FM 8 and menu control

[onefish]

I'm feeling a bit sick to my stomach this morning. Two days ago I purchased a developer license for Secure FM to enable me to finish off a solution I've been working on for some time. I have not been keeping up with the forum or anything else for the last two weeks as I have been working 16hrs a day to finish this project. I got it all done yesterday and this morning I learned that FM8 has been released and now has native menu control features and PDF and excel spreadsheet creation. I have found solutions with PDFCreator and AutoIT scripts to print to PDF and used DDE to update a spreadsheet, all free (many hours mucking about to get it to work properly though). The menu control cost me $150au more than an upgrade to FM8. Can someone please tell me that FM8's menu control features are not as comprehensive as the plugin so I don't drown in sorrow and pitty?

[SteveB]

They just started to ship FM 8 Advanced (was called Developer), which is where the Menu Maker is located. I've tried printing to PDF, which is very easy to do, but it lacks any ability to create a PDF from multiple layouts, so that's still an issue that I have. I use Dacons Menu Control, which I never upgraded beyond a version that worked in FM 6. It caused FM 8 to die back to the desktop until I removed the plugin from the Extensions folder and disabled the scrpts that used it. I think you'll have to wait until someone tries it, or the guys that went to Devcon post back to the Forums.

Steve

[onefish]

Thanks Steve,

One feature in SecureFM that is extremely handy is the ability to disable or script the file and application window close box and context menus (accessed from the icons in the title bars). This allows for advanced error checking on close. This is the main reason I bought SecureFM instead of Menu Control 2. If FM now has that capacity I will certainly feel like I have waisted my money.

Printing to PDF is the way to go for applications that will be distributed by mail or internet as the developer can be certain that the print layouts (even multiple page layouts) will print correctly on all machines.

[SteveB]

I accomplished stopping users from closing windows in a runtime by using WinBatch. I'd give you odds that FM won't give us any way to do that. My bet is that your purchase is safe.

Steve