One of the fantastic new features of the Clarion 7 IDE is its ability to manage multiple applications in a single solution. I mentioned this in my very first blog in this series. (See Part One in this series if you haven’t already done so). 

Every development project is contained within a solution. Of course, you can have a single project associated with a single solution, and for most of the time, this will be the case.

However, a solution can also contain multiple projects. As always in Clarion, projects can be hand coded (source only) or, they can be associated with an application file, where templates and embeds are responsible for generating the project source.

Since multiple projects can be contained in a single solution, it is also true that multiple applications can also be contained in a single solution.

And yes, for your projects where multiple applications were needed (some produced DLLs and one produced the executable), they can now be managed and maintained in a single solution, and you may edit them all at the same time!

For example:

How cool is that?

And this brings me to the main point of this particular blog. An application is always a part of a solution, but since solutions can contain multiple applications, you must be aware that closing an application does not automatically close a solution.

So, the Save and Close button shown here:

…will only close the active application (e.g., “Allfiles.APP”)

To close an entire solution, first close each application opened for editing, and then use the Close Solution button in the main IDE toolbar (shown here).

As shown above, you can also use the CTRL + SHIFT + F4 hot key combination (or use the File > Close > Solution IDE Menu item).

And rest easy fellow developer, you can only have one solution active at any time in the IDE, but with the ability to launch multiple sessions of the C7 IDE, well, that’s a topic for another time! <g>