ClarionMag article list

ClarionMag article list

We've started the process of bringing some updated ClarionMag articles over to this site, but because of formatting differences it's unlikely we'll ever bring the complete archive across. 

For your reference, here's the complete list of ClarionMag articles. If you don't have a previous subscription you can still buy all of the ClarionMag back issues in the ClarionMag store

 

Title

Date

ClarionMag URL

Summary

#FINDing Values In Prefixed Structures

2008-11-28

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v10/v10n11templatefind.html

If your template needs to #FIND prefixed local or global data you may have a problem (at least prior to C7 and maybe C6 9059). Lee White's template code offers a fix for #FIND.

.NET Basics: What Is .NET And Why Should I Care? Part 2

2005-11-24

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n11dotnetbasics2.html

In Part 1 of this series Dave Harms discussed some basic .NET concepts such as the .NET framework IL code and namespaces. In this instalment Dave surveys the classes that make up the .NET framework and elaborates on the concept of namespaces.

.NET Basics: What Is .NET And Why Should I Care?

2005-09-15

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n09dotnetbasics1.html

You've heard the pitch before: Microsoft's .NET is the future and Clarion.NET is the future of Clarion. But really should you care? And what is .NET anyway? David Harms answers these and other questions.

.NET for Clarion Developers

2007-01-19

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/v9n01dotnetforclarion.html

Dave Harms looks at the differences between Win32 and .NET development and between writing Clarion 32 bit Windows apps and writing Clarion.NET apps.

A .NET AppGen - From Microsoft

2010-08-04

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v12/v12n08lightswitch.html

On August 23 Microsoft will release a beta version of LightSwitch an application generator for .NET. Dave Harms looks at the LightSwitch announcements and wonders about the Clarion.NET AppGen and SoftVelocity's lack of communication.

A Basic Editor For Text Fields: Conclusion

2003-09-11

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n09basiceditor2.html

Clarion's TEXT control is versatile and useful but has next to no word processing capabilities. But as Tim Phillips shows it's relatively easy to add capabilities like search/replace block reformatting and more. Part 2 of 2.

A Basic Editor For Text Fields: Introduction

2003-09-04

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n09basiceditor1.html

Clarion's TEXT control is versatile and useful but has next to no word processing capabilities. But as Tim Phillips shows it's relatively easy to add capabilities like search/replace block reformatting and more. Part 1 of 2.

A Better DATE Function

2006-01-09

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n01betterdate.html

Carl Barnes improves on the standard Clarion DATE function with a version that corrects a bug and works with negative month and day values.

A Better DosFileLookup

2005-05-13

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n05selectfile.html

When some standard Clarion functionality doesn't meet your need what do you do? First you embed some code.  Then when you need that code elsewhere you start thinking about how to avoid duplicating the embeds. As Dave Harms shows often the easiest solution is to create a custom derived ABC class and tell the templates to use your class instead of the ABC original.

A Brief History of Clarion (Updated)

2009-04-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/historyofclarion.html

A recent discussion of DevCons past prompted Dave Harms to compile an incomplete history of Clarion. Updated April 29 2009 with more conference info. To leave a comment log in (subscription not required).

A C6 Tagging Class Template Wrapper

2003-08-07

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n08c6tagwrapper2.html

Steve Parker recently published an article on an ABC compliant class for tagging on browses.  When someone requested a template-enabled version Jim Katz volunteered his services and along the way discovered that creating a C6 ABC class template wrapper is easier than it used to be. In this second of two parts Jim concludes the template code.

A C6 Tagging Class Template Wrapper

2003-07-17

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n07c6tagwrapper1.html

Steve Parker recently published an article on an ABC compliant class for tagging on browses.  When someone requested a template-enabled version Jim Katz volunteered his services and along the way discovered that creating a C6 ABC class template wrapper is easier than it used to be.

A C7 Slider Control

2009-05-29

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v11/v11n05slider.html

Clarion Magazine last published an article on slider controls ten years ago and unfortunately that code no longer works in Clarion 7. Here's a version by Lee White and Bob Dobbins that gets the job done. 

A Calculator Class And Template

2003-01-24

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n01calc.html

Nardus Swanevelder's search for a free XP-like Clarion calculator was fruitless but he found some free Clarion 4 source code. Nardus shows he he converted that source into a class and templates.

A Calendar For Date-Limited Browses

2003-09-05

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n09datedialogue.html

One of the most-used features of Clarion is page-loaded browse boxes. But are these really a good idea? Veronica Chapman suggests otherwise and illustrates this with a calendar you can use to date-limit a file loaded browse box.

A Callback Technique for Capesoft's FileManager2

2006-12-21

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n12fm2callback.html

CapeSoft's FileManager2 and its more recent incarnation FileManager3 are amazing products: they completely automate the process of upgrading client databases whether local or across a network and make it easy to do file maintenance. Randy Rogers shows how to add a callback procedure to FM2 to provide user feedback during startup.

A Class  For Tagging

2003-02-13

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n02tags.html

Steve Parker is on record as not feeling the need to create classes. Yet here he is creating a class version of his tagging code. It's the end of the world as we know it.

A Class For Printing Addresses

2002-10-03

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n10addresses.html

Printing street addresses on reports can be a pain - missing field data can make a good report ugly in a hurry. One way around this is to use a memo for addresses but then you still have to format sometimes wildly different address data. Here's a small class that makes short work of address formatting.

A Class For The ASCIIng

2002-11-08

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n11anyascii.html

ASCII files are commonplace in programming but their use in Clarion is generally more complicated than in other languages because Clarion can only do ASCII file I/O via an ASCII file driver declared file. Declaring such a file can become quite a nuisance and breaks Konrad Byers' golden rule of never having to program the same thing twice. Enter the any ASCII file class.

A Class Wrapper for Brice Schagane's Menu Buttons

2004-03-26

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n03menubutton.html

Nik Johnson gets his copy of Tips & Techniques and quickly discovers a solution to his screen real estate problem: Brice Schagane's menu button. For easier re-use Nik shows how to convert Brice's code into a class.

A Class Wrapper For Files

1999-12-21

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n11filewrapper.html

Imagine you've been asked to write just one piece of cost estimating code that can be used on several quite different sets of files. Jim Kane shows how it's done.

A Class Wrapper for the SimpleOCR API

2006-07-06

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n07ocr.html

While developing a document management system John Dunn faced a requirement for scanned documents. To reduce data entry time and increase the accuracy of the indexed data he decided to add Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities to the program.

A Closer Look At Required Fields

2002-02-28

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n02reqfields2.html

Following reader response to his first article on required fields Steve Parker takes a second look at this tricky subject.

A Column by Any Other Name Is Not A Data Element

2001-07-02

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/columnbyanyothername.pdf

This Whitemarsh paper describes an approach to achieve enterprise-wide data standardization through the specification implementation and maintenance of data elements within the context of a metadata-repository CASE-like environment.

A Configurable Expression Editor Part 1

2004-11-05

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n11expression1.html

Since Clarion does not have a good integral tool for defining an expression at runtime Tim Phillips went ahead and built one using his Basic Editor as the foundation. Part 1 of 2.

A Configurable Expression Editor Part 2

2004-11-19

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n11expression2.html

Since Clarion does not have a good integral tool for defining an expression at runtime Tim Phillips went ahead and built one using his Basic Editor as the foundation. In this second of two parts Tim shows how the code works.

A Copy/Paste Popup Menu

2004-12-10

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n12copypaste.html

Clarion entry controls may have support for Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for copy and paste but what do you do when a client asks for the Copy/Paste popup menu? If you're Nardus Swanevelder you start writing some code.

A Customized Deep Assign Function

2006-12-12

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n12deepassign.html

The deep assign operator (:=:) is a powerful tool but it doesn't work in all circumstances. Alan Telford shows how to extend deep assign functionality using WHO and WHAT. 

A FileDropBox With Conditional Content

2005-11-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n11conditionalfdb.html

There are always situations where the contents of a FileDropBox either a FileDropListBox or a FileDropCombo is dependant on some criteria usually the contents of an entry field or another FileDropBox. But a FileDropBox is always file loaded and this loading is done when the form opens  after that the FileDropBox remains pretty static. Maarten Veenstra shows how to change the FileDropBox's content at runtime.

A FileManager For Marked Deleted Records

2001-08-01

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/v3n7deletefmnotes.html

Dennis Evans recently created a template and two classes to manage records marked as deleted (rather than physically deleted) as described in a recent ClarionMag article. This page contains usage notes on the class and a link to the source.

A Fresh Look At ClarionTest

2011-08-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v13/v13n08clariontest.html

It's almost two years since Dave Harms wrote ClarionTest 1.0 an NUnit-inspired testing framework for Clarion Win32 programming. And although ClarionTest has been shown on ClarionLive it hasn't had much coverage here at home. Dave remedies that with the first article in a series on this increasingly popular utility. 

A Function to Return Clarion Standard Time

2004-07-16

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n07timefunc.html

Mark Riffey made the request: I want to do TIME('12''24''06') and get a Clarion [standard] time just like I would do DATE('12''24''2004') and get a Clarion date. Steve Parker with a little help from his friends shows how it's done.

A Hunka-Hunka Burnin' CD Data or Two Steps Forward One Step Back(up)

2004-04-15

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n04burncd.html

An integrated backup system can be a great way to provide complete service to your customers. But what happens when your users want to back up to CD? Mark Riffey explains a technique that makes use of the Windows XP burn wizard.

A Multi-Threaded Queue Of Queues

2005-06-21

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n06synchqueue.html

Queues make all kinds of data handling fast and easy. With Clarion 6 queue access gets a little more complicated since queues by themselves are not thread safe. And what if you use queues of queues? Svetlana Zusman shows how to lock nested queues for thread safety and maximum efficiency.

A Naïve Look At Pre-Emption

2003-03-20

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n03preempt.html

Steve Parker knows that with Clarion 6 on the horizon global data abuse has to be dealt with beginning with his own applications.

A Naïve Look at The Mutex

2003-04-03

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n04mutexes1.html

Steve Parker finishes up his look at Clarion 6 synchronization objects with the mutex. Part 1 of 2

A New Look And A Topical Index

2001-11-20

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/v3n11redesign.html

Clarion Magazine has a new look and more importantly a new topical index making it easier than ever to find the articles you're looking for.

A Plan For Eliminating Bugs

1999-07-06

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n6eliminatingbugs.html

In his first Clarion Magazine article Bruce Gilham weighs in with a checklist of bug-avoidance techniques.

A Progress Bar For Multiple Processes

2004-07-08

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n07progress.html

Henry Plotkin does a lot of year-end processing. Process template procedures one for each file can do the work. But the user ends up looking at windows popping up all over the place. In this article Henry shows how to use one progress bar window when running multiple processes.

A Project Development Methodology

1999-10-14

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/services.pdf

Free download: TopSpeed's project development methodology document provides helpful information on managing projects and the client/consultant relationship. Essential reading for independent developers. Many thanks to Rich Mebane for making this document available.

A Simple Clarion# PDA Application

2007-12-26

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/V9n12compact.html

Skip Williams shows how easy it is to create a simple PDA application in Clarion#.

A Simple Solution for Accordion Menus

2007-10-31

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/v9n10accordion.html

David Podger and Deon Canyon are fans of third party Clarion products and they could have chosen a commercial sidebar menu when the need arose. But the idea of writing a basic button-oriented two-level menu had its appeal. 

A Simple Versions And Annotations Template

2003-12-05

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n12annotations.html

Recently Ronald van Raaphorst realized he needed some kind of annotation system for his Clarion app. The result was this template that lets a developer record changes in any procedure and print an overview of all annotations per procedure or application.

A Single Browse For Multiple Lookups

2002-07-05

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n07lookups.html

There have been a few threads in the newsgroups lately regarding techniques for handling a multitude of lookup tables in an application. Randy Rogers recently faced this situation and came up with an efficient solution.

A String Class

2011-04-29

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v13/v13n04stringclass.html

It's a bit over eight years since Steve Parker wrote his first class. Here's how he was recently motivated no forced to write his second. 

A String To CString Converter

2003-06-26

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n06cstring.html

Sometimes you need to pass CSTRINGs to a function and it's inconvenient to create variables for the purpose - you just want to pass in string literals. But Clarion (at least through version C6 EA4-5) all literal strings are STRINGs. So how do you do it? With a class of course.

A StringClass For Clarion

2007-11-16

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/v9n11stringclass.html

A common feature of object-oriented languages is a string class featuring common string-manipulation features. Rick Martin introduces a Clarion StringClass that supports creation and manipulation of strings of arbitrary length.

A Tale Of Three Brokers

2000-07-18

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v2/v2n7threebrokers.html

Steve Parker untangles the web of confusion around Clarion's three application brokers.

A Template Debugger

2006-09-06

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n09templatedebugger.html

Building on Mark Goldberg's technique Russ Eggen shows how easy it is to add real-time debug logging to any template.

A Template For Coloring Reports

2008-05-20

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v10/v10n05reportcolors2.html

Philip Prohm builds on his previous template for saving/restoring procedure variables with another template to let the user configure report colors. 

A Template For Copying Fields Between Files

2002-01-10

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n01blockassign.html

If you're like most Clarion developers you frequently have to copy fields between files. Clarion's deep assignment is perfect for this right? Wrong says Andrew Guidroz.

A Template For Exporting Classes

2002-09-20

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n09wrapper2.html

Lee White has previously written about creating a template wrapper for classes. That template worked fine but only in single EXE applications. What about multi-DLL apps? This time around Lee shows how to create a wrapper that handles the tricky business of exporting and handling exported classes.

A Template for Preserving Procedure Variables

2001-01-31

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v3/v3n1procvartpl.html

Clarion 5 introduced nice new feature in the standard ABC templates and that was the ability to easily preserve the contents of global variables in the application’s INI file. Tom Hebenstreit shows how to apply this idea to procedure data.

A Template For Saving Procedure Variables

2008-05-20

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v10/v10n05reportcolors1.html

Clarion provides a standard way of saving configuration information via INIClass but you still have to write the code to use that class. Philip Prohm demonstrates an extension template that reduces saving/restoring procedure variables to a few mouse clicks. 

A Tool For Understanding Template Symbols

2002-09-19

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n09templates2.html

To be an effective template programmer you need to know what values various template symbols contain at code generation time. Steffen Rasmussen presents a code template that you insert at any embed point and which prints out all (or selected) currently available template symbol values.

A Tree In A Page Loaded Browse

2003-05-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n05pagetree.html

Clarion has a template for building a tree list control (RelTree). One of the disadvantages of this control is that the maximum tree level is fixed by the number of files you use in it. In this article Ronald van Raaphorst outlines a simple idea for a non-level-limited page loaded tree using a standard browse control.

A Tree in a Page Loaded Browse: the Sequel Part 1

2005-10-27

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n10pagetree1.html

Browse boxes formatted as trees are handy for all sorts of things. File loaded trees are easy  page loaded trees however can be a nightmare. In this series David Podger and Deon Canyon build on an earlier approach demonstrated by Ronald van Raaphorst. Part 1 of 3.

A Tree in a Page Loaded Browse: the Sequel Part 2

2005-11-04

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n11pagetree2.html

Browse boxes formatted as trees are handy for all sorts of things. File loaded trees are easy  page loaded trees however can be a nightmare. In this series David Podger and Deon Canyon build on an earlier approach demonstrated by Ronald van Raaphorst. Part 2 of 3.

A Tree in a Page Loaded Browse: The Sequel Part 3

2005-11-11

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v7/v7n11pagetree3.html

Browse boxes formatted as trees are handy for all sorts of things. File loaded trees are easy  page loaded trees however can be a nightmare. In this series David Podger and Deon Canyon build on an earlier approach demonstrated by Ronald van Raaphorst. This final instalment looks at cutting and pasting.

A Tree In A Page Loaded Browse: Update And Delete Logic

2003-06-23

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v5/v5n06pagetree2.html

In this instalment Ronald van Raaphorst continues his discussion of a simple alternative to the RelTree template with a discussion of the ins and outs of updating and deleting records.

A Windows 7 Alt-Lockup Fix For Clarion 6 

2011-08-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v13/v13n08altfix.html

Clarion 7/8 users have a fix in hand for the Windows 7 Alt key lockup problem. But what do you do if you're still on Clarion 5 5.5 or 6? If you're Carl Barnes you go into the heart of the Windows message system you find the problem and you fix it. Part 1 of 2. (Zip updated Sept 16 2011)

A Windows 7 Alt-Lockup Fix For Clarion 6 Part 2

2011-08-31

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v13/v13n08altfix2.html

Clarion 7/8 users have a fix in hand for the Windows 7 Alt key lockup problem. But what do you do if you're still on Clarion 5 5.5 or 6? If you're Carl Barnes you go into the heart of the Windows message system you find the problem and you fix it. Part 2 of 2. (Zip updated Sept 16 2011)

A Windows 7 Alt-Lockup Fix For Clarion 6 Part 3

2011-10-29

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v13/v13n10altfix3.html

There's still more to be said about the Alt key fix for Clarion 6. Carl Barnes tweaks some code and handles one more lockup condition. 

ABC Design Series: The ViewManager Part 1

1999-11-23

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n10viewmanager1.html

The ViewManager is the base class for all ABC browses. In this first of two articles David Bayliss explains ViewManager fundamentals and initialization code.

ABC Design Series: View Manager Part 2

1999-12-07

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n11viewmanager2.html

In ViewManager Part 2 David Bayliss looks at the code that actually does the work.

ABC Embeds Are Easy

1999-12-21

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n11embedsareeasy.html

Tom Giles sifts through the huge number of ABC embed points and comes up wiith the ones you're most likely to need.

ABC or Legacy: Which Templates Should You Use?

1999-02-08

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v1/v1n1abcorlegacy.html

Which templates should you use? ABC offers power and complexity  legacy offers comfort and predictability. Do you need to switch to ABC?

Accessing Private Class Data

2007-01-26

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/v9n01private.html

Ever get annoyed by private data in the ABC (or any other) classes? Jeff Slarve has a neat trick for bypassing the PRIVATE attribute. 

Accessing TPS Files Via ASP

2002-05-08

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n05asp.html

In this article Brian Staff provides an introduction to Active Server Pages or ASP for Clarion developers. With ASP you can use the TopSpeed ODBC driver to display a TPS file (or any ODBC compliant data) in a browser.

Accessing Version Resource Information

2004-01-13

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v6/v6n01versioninfo.html

It's often useful to know the version of a particular EXE or DLL your customer is using and Windows EXEs and DLLs do have a standard format for version information. There are tools readily available to put this information in your Clarion apps and now Brian McGinnis demonstrates how to extract that information at runtime.

Adding A Class To Your ABC Program

2000-03-23

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v2/v2n3addclass.html

Not sure how to add a custom class to your ABC app? Tom Ruby explains all and throws in a serial/parallel port communication class for good measure.

Adding Aero Glass Effects to Clarion Apps

2007-05-30

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v9/v9n05vistaglass.html

Vista's Aero Glass adds eye candy to Vista applications. But how do you add this to Clarion applications? Randy Rogers shows how your apps can sport the Aero Glass effect. 

Adding Arrays To Generic Queues With HOWMANY

2006-11-17

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v8/v8n11howmany.html

Alan Telford uses Excel to view queue data as explained in an earlier article. That version of his generic-queue-to-CSV exporting procedure couldn't handle arrays in queues but Clarion 6's new HOWMANY function makes arrays in generic queues usable.

Adding Page Of Pages To A Clarion Report

2002-08-16

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v4/v4n08pageofpages.html

For many years now it has been difficult to add a Page of Pages variable to a Clarion report. It has also been difficult to print more than one copy of a report without clicking on the print/report button twice or using the printer properties to specify multiple copies. Inspired by Bruce Johnson's ABC book and some conversations at ETC III Nardus Swanevelder finds a solution to both problems.

Adding Tools To The C7/Clarion# IDE

2008-08-26

http://www.clarionmag.com/cmag/v10/v10n08tools.html

As Ben Dell shows it's easy to add custom tools to the IDE's Tools menu.