Foundation 6

History and acknowledgements

Foundation 6 carries forward the work of Dave Batton, Walt Nelson, Wayne Stewart and a community of 4D developers. Its history includes original design, sustained maintenance, major platform conversions, and the many fixes, ideas and testing contributions that made it useful in real applications.

Milestones

Dave Batton — creator and original author

The original Foundation

Dave Batton created Foundation as a reusable shell for 4D applications. Its generic methods and forms gave developers a starting point for their own databases, with common application behavior already provided. His design and implementation established the project that subsequent stewards and contributors continued to develop.

Walt Nelson — stewardship and the v11 upgrade

October 2008 onward

Walt Nelson acquired Foundation from Dave Batton in October 2008 and announced the purchase to the Foundation developer community on 21 February 2009. When 4D completely revamped its component architecture, Foundation required a substantial upgrade for v11. Walt assembled a team to facilitate that conversion and guided Foundation through the transition. Foundation 5 emerged as a single component that could be installed into an existing 4D database. Walt's ongoing stewardship, coordination and support sustained the project through the years that followed.

Wayne Stewart — continuing maintenance and modernization

From 4D v16 and the 64-bit conversion

Wayne Stewart has maintained Foundation since the v16 era and the 64-bit conversion. That maintenance preceded the later transfer of the project: it was an ongoing contribution to keeping Foundation working as 4D evolved, and continues in the modernization of Foundation 6.

Transfer for conversion to open source

11 September 2026

Foundation was transferred from Walt Nelson to Wayne Stewart on 11 September 2026 for conversion to open source. This marks a new stage in the project's stewardship, building on Dave's original work, Walt's long commitment, Wayne's existing maintenance and the contributions of the wider community.

The Foundation 5 upgrade

In the original manual, Walt specifically thanked Guy Algot, Gary Boudreaux, Mike Erickson, Graham Langley, Justin Leavens, Mark Schaake, Wayne Stewart and the members of the Seattle 4D SIG for their help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market. He also thanked the beta testers and customers whose testing and ongoing support made the product possible. These are the manual's acknowledgements; they should not be read as a complete roster of the team Walt assembled for the v11 upgrade.

Contributors

The files listed under each name are examples of the evidence in the Foundation source, not a complete record.

Arnaud (surname not recorded)
Credited for the ORDA related-field helper; also recorded as ARN in the developer key. The surviving attribution does not establish whether this is Arnaud de Montard.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Out_ORDARelatedField.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Arnaud de Montard
Shared the local timestamp code on which Foundation's timestamp helper is based.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Date_LocalTimestamp.4dm
Barclay Barry
Registration-dialog fixes and a correction to placement of the Quit menu command.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Reg_DemoDialog.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Menu_BuildMenuBar.4dm
Cannon Smith
Author of the Constants module (Synergy Farm Solutions), which writes Foundation's user constants file and ships inside the component, and of the Object module on which Fnd_Obj_SaveToFile is based; also the author of DevSync and DevQuickOpen, the MIT-licensed developer tools Foundation 6 was developed with. DevSync keeps the Fnd_FCS folder in step across projects and is why that folder is organised as it is.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Constants__Readme.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_FCS_Manifest.4dm
  • Guide/11-Developer-Tooling.md
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
  • https://github.com/cannonsmith/DevSync
  • https://github.com/cannonsmith/DevQuickOpen
Dave Batton
Creator and original author of Foundation; original design and implementation across its methods and forms.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-13
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Dave Nasralla
Fixes and technical input for toolbar behavior, menus, record display and sorting, preserved in the method histories.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_OnShortcut.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
David Robbins
Original Find routines, acknowledged in the Find method headers.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Display.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Now.4dm
Diego (surname not recorded)
A localization test report concerning deleted tables is acknowledged in the virtual-structure code.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_VS_SetFieldTitles.4dm
Doug Hall
Table and related-record functionality, and later improvements to finding and displaying records.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_TableOf.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_DisplayTable2.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_AddField.4dm
Ed Fraser
Changes to BLOB-to-picture handling, preserved in the message module's history.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Msg_BlobToPicture.4dm
Ed Heckman
Maintenance and form changes recorded across the source, including dialog and list-editor forms.
  • Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Dlg_MessageDialog/method.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_List_Editor/method.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Gary Boudreaux
Method corrections and documentation improvements; also acknowledged by Walt for support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Data_EmailAddressError.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Gerald Balzer
Localization fallback behavior when localized strings have not been supplied.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_SetLocalizationStrings.4dm
Graham Langley
Acknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Guy Algot
Toolbar shortcut repairs and other development contributions; also acknowledged for help and support with Foundation 5.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_OnShortcut.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Jack Delay
Multi-screen Mac window handling and related window-positioning fixes.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Wnd_Init.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Wnd_MoveOnScreen.4dm
Jean Pierre Ribreau
Text-to-picture and BLOB-to-picture routines; recorded as JPR in the developer key.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_TextToPict.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Msg_BlobToPicture.4dm
Jérôme Pupier
Donated the WasSubtable method on which the virtual-structure subtable test is based.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_VS_WasSubtable.4dm
John Craig
Button and picture-library work, user-interface refinements and output-form performance improvements.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_LibraryToResource.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_OutputFormMethod.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Justin Leavens
Acknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Ken Spence
Member of the group that formed in February 2009 to plan and coordinate the Foundation 5 upgrade for 4D v11, before the work moved to the public developer list.
  • Correspondence: Foundation 5 planning, February 2009 (Wayne Stewart's records)
Marco Bernasconi
The text-wrapping routine credited in Fnd_Text_Wrap.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Text_Wrap.4dm
Mark Mitchenall
Original toolbar and rollover/button component code incorporated into Foundation (Toolbar Component, © 2001–2002 mitchenall.com, used with permission); Fnd_Tlbr and Fnd_Bttn are built on it.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_SetVariables.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_Add.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Mark Schaake
Acknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Mike Erickson
Find, selection, sorting and table-display improvements; also acknowledged for help and support with Foundation 5.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Display.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_SelectionChanged.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_DisplayTable2.4dm
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
Owen Watson
Email-address validation code shared with the 4D community and adapted into Foundation.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Data_EmailAddressError.4dm
Peter Bozek
Base64 code shared through 4DToday.com and acknowledged in Foundation's source history.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Text_DecodeBase64Blob.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Rob Laveaux
Author of the dictionary module incorporated as Fnd_Dict; 39 of its 41 methods carry his name.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Dict_GetText.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Compiler_Fnd_Dict.4dm
Tom Dillon
Author of the Date Entry component, incorporated as Fnd_Date_Calendar and the Fnd_Date_CalendarPopup form.
  • Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Date_CalendarPopup/method.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Date_CalendarPopup/ObjectMethods/Fnd_Date_CalendarDayCell.4dm
Vincent Tournier
Localization, virtual-structure and related compiler-declaration improvements.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Compiler_Fnd_Loc.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_VS_SetFieldTitles.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Vincent de Lachaux
SVG string-measurement routines.
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_SVG_GetStringHeight.4dm
  • Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_SVG_GetStringWidth.4dm
Walt Nelson
Long-term stewardship from October 2008, organization of the v11 upgrade team, continued development, documentation and support.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-13
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm
Wayne Stewart
Foundation 5 support, maintenance from v16 and the 64-bit conversion, continuing modernization, and stewardship following the 11 September 2026 transfer for conversion to open source.
  • Resources/Fnd_Shell_Documentation/manual.html#page-14
  • Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dm

Community

Foundation also owes thanks to the Seattle 4D SIG, the beta testers, customers and developers whose reports, suggestions and testing helped the project over the years. Its source records contributions shared through the 4D community and 4DToday.com, the Constants module from Cannon Smith / Synergy Farm Solutions (whose DevSync and DevQuickOpen tools also served Foundation 6's development), and historical integration with Automated Solutions Group's components. These acknowledgements preserve the distinction between contributions to Foundation and the third-party tools with which it worked.

About this record

This page brings together the original manual, the developer key and accumulated history in aaaMods, method and form headers, and Wayne Stewart's account of the stewardship milestones supplied on 12 September 2026, and his correspondence from the Foundation 5 period (2004–2019), reviewed on 14 September 2026. The examples beside each contributor are evidence of their work, not a complete measure of it. Early history predates the current Git repository, so commit counts would not fairly represent these contributions. Where a surname is absent, the recorded name is retained rather than guessed. Additional names and corrections should be incorporated as earlier records are recovered.

The Foundation 5.4 manual (PDF) is kept as the historical reference.