Replacements for FoxPro

Question

I am looking for a replacement our Foxpro application. Microsoft Visual FoxPro is a Boeing non standard software application. Microsoft has not released a new version since 2007 and has announced it will no longer be supporting the software. The department started using FoxPro software in the early 1990's and has built several tools used to perform our contractual SOW activities. FoxPro software is unique and no one tool exists that has the same capabilities. With the rollout of WIN7, we were required to purchase licenses last year to update the software to the 2007 version of Visual FoxPro. The previous 2003 version of Visual FoxPro is incompatible with WIN7. Since Microsoft is longer supporting the software it is only a matter of time before Visual FoxPro will be incompatible with a later operating system update.

Any ideas on of an application or a group of applications that can handle the capabilities listed below?

• Open and alter numerous data tables at once
• Process Word Documents to determine alteration made from master copies
• Allow coding for flexible data manipulation
• Process and manipulate flat and excel files
• Import Word Documents, excel spreadsheets, and flat files into tables
• Hard code relationships between tables
• Allow user and administrative privileges
• Flexible data integration with other systems

Answer 1

As one of possible alternatives, I can recommend our software product: DBF Commander Professional. This is not an IDE as VFP, but it is supported now (up to Win 8.1), and I think it may be useful for you:

• Open and alter numerous data tables at once - Supported.
• Process Word Documents to determine alteration made from master copies - Not supported.
• Allow coding for flexible data manipulation - SQL queries execution support.
• Process and manipulate flat and excel files - Export to Excel supported, export/import from CSV supported.
• Import Word Documents, excel spreadsheets, and flat files into tables - Not supported.
• Hard code relationships between tables - Not supported.
• Allow user and administrative privileges - Not supported.
• Flexible data integration with other systems - Export to a database, Import from a database, etc.

Answer 2

Most of your requirements are not things that Visual FoxPro helps you with. Things like Process Word Documents to determine alteration made from master copies are very likely done by way of a COM bridge to Microsoft Office, and it's Word itself which handles the change rather than the vfp runtime.

Assuming that tight integration with Microsoft Office is something you're not considering to change, your best options are the two paths Microsoft offers:

Option 1. Microsoft Access

If you're installing your final tool on desktop that already have a license for Microsoft Office, don't have a team of OOP-savvy developers, and want a WYSIWYG data-management system that couples with office documents, Access is exactly what you want. If you want real security you may need to jump through a few hoops and possibly pick up a SQL Server license, but it's a product niche that overlaps very well with FoxPro and isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Be aware if you go this path that Microsoft is transitioning Office to have a Software-as-a-Service bias, which may be either detrimental or advantageous depending on the actual needs of your customers and your company's various requirements and policies.

Option 2. Visual Studio

If you're a team of actual software developers with MSDN subscriptions or Visual Studio licenses, using .NET lets you hit all of your requirements plus more, although a more significant amount of training will be required. Visual Studio Tools for Office also lets you inspect and manipulate office documents without launching the final executables, which may grant you a significant speed advantage.

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Note that the above are not by any way the only options, nor are they even exclusive. For raw data handling, you'll likely want to migrate to either SQL Server or a F/OSS equivalent such as MaraDB or SQLite, all of which are more than a match for what FoxPro brought to the table for most practical applications.

(There are some instances where FoxPro may be faster than latter-generation relational databases, but there are also several where the relational DB's are significantly faster than FoxPro.)

Answer 3

While the UI that VFP lets you build will get more and more dated (though take a look at http://vfpx.codeplex.com/ for some nice ways to modernize), VFP itself is likely to work for a long, long time. It's built using Visual C++, the same language that Office is build in, and Office isn't going anywhere and is unlikely to be rewritten in its entirety.

Tamar

Answer 4

Transfer your data to SQL Server and use Visual Studio to create the user interface. I am doing this now with my company's huge volume of Visual FoxPro data and applications. You, of course, will need a developer to develop the application. You could also contact EPS Software, they help companies with FoxPro to .NET conversions. They are the same people that produce CODE magazine. We are considering for the work on our project.