How to Manage Differences in Stacked Pages Between Platforms

• Microsoft Visual FoxPro for Windows, version 3.0

SUMMARY

The Windows 95 user interface requires that stacked pages in a page frame be aligned vertically. However, Windows 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups, present stacked pages using a step effect. This article provides a way to take this difference into account when developing a form to be run on multiple platforms.

MORE INFORMATION

When you use the PageFrame control to build a form in Visual FoxPro 3.0, Visual FoxPro automatically calculates the left position of the page. You cannot modify it under program control.

In Windows 95 and Windows NT, pages are stacked as follows:

           -----------------------------
           | Page 4  | Page 5 | Page 6 |
           -----------------------------
           | Page 1  | Page 2 | Page 3 |
           -----------------------------

              ------------------------------
              | Page 4  | Page 5  | Page 6 |
           ---------------------------------
           | Page 1   | Page 2  | Page 3 |
           -------------------------------

If you develop a form under Windows 95 and run it under Windows 3.1, Visual FoxPro accommodates the stepping effect by maintaining the same width for the page frame and recalculating the width of each page. The width of each page is therefore smaller. Under these conditions, if a control is placed on the right edge of a page, it might be truncated when the page is displayed on a different platform.

If a page frame with stacked pages is to be run under different platforms, place controls away from the edges of a page to prevent them from being truncated, or modify the width of the page frame when the form is run in Windows 3.1. For example, if the page frame has three rows, use the following code in the Init event of the PageFrame.

   IF VAL(SUBSTR(OS(1),9,4)) < 4.00  && Verify the Operating System
      THIS.WIDTH = THIS.WIDTH + (12.0 * 3)
   ENDIF