Our message about supporting ReportPro has raised some questions, which we would like to answer here.
But before we do, let us please explain why we are doing this:

Many VO developers have applications that rely on 3rd party code. bBrowser, Vo2Ado and ReportPro are the most common ones. Apart from that there is RightSLE and the tools from Fabrice.

It will be difficult for VO developers to move forward if there is no solution for their 3rd party products. That is why we want to offer our help.

Here is what we have in mind:

  • We have no intention to sell new licenses of Classmate (CM), ReportPro 2 (RP2) or ReportPro 3 (RP3). These products are "end of life".
  • On top of that we cannot sell these products because the original copyright owners cannot transfer their rights anymore (for legal reasons that we cannot explain here).
  • After the conversion of RP2, CM and RP3 from VO to Vulcan the copyright to the Vulcan version of these products has become very unclear: most of the copyright still belongs to original owners, part of it to DataSupport in Belgium who did the conversion to .NET and finally also GrafX claims copyright. This really has become a legal nightmare. We do not want to get involved in that.
  • We want to encourage people to use other tools for new reporting. That is why we will only support existing customers. There are plenty other reporting tools for .Net applications. If you need help for this, ask around, for example on our forums.
  • People that have a source code license of a version of RP2 or RP3 (proof of purchase required) will get support at the source code level. Of course we will also supply binaries.

We have been in contact with the owners of ReportPro about support for the ReportPro product.
The owners have expressed their wish that the ReportPro customers should be supported properly, now and in the future.
As a result of these conversations we will from now on provide support to ReportPro customers.
This support will be integrated in the Friends Of XSharp (FOX) program.

This means:

  • FOX subscribers will get bug fixes and/or patches for issues in ReportPro.
  • FOX subscribers with a source code license will receive these bug fixes and/or patches in the form of source code changes and compiled binaries.
  • FOX subscribers without a source code license will receive bug fixes and/or patches in the form of compiled binaries only.
  • For non FOX subscribers the support will be available as a consultancy service.
  • Proof of purchase of ReportPro is required for this support.
  • Both the Visual Objects and Vulcan.NET version of ReportPro will be supported.
  • Both ReportPro 2 and ReportPro 3 will be supported.
  • When the X# version of the runtime is available then ReportPro will be recompiled and changed to work with the X# runtime.

In the coming weeks we will prepare "current" builds of all  ReportPro products (Rp2 and RP3 for VO 2.8 SP3 and VO 2.8 SP4, as well as for the Vulcan Runtime. Stay tuned for more information


We have just released XSharp "Anjou" Build 1.02 to our FOX subscribers
This release fixes the bug that some of our users have experienced with Visual Studio 2017 build 15.2 and later.
We have also added many new features in Visual Studio and have made some smaller improvements to the compiler.
Unfortunately we found some issues in the Visual Studio integration with the Smartindent and Format Document features, so we have decided to disable those in this build.
FOX subscribers can download the installer for the new version in the downloads area on this website

Below is a list of the most important changes in this build:

Compiler

  • Added support for XML doc generation. We support the same tags that the C# compiler and other .Net compilers support.
  • When declaring a type with the same name as the assembly now a compiler error is generated with a suggested work around.
  • Indexed access to bytes in a PSZ is now 1 based like in VO when the VO dialect is used. The Vulcan dialect needs 0 based index access like Vulcan.
  • For ambiguous code where the compiler has to choose between a Function call and a static method call in any other class, the compiler now chooses the function call over the method call (Vo and Vulcan dialect). The warning will still be generated.
  • When passing a variable by reference with the @ sign the compiler will now check to see if the declared type of the function/method parameter matches the type of the local variable.

Scripting

  • The scripting was not working in release 1.01

Visual Studio Integration

  • Fixed a 'hang' that could occur with Visual Studio 2017 version 15.3 and later
  • Added quickinfo for globals and defines
  • Added completionlists for globals and defines
  • Added VO Form editor to edit vnfrm/xsfrm files and generate the code and resources
  • Added VO Menu editor to edit vnmnu/xsmnu files and generate the code and resources
  • Added VO DbServer editor and VO Fieldspec editor to edit vndbs/xsdbs and vnfs/xsfs files and generate the code and resources
  • Added keyword and identifier case synchronization.
  • Prebuild and Postbuild entries in the project file are now configuration specific
  • Added support for XML Doc generation in the project system

VO Xporter

  • Fixed a problem when importing certain VO 2.7 AEF files
  • Fixed a problem with acceptable characters in the solution folder name
  • VO Form and menu entities are also included in the xsproj file
  • Added an option to the INI files to specify the Vulcan Runtime files location (RUNTIMELOCATION)

 


Two and a half week ago we announced a new build, and we have not released it yet, so we think it is time to fill you in on the details about what is going on.
The new build was almost ready a week ago, and then Microsoft released new builds of Visual Studio 2017 (15.3 and 15.3.1).

Unfortunately there are some breaking changes in this build that may result in Visual Studio locking up when you build a XSharp project. That is not good. We have heard about other project systems with similar effects. The problems seem to be related to changes in MsBuild.

Some of you will say that this is "typically Microsoft", but we strongly disagree with that:
We have had a very pleasant and smooth experience with the integration of our project system in VS 2017, from the early builds since April 2016 until last week.

At this moment we are investigating how to resolve the issue, so we can release an update that does work inside Visual Studio 2017. It is difficult to say how long that will take.

For now we strongly recommend NOT to update Visual Studio 2017 when you don't have to.

If you are running Visual Studio 2015 you should not experience any problems.

The good news is that we have had the time to add some more features to the VS integration in the last week. You can also expect support for editing VO Menu binaries as well as a first implementation (but not completely finished) of smart indent.