Chapter 16 Customizing Your Development ... - dFPUG-Portal

448 The Fundamentals of Visual FoxPro 6.0
Search Path
The VFP search path is much like the old DOS search path—it’s where VFP will look for files
if they’re not in the current directory. This includes programs, forms, and even databases and
tables! This is particularly handy because, after all, what good are a bunch of cool utilities in
your Developer Utilities directory if you can’t get to them easily? I keep my Developer Utilities
directory in my search path at all times.
Startup Program
Here’s where all the real work happens. You can have Visual FoxPro automatically run a VFP
program when it starts. That’s what the Welcome to Visual FoxPro splash screen really is—just
a VFP program.
But before I get into the details of what your startup program might do, I should mention
that, as with all things FoxPro, there are a bunch of ways to specify the startup program. This
entry in the Tools, Options dialog is one, of course, but you can also make one of two entries in
your config file:
_STARTUP =
COMMAND=
For example:
command = do \MYPROG3.PRG
_startup = "\MYPROG2.PRG"
Note that you need to specify a complete command with COMMAND—not just the name
of a program to execute. If you specify programs in both, both will run: the program attached to
_STARTUP first, and then the one attached to COMMAND. The program assigned to
_STARTUP in your config file updates the value you enter in the Tools, Options dialog.
I personally just use the entry in Tools, Options, and point to my startup program in my
Developer Utilities directory like the rest of the settings I’ve mentioned in this section. So what
could you do in a startup program?
I use mine to launch a couple of applications that I use all the time, add a couple of menu
pads to the standard VFP menu, open a couple of windows, and then place focus on the
Command window when I’m all done. Here’s the code:
* gofoxgo.prg
* start with a good menu
set sysmenu to default
* open the class browser
do (_browser)
* (other programs you want to load can go here too)
* run my custom menu
do GOFOXGO.MPR
* change the title of the VFP window to show what version
* of VFP I’m running as well as the current drive and directory
modify window screen title "We're developing in " ;
+ version() + " (" + sys(5) + sys(2003) + ")"
* open up the Data Session window
set
* place focus back to the Command window