Vista and Clarion 6
If you are using Clarion 6 with Vista, or plan to, there are only two issues that will annoy you, and both are easily resolved.
The issues are:
1. Text or Buttons on some IDE windows are clipped if you are using the Vista Aero style.
2. The Windows Help (WinHlp32.exe) program is no longer included with Windows operating systems starting with Windows Vista
The first issue is very easy to handle. The issue of clipped text is a direct effect of the default border padding used with the Aero style.
Here is what you need to do:
1. Open the Control Panel
2. Open the Appearance and Personalization section.
3. Click on the Personalization section.
4. In Personalization, select Window Color and Appearance
5. Towards the bottom of the screen text, click on the Open classic appearance properties for more color options option.
6. With Windows Aero scheme selected, click Advanced
7. In the Item dropdown list , select Border Padding. This will be set to 4 by default. Set it to either 0 or 1, and save your changes.
When you next start Clarion, things should look a lot better. For example:
Now let’s tackle the second issue; getting Help accessible from within the IDE. Microsoft has recently released an update to their WinHLP32.EXE program; you can download the install from this link:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=82148
After you download and run the install you'll be able to access help from with the IDE, but you'll find you get this error popping up every time you press F1:
"There was a problem running the macro (1037)"
And you’ll have to press the OK button to continue. Also when the Help file does open you'll find the Help Topics button is non-functional. This is all expected behavior as you'll find described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607
The same page describes some Registry edits you can do to make Help fully functional, but with some searching on the MS newsgroups and forums; we found there is another workaround to the problem. You can use the Windows XP version of WinHLP32.EXE to take full advantage of the Clarion 6 Help in Vista. The steps to implement this are fairly simple:
You will need to temporarily turn off UAC and be logged in on an Administrator account to do this. The UAC option is found in the User Accounts section of the Control Panel.
1. Get a copy of the winhlp32.exe from XP. Be sure you get the file from the C:\Windows root directory, not the one in C:\Windows\System32, and copy it on to a thumb drive or network share.
2. On your Vista machine open the C:\Windows directory and locate winhlp32.exe.
3. Right click on winhlp32.exe and select Properties.
4. Select the Security tab.
5. Click on the Advanced button.
6. Select the Owner tab and then click the Edit button. Choose a user from the list to take over ownership of the file (you can't edit the permissions until you have ownership).
7. Once you take ownership, you will have to apply and accept the changes, Vista will warn you that you’re changing a system file, click OK, and then close the Properties dialog.
8. Re-open the Properties dialog, navigate back to the Security tab then click on the Advanced button.
8. Select the 'user' who now owns the winhlp32.exe file, and then click the Edit button, and check the Full Control checkbox to grant full control permissions.
9. Apply your changes.
10. Rename the Vista version of the winhlp32.exe file to something like winhlp32Vista.exe
11. Copy the XP version of the winhlp32.exe file into the Vista Windows directory
12. You can now turn UAC back on (as desired)
(Originally posted by Larry Kuderick in the microsoft.public.windows.vista.general forum)
After performing the steps above, here is a screen shot of my help file in Vista:
In addition to the above tweaks, you will soon see in Clarion 6.3 9056 built-in support for Vista manifest options. This includes control for Vista execution levels and setting requirements for UI Access.