INFO: New Features of Class Browser

MORE INFORMATION

• In the new Class Browser, the splitters allow you to resize the Treeview and description areas.
• The new Class Browser provides more detailed information, as compared to the Class Browser for Visual FoxPro 5.0, when opening type libraries such as OLB, TLB, DLL, OCX, EXE, and so forth. The Class Browser is now comparable to the Visual Basic version 5.0 Object Browser, similar to the one included in Office 97 VBA.

Example 1

Open Vfp6.exe in the Class Browser to view the entire Visual FoxPro 6.0 automation server object model. Note that the Class Browser displays more collections as compared to Visual FoxPro 5.0. The Visual FoxPro 6.0 Class Browser also displays information for the selected Collection, Property, Event, or Method in the description pane, at the bottom. This is particularly useful for seeing all the related member and collection interfaces of the new Project Manager hooks.

Example 2

• If a specific Property, Event or Method (PEM) in a type library has help associated with it, you can right-click and select Help or press the space bar when you select the item, which opens help for that topic.
• The Redefine dialog in the new Class Browser, for selecting a specific class to redefine, no longer requires you to type in the class name. The Redefine dialog now uses the get class dialog.
• Right-clicking the Class Browser/Component Gallery button (to the left of the Open button) displays a history list, up to 32 items, of the recent items selected for both the Component Gallery and the Class Browser since that instance of Browser.app was loaded (not saved after closing, it is a per Browser/Gallery window list only). If you select a Class Browser item when in the component gallery mode, Gallery switches to the Class Browser automatically and that item (class or member) is selected. If the VCX for that item is no longer open, that VCX (or file) is automatically added to the current view then selected. The same applies to Component Gallery catalogs and items.
• The Class Browser and the Component Gallery shortcut menus now have a menu item called "New Window", which loads a new instance of the Class Browser (or Gallery) and loads the current files in the view and selects the same item (kind of a window clone feature). When in the Class Browser mode, there is a shortcut menu item called "New Component Gallery" that opens a new Component Gallery window and opens the same catalogs and selects the same item as in the current Gallery window. When in the Component Gallery mode, there is a shortcut menu item called "New Class Browser" that opens a new Class Browser window and opens the same files and selects the same item as in the current browser window.
• Exporting the class definition code is enhanced. In the Visual FoxPro 5.x Class Browser, clicking the View Class Code button displays the class code in a modal Visual FoxPro edit window. In Visual FoxPro 6.0, when you click the View Class code button, a modaless form appears over the Class Browser area containing the class code, and is auto- refreshed if you select a different class in the left pane. Besides that, selecting a different method from the same class also auto- refreshes and positions the cursor in the View Class code window. This window can be resized, minimized, and so forth. If you close the Class Browser, the window automatically closes.
• If you right-click the View Class code button, using Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher, the class code displays in the Internet Explorer Web browser control and the text appears in HTML. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 (or you do not have Internet Explorer), then a Visual FoxPro EditBox class displays the class code.
• The Export option from the Class Browser shortcut menu now allows you to save the file using HTM or HTML extensions that automatically generate HTML instead of plain text for the class code definition.