Extending FOXPRO Print Capabilities

Developed an application to extend the print capabilities of FOXPRO to include a Data Card printer. The Data Card printer can generate credit card size media with surface printed and magnetically encoded information. This application was written for a conference organizer to allow accurate and expedient transfer of information from Attendees to Exhibitors.

Provided a programmer controllable scripting interface to allow FOXPRO reports to be translated into a script which is subsequently handled by the print services application. Thus, the user can define a report in FOXPRO which is translated into the generic scripting language. The translation of the report was performed within FOXPRO.

The print services application can manage "inboxes" for multiple printers. The inboxes can be assigned unique priority levels. There are options to control the printers in the event of scheduled maintenance (including audible alarms and pausing the printer in preparation for the maintenance). All configuration information is managed by using popup dialog boxes which read and write information to the configuration files.

The print services application allows reports to be generated on hardware which FOXPRO can not support directly. This application extends the usability of the FOXPRO application by interfacing newer technology with their existing applicaitons.

The benefits of the new type of print services are

  • No need to handwrite attendee information or retain business cards.
  • Attendees visits to conference booths are expedited.
  • Both printed and magnetically encoded information can be used.

    The tools used were C/C++ and a third party Data Card Printer API package. The application runs on Windows in conjunction with FoxPro 2.6 or Visual FoxPro.