Thursday, November 08, 2007
German DevCon: Developing apps for Vista
The conference kicked off this morning with Rainer's welcome. Then, Doug Hennig had the first session, Developing Applications for Vista. He recommends not turning off UAC (I agree). Doug spent quite a bit of time discussing virtulization of program files, user files, and registry values. He showed where to save program data so that it can be found later...and not virtualized.
Even opening files in the FFC causes virtualization, even if you don't save the file. The problem comes when you install SP2. If you previously opened the file, it was virtualized. Then install SP2. If you try to use FFC files, you'll get the old virtualized copy of the file. So, you need to delete the files from the virtualization area after installing SP2. There are lots more issues regarding virtulization. You should refer to Dougs posts (search the web) to find out what you need to do.
The RUN command in VFP does not support elevation, so you can't use it in Vista. The solution is to use ShellExecute with "RunAs" instead.
Installing a program has special needs. If the words "setup" or "update" appead in the name, Vista assumes it will require elevation. If the installer does any user-specifc tasks, it will run for the wrong user (ie the administrator) rather than the standard user. If you also allow the user to launch the application after setup has run, the app will run as administrator. You may need to rethink some of your install process. You may need to handle updates differently because standard users can't write to Program Files.
There are some issues with VFP 9.0 on Vista. The best solution is to upgrade to VFP 9.0, SP2.
After Doug spent lots of time talking about Vista issues and how to overcome them, he spent some time talking about how to take advantage of new Vista features.
The first is to use Segoe font rather than MS Sans Serif. I've said for many years that you should avould MS Sans Serif as it doesn't scale well.
Don't use GETFILE() or MESSAGEBOX(), but instead use VistaDialogs4COM that ships as part of Sedna. This gives the Vista dialogs and your application looks better.
Vista uses higher resolution icons. You need to be able to create and use icons up to 256x256 and .png files.
Windows Search is built into many Vista dialogs. Windows Search has an OLEDB Provider and Sedna has a test bench to help you get started and test Windows Search.
Even if you're not using Vista today, your customers will be, so you need to start testing with Vista and you need to do this today.
Even opening files in the FFC causes virtualization, even if you don't save the file. The problem comes when you install SP2. If you previously opened the file, it was virtualized. Then install SP2. If you try to use FFC files, you'll get the old virtualized copy of the file. So, you need to delete the files from the virtualization area after installing SP2. There are lots more issues regarding virtulization. You should refer to Dougs posts (search the web) to find out what you need to do.
The RUN command in VFP does not support elevation, so you can't use it in Vista. The solution is to use ShellExecute with "RunAs" instead.
Installing a program has special needs. If the words "setup" or "update" appead in the name, Vista assumes it will require elevation. If the installer does any user-specifc tasks, it will run for the wrong user (ie the administrator) rather than the standard user. If you also allow the user to launch the application after setup has run, the app will run as administrator. You may need to rethink some of your install process. You may need to handle updates differently because standard users can't write to Program Files.
There are some issues with VFP 9.0 on Vista. The best solution is to upgrade to VFP 9.0, SP2.
After Doug spent lots of time talking about Vista issues and how to overcome them, he spent some time talking about how to take advantage of new Vista features.
The first is to use Segoe font rather than MS Sans Serif. I've said for many years that you should avould MS Sans Serif as it doesn't scale well.
Don't use GETFILE() or MESSAGEBOX(), but instead use VistaDialogs4COM that ships as part of Sedna. This gives the Vista dialogs and your application looks better.
Vista uses higher resolution icons. You need to be able to create and use icons up to 256x256 and .png files.
Windows Search is built into many Vista dialogs. Windows Search has an OLEDB Provider and Sedna has a test bench to help you get started and test Windows Search.
Even if you're not using Vista today, your customers will be, so you need to start testing with Vista and you need to do this today.
// posted by Craig Berntson @ 2:37:00 AM 
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