FireFly Visual Designer is a powerful piece of software that enables you to rapidly develop PowerBASIC computer applications. All the speed of "C" with the rapid application development time of Visual Basic.
No runtime DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) of any kind. Every FireFly created application is totally self-contained and does not require any supporting DLLs to be distributed.
Choose from almost 200 internal functions that make combining your code with TreeViews, ListViews, Labels, Command Buttons, TabControls, ProgressBars, etc... extremely easy. You can code entire applications without any Win32 API knowledge.
Modular Code. FireFly allows the programmer to "attach" code to individual window's messages that are destined for the controls that you create. Separating the code for each control allows for highly maintainable code and discourages the use of bug causing global variables. The code editor is "built in" - no need to shell back and forth between a designer and a code editor.
Here are some key features of "FireFly Visual Designer":
· No runtime DLLs (Dynamic Link Libraries) of any kind. Every FireFly created application is totally self-contained and does not require any supporting DLLs to be distributed. Please note: If your application requires any 3rd party custom controls then you will have to distribute those DLL's with the FireFly generated EXE. However, FireFly does not use any runtime libraries like Visual Basic or other visual designers.
· OCX and ActiveX support. Easily integrate visual COM programming into FireFly programs.
· Built-in support for Microsoft's ADO and ADOX (Active Data Objects) database support.
· Choose from almost 200 internal functions that make combining your code with TreeViews, ListViews, Labels, Command Buttons, TabControls, ProgressBars, etc... extremely easy.
· Modular Code. FireFly allows the programmer to "attach" code to individual window's messages that are destined for the controls that you create. Separating the code for each control allows for highly maintainable code and discourages the use of bug causing global variables.
· WYSIWYG Designer. In the tradition of many of today's powerful visual designers, FireFly presents a "what you see is what you get" design experience. Easily create controls, re-size and move them, and apply different visual characteristics to them. FireFly handles all of the tedious code creation. Easily create and modify forms and controls with ease.
· Easily create form templates that can be re-used in new projects. You can even create templates for menus, toolbars and statusbars.
· Design MDI (Multiple Document Interface) applications in seconds.
· 3rd Party Custom Controls can integrate directly into FireFly. This allows you to use 3rd party controls as if they were standard, native Windows controls. Simply select the tool from the FireFly Toolbox.
· Harness the power of the Windows API and never feel constrained by pre-determined programming methods. With the Windows API you have the ultimate degree of coding power in your possession. Windows API coding is not difficult and the benefits are truly amazing!
Limitations:
· The compiled EXE's will only run for 5 minutes before exiting.
· The generated source code is deleted after compiling.
· "User Tools" are disabled.
· New Custom Controls are not available in the trial version (FireLines, FireTextBox, FireLink, FireAniGif, and FireImage).
· 30-days trial.
What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]
New Project Folder Structure:
· All FireFly 3 projects have a common folder layout on disk. There are several folders that get created automatically for every project. These are: Forms, Images, Modules and Release. If you attempt to use a FireFly 2 project in FireFly 3 then you will go through an update process that will create these folders automatically and copy the correct files to the correct locations.
No more Console Projects:
· FireFly 3 is a 100% GUI/EXE based visual designer. It no longer supports Console projects. You will need to create those projects using FireFly 2 or standalone with the PowerBASIC Editor or equivalent (eg. JellyFish Pro Editor, SED Editor). FireFly Functions related to console operations have been removed from version 3.
No more Built-in ADO/ADOX Support:
· FireFly 2 had an option that allowed the automatic inclusion of the ADO/ADOX database routines into a project. That support is now removed from FireFly 3. ADO/ADOX should now be downloaded sep...
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