VFP apps on Android and iPhone?
Posted on 14. Apr, 2011 by Eric in C#, Database, FoxPro, Hardware, Web
A few times lately I’ve been asked if we could have an Android or iPhone version of our custom Visual FoxPro application. Of course the quick answer is “No,” because there is not and never will be a mobile version of Visual FoxPro (though it probably runs on Windows CE, but ugh).
I’ve spent some time recently studying native Android development, which of course is all done with Java and uses the well-regarded open source IDE called Eclipse. I found it to be a much easier experience than I had working the the iPhone, as it’s Objective-C language and IDE, xCode, were just so different than what I was used to.
Once you commit to developing to a native platform however, you’re crossing the Rubicon. Apps developed for one platform cannot be recompiled for another. Furthermore Java (Android) is different than Silverlight (Windows Phone 7) which is different than Objective-C (iPhone/iPad) which is different still from HP’s WebOS, not to mention WPF for the new Windows apps, or FoxPro’s screens, etc. etc.
Some C# developers have gotten excited about the MonoDevelop/MonoDroid/MonoTouch projects, which allow you to write C# for different apps, but is that ideal?
And of course here comes HTML5 which looks like a powerhouse that could change web programming so much for the good.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to write user interface code once that could compile into each platform’s native code?
With some caveats, that appears to be what a couple of projects do for you: PhoneGap and Titanium.
I’m not going to rehash all their features here, you can check out the demos on their sites, but for us FoxPro developers the general idea to get FoxPro data onto iPhones, Androids, etc, would be to write the Presentation Tier in HTML5 and have that make calls to via web services calls to our Controllers (West Wind Web Connection, e.g.) which natively talk to our FoxPro database.
I committed to showing a bit of this at a Virtual Brown Bag webinar in a few weeks, so I guess I’ll be spending my spring break looking at some of this. Updates to follow…
Lilliana Breidenthal
Jun 11th, 2011
Found your site on Bing…Great post! I look forward to reading more from your site.
Derek
Aug 31st, 2011
There is a way to port your visual foxpro desktop app to Android. Check out this in the Android Market Take a look at “Cellica Database for Android” https://market.android.com/details?id=com.DB.android.WWDBViewerPlus.WDBViewerPlus
Eric
Sep 13th, 2011
Interesting product, Derek, I’ll check it out.
Follow up: I’ll be speaking at the Southwest Fox (www.swfox.net) in Phoenix this October, 2011, about this very topic.
oJe
Sep 14th, 2011
I’m also interested on this matter…
count me in.
cheers! and good luck!
Derek
Oct 6th, 2011
Did you check out this software? I haven’t bought it yet but it looks promising.
Jimmy Ho
Feb 2nd, 2012
The screen resolution and the processor speed of a smartphone is very much comparable with a Pentium PC running Windows 98. I wonder if anyone has developed anything like an xBASE engine on Android. If so, porting an xBASE form to Android should not be difficult, as the screen resolution is very much the same.
Eric
Feb 3rd, 2012
If you wanted to go that route, Android has ‘sqlite’ built in, so the database part would be easy (relatively). The trick would be building an interpreter for the language.
raju
Feb 25th, 2012
wants to run my foxpro 2.6 app on android
lexicon
Apr 18th, 2012
Successfully running Foxpro 2.6 in Android, by using DOS emulator, ADosBox.
A bit slow, but all module is working perfectly.
For keyboard layout that need support Function Keys (F1-F12) you can use Hacker’s Keyboard for Android
Namrata
Aug 31st, 2012
Want to run my vfp 6 app on adroid which has ole excel calls also. Is it possible?
Alex
Oct 5th, 2012
@Eric: I’ve found a DBF file reader for MAC OS, you might take a look at: https://github.com/davbeck/DBF-Reader but still looking for a iOS version
George
Jul 16th, 2013
@Derek: Thank you for pointing out towards Cellica Database for android. This is such a nice product. I can now have my Visual foxpro database with me on my smartphone. We are testings its multi user version and my manager is quite impressed with it.
DIDIK WAHYUDI
May 15th, 2015
iam needed visual foxpro portable do it in android
DIDIK WAHYUDI
May 15th, 2015
Iam need visual foxpro portable for acces in android system
Eric
May 18th, 2015
Didik,
Check out the Cecilia product mentioned above if you want to read/write FoxPro tables from an Android app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.DB.android.WWDBViewerPlus.WDBViewerPlus
Your VFP code won’t run on Android, but you could get a remote desktop tool to run your apps or write a new U/I in either a web app or native.
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Mar 27th, 2017
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