Mobile or Web: What works best for your visual FoxPro app?

Your FoxPro application still works

“Yes yes yes FoxPro has been killed by Microsoft many years ago, but our application still works and we’d like to keep it that way.“ This is a remark we hear from many enterprises and rightfully so, why would you rewrite it if it’s not absolutely necessary.

At the same time we also often hear things like “it would be nice if our customers could check their order status, or place certain orders”. Or “we have sales or inspection people on the road the whole day, and it would be nice if they would have a mobile app to upload pictures, scan barcodes, etc”.

Foxpro Database

Fortunately FoxPro comes with a robust and fast (DBF) database. And some of have you might have already modernized the DBF database to a SQL engine.

The question we often get asked is: how do I build a web (or mobile) application on top of my FoxPro database? That’s what we will show you in this 7-minute compressed video. It shows a simple example of how you can web-ify your Foxpro application in an easy way.

“But how do I connect to the DBF files?”. Well the Servoy platform comes with a built in DBF (database) driver, which allows you to connect seamlessly with your data. We treat it like any other SQL database: simply connect and start using our drag and drop designer.

“Can I re-use my business logic?”. Unfortunately not – or not easily. This approach is really meant to extend the lifetime of your FoxPro application without having to do a rewrite. Unlike other old 4GL environments, FoxPro was never very open to APi’s and external applications. Having said that, writing business logic in Servoy is a breeze and most of your FoxPro skills will translate easily. So doing some easy validations and checks is no problem.

Security of your Foxpro app

“How secure is this?”. Servoy comes with an application server that brokers between the data and the client (web front-end). This means that the front-end never has direct access to the database, the front-end doesn’t even run business logic in the browser i.e. code-injections are a thing of the past, and it makes the application blazing fast.

Mobile or web application?

“You talk about web applications here, but you also mentioned mobile, what’s that about?”. Well with Servoy you can turn any web application into an Android or iPhone application that can be deployed directly to the devices or through the respective app stores (Google Play or App Store). In a couple of months we will show you how, or if you need to know right now contact us here.