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.
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 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 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.
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.
Foundation was assigned to Wayne Stewart by deed on 11 September 2026 and is released under the MIT Licence; see PROVENANCE for the chain of title.
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.
With thanks to everyone named below, listed alphabetically by their recorded name. Expand a source record to see where the contribution is acknowledged in the project.
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.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmShared the local timestamp code on which Foundation's timestamp helper is based.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Date_LocalTimestamp.4dmRegistration-dialog fixes and a correction to placement of the Quit menu command.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Reg_DemoDialog.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Menu_BuildMenuBar.4dmAuthor of the Constants module, credited with Synergy Farm Solutions.
Project/Sources/Methods/Constants__Readme.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmCreator and original author of Foundation; original design and implementation across its methods and forms.
Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmFixes and technical input for toolbar behavior, menus, record display and sorting, preserved in the method histories.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_OnShortcut.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmOriginal Find routines, acknowledged in the Find method headers.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Display.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Now.4dmA localization test report concerning deleted tables is acknowledged in the virtual-structure code.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_VS_SetFieldTitles.4dmTable and related-record functionality, and later improvements to finding and displaying records.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_TableOf.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_DisplayTable2.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_AddField.4dmChanges to BLOB-to-picture handling, preserved in the message module's history.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Msg_BlobToPicture.4dmMaintenance and form changes recorded across the source, including dialog and list-editor forms.
Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Dlg_MessageDialog/method.4dmProject/Sources/Forms/Fnd_List_Editor/method.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmMethod corrections and documentation improvements; also acknowledged by Walt for support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Data_EmailAddressError.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmLocalization fallback behavior when localized strings have not been supplied.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_SetLocalizationStrings.4dmAcknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
Toolbar shortcut repairs and other development contributions; also acknowledged for help and support with Foundation 5.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_OnShortcut.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmMulti-screen Mac window handling and related window-positioning fixes.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Wnd_Init.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Wnd_MoveOnScreen.4dmText-to-picture and BLOB-to-picture routines; recorded as JPR in the developer key.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_TextToPict.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Msg_BlobToPicture.4dmButton and picture-library work, user-interface refinements and output-form performance improvements.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_LibraryToResource.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_OutputFormMethod.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmAcknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
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.
The text-wrapping routine credited in Fnd_Text_Wrap.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Text_Wrap.4dmOriginal toolbar and rollover/button component code incorporated into Foundation.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Bttn_SetVariables.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Tlbr_Button_Add.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmAcknowledged by Walt for help and support in bringing Foundation 5 to market.
Find, selection, sorting and table-display improvements; also acknowledged for help and support with Foundation 5.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Find_Display.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Gen_SelectionChanged.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_IO_DisplayTable2.4dmEmail-address validation code shared with the 4D community and adapted into Foundation.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Data_EmailAddressError.4dmBase64 code shared through 4DToday.com and acknowledged in Foundation's source history.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Text_DecodeBase64Blob.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmOriginal dictionary module methods.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_Dict_GetText.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Compiler_Fnd_Dict.4dmDate Entry component and calendar code incorporated into Foundation.
Project/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Date_CalendarPopup/method.4dmProject/Sources/Forms/Fnd_Date_CalendarPopup/ObjectMethods/Fnd_Date_CalendarDayCell.4dmLocalization, virtual-structure and related compiler-declaration improvements.
Project/Sources/Methods/Compiler_Fnd_Loc.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_VS_SetFieldTitles.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmSVG string-measurement routines.
Project/Sources/Methods/Fnd_SVG_GetStringHeight.4dmProject/Sources/Methods/Fnd_SVG_GetStringWidth.4dmLong-term stewardship from October 2008, organization of the v11 upgrade team, continued development, documentation and support.
Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmFoundation 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.
Project/Sources/Methods/aaaMods.4dmFoundation 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, 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.
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.