntu server on a box is drop-dead easy, setting up a Samba share also drop-dead easy. That could be a good test. But corp IT is generally ignorant and inflexible in non-software companies (and especially if they are MS-certified.... hahahahaha).

HTH, -Charlie