New Features in SDT 6.0

• Child nodes in the TreeView control of the Database Explorer are now optionally only created when the parent node is expanded for the first time (the default for the new Auto Load Tree setting is Off). The result is that the Database Explorer appears much faster for medium and large databases or those on a network drive.

• The Database Explorer is no longer database-oriented, showing only a single database. It now shows all databases in a set of meta data. This is much handier than having to bring up multiple instances of the Database Explorer when you have multiple databases in your meta data.
• You can now assign a "system" name to a set of meta data. This appears in a Most Recently Used (MRU) list in the Database Explorer and is used as the default in the Documentation dialog.
• A new function in the Database Explorer allows you to open a different set of meta data without bringing up another instance of the Database Explorer.
• The Database Explorer can now be opened without specifying a database container (such as if your meta data consists of only free tables).
• The "Default location for DBCXREG" property is now used as an option for where to create the meta data if the "When DBCXREG.DBF cannot be found" option is set to a new "create in specific directory" choice. The new behavior when looking for DBCXREG.DBF is to look in the same directory as the DBC first, then in a list of directories specified in a new "Look for DBCXREG.DBF in" option. That way, you can switch between different databases in different projects without making the project directory current first.
• You can now create a free table in SDT (in previous versions, you had to create it outside SDT, then add it to the meta data).
• When SDT extensions are created for an existing set of meta data (for example, from a Visual FoxExpress application), any databases and free tables already in meta data are validated (previously, you had to validate each database and free table separately to create SDT meta data).
• The Database Properties page now displays statistics about the selected database.
• New functions in the Database Explorer allow you to add, remove, or create a database.
• The Batch Add function now supports databases and free tables.
• When you copy or move a view to another database, you are now asked if you want the table references in the view to be adjusted to the current database or not. The former behavior was to automatically adjust table references, assuming the view would now reference tables in the current database. This was fine if that's what you wanted, but was a problem if you wanted to move all the views in one database to another to create "tables-only" and "views-only" databases.
• The window size and position are now persisted.
• If the "Modify in View Designer" checkbox is checked, the Database Explorer uses the VFP View Designer to modify a view. If not and Steve Sawyer's View Editor is available, it's used instead.
• Remote views now have a different icon in the TreeView than local views.
• Extended properties of fields are now propagated to view fields when View Field Inheritance is turned on.
• The Database Explorer now handles the case where a view is removed from the DBC in Steve Sawyer's View Editor.

• Instead of hard-coded filenames in the current directory, the Documentation dialog now respects the setting of the Output to File textbox when you output to HTML. Also, all selected reports are sent to a single HTML file rather than separate files.
• TXT, not DOC, is used as the extension for text files. Also, you can now display the file after creation.
• You can now print fields in the Fields report in natural or alphabetical order.
• The Documentation dialog now respects the selection in the Database Explorer. If a table, view, or "Field Repository" is selected, it's the default for reports. If "Tables" is selected, the "Print All Tables" option is checked. If "Views" is selected, the "Print All Views" option is checked.
• Scripted HTML templates are now used for output. This is much easier to customize than the classes used in previous versions. The SDT Properties dialog allows you to specify which template to use for each report with Edit buttons to edit them and Revert buttons to restore the default templates.

• Views in all databases in the meta data are redefined when a table's structure is changed.
• Tables in all databases in the meta data are updated when a field in the Field Repository is changed.
• The current alias is automatically removed from any index expression. This prevents lots of problems in VFP (such as in the RI Builder) caused by opening the table with a different alias.
• The dialog asking you to confirm the deletion of a field now shows the field name.
• If a field or index was selected in the Database Explorer when the table is modified, that field or index is automatically selected in the Extended Table Designer.
• The window position is now persisted.
• When a field is copied, SDT creates a sequentially-numbered field name; for example, copying TITLE gives TITLE1, then TITLE2, etc. However, in previous versions, it didn't take into account a name that already ended with digits, so copying OPTION1 gives OPTIONS11, then OPTIONS12, etc. In SDT 6.0, it now takes existing digits into account.

• Better performance by using the native "FoxTools" functions (such as ADDBS(), FORCEEXT(), JUSTPATH(), etc.) instead of DBCXMgr or SDTUtility methods.
• Modernized user interface: SDT dialogs use hot tracking in VFP 7 and allow you to select the font for dialogs (the default is now Tahoma 9 point).
• CCONTROL.VCX was renamed to SDTCONTROL.VCX, CONTROLS.VCX was renamed to SDTCONTROLS.VCX, and MANAGERS.VCX was renamed to SDTMANAGERS.VCX to avoid conflict with frameworks (such as CodeMine) that may use these class names.
• The SDT item in the Tools menu now call the appropriate functions in the application they were installed from (no longer hard-coded as SDT.APP). This allows you to have different compiled versions for VFP 6 and 7, for example, named something like SDT6.APP and SDT7.APP, without interfering with each other.
• Documentation is now online (a CHM file) and Help buttons are available in most dialogs.

• The Update and Repair methods now accept lPack and lUseMetaData parameters which they pass to Reindex.
• The functionality of the Visual FoxExpress-specific version of SDTMgr (SDTVFEMgr) was implemented in BaseMgr and SDTMgr so SDTVFEMgr is a much simpler subclass of SDTMgr.
• The name and library of the class SDTMgr instantiates for the progress form are now stored in properties instead of hard-coded, allowing you to specify a different class if you wish.
• PhDBase indexes are now validated properly rather than you having to manually enter the index expression in CoreMeta.mTagExpr.
• UDFs called from view index expressions are now supported.

• SDT supports the new Database Events feature of VFP 7. A button in the Properties page for a database adds database event code from a template (which you can specify) to the database and turns on events. This code provides the same features SDT provides when table structure changes are made inside the Database Explorer to changes you make from anywhere (the VFP Table Designer, ALTER TABLE, etc.). This includes auto-validating the meta data, auto-redefining views, and handling view field property inheritance.

• When the Field Repository node was selected in the Database Explorer, the Properties and Extended Properties pages didn't display the correct information.
• If you closed SDT's tables from the DataSession window, you had to end-task VFP because the Database Explorer couldn't be closed.
• The setting of NOTIFY is now restored when the Database Explorer is closed.
• If the fields list in the Summary report is more than one page, group headings weren't reprinted.
• Printing a report to a text file a second time appended the information into the file rather than overwriting it.
• If the same table was opened in a second instance of the Extended Table Designer, it was closed in the first instance, so that instance failed when changes were saved.
• If a table had no indexes, the controls in the Index page were disabled until you added an index, unlike the fields page which had enabled controls even when there were no fields.
• If a table had no indexes, the controls in the Index page were disabled until you added an index, unlike the fields page which had enabled controls even when there were no fields.
• Extended property values weren't properly displayed or saved for calculated fields. Also, you couldn't drag and drop calculated fields to a table.
• If two databases with the same name are open and DBCXMgr.SetDatabase is called with the current one, when SDTMgr.OpenAllTables is called, it opens the tables in the other one.
• SDTMgr.OpenData gets confused if a database with the same name (but different directory) as the current one is specified because DBUSED() is applied to lcDatabase, not lcDBC. Also, it should close the database first to ensure the correct one is opened. One problem: if tcDBC doesn't contain a complete path, DBUSED() returns .F. even if the database is open but it isn't in the current directory. So this has to be handled.

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