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Summary
As you can see, the Class Browser is quite malleable. Most aspects of its appearance and
behavior can be modified with just a little bit of coding to suit your particular needs and tastes. I
hope that this article has inspired you to explore the Class Browser and use it more effectively in
your work.
Ken Levy is a software engineer at Flash Creative Management Inc., a consulting and software
development firm in River Edge, New Jersey. Ken spends most of his time working in the Los Angeles
area, specializing in the research, design, and creation of application development tools. While working
as a full-time consultant at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, Ken developed
several public domain programs including GENSCRNX, PTX Editor, and other FoxPro tools.
201-489-2500, CompuServe 76350,2610.
Sidebar: Class Browser Basics
The Class Browser in FoxPro 3.0 (see Figure 1) is written in FoxPro and is specified by a system
variable named _BROWSER, which defaults to _BROWSER=SYS(2004)+'BROWSER.APP'.
The Class Browser opens a single visual class library (VCX). The Class Browser is included
with the Professional Edition of Visual FoxPro and allows you to see the structure of a visual
class or form at a glance, view equivalent code, change the class hierarchy, and so on.
The Class Browser user interface
The Class Browser is launched by selecting Class Browser from the Visual FoxPro Tools menu.
This causes Visual FoxPro to execute the program defined in a system variable called
_BROWSER. The Class Browser supports both visual and non-visual (Custom) classes. Multiple
instances of the Class Browser can be launched. Selecting Class Browser from the Tools menu
always launches a new instance; the window list on the Window menu is used to activate an
existing instance.
If the Class Browser form is resized, the controls will be resized and moved to fit the available
space. If the Class Browser form height is changed, the class display outliner and the member
form pages height will change. If the Class Browser form width is changed, the class display
outliner, member form pages, class description, member/instance description, and class type
combo box height will change. Classes can be moved from one .VCX to another using
drag-and-drop.
Using Class Browser with Class Designer and Form Designer
Components of an application are developed in the Class Designer (which saves the class in a
VCX) by creating classes visually, while applications are assembled from those components in
the Form Designer (which saves forms in an SCX). Not every line of method code and every
property setting needs to be saved as a class when building an application. Adding code and
setting properties of objects in an SCX makes sense if you don't intend to reuse specialized
changes. The SaveAsClass function makes it easy to create classes in a .VCX from objects in an